Go Sweden, Go British Columbia

A heartening week for environmental news. Sweden vowing to be oil-free in 15 years has got to have major implications, no? You have to think of it as a tipping point, and nice to have it prior to that moment when we hit the acme of oil production and see that it's all downhill from there...especially given that it has taken us a 100 years to use up so much of the world's supply and will likely take a quarter of that time to deplete the rest.
From The Guardian:

Sweden is to take the biggest energy step of any advanced western economy by trying to wean itself off oil completely within 15 years - without building a new generation of nuclear power stations.
The attempt by the country of 9 million people to become the world's first practically oil-free economy is being planned by a committee of industrialists, academics, farmers, car makers, civil servants and others, who will report to parliament in several months.

Meanwhile the not-so-fabulous Premier of BC announced today that much of the coastal rainforest--from Alaska to Washington--will be protected. From the CBC:

Premier Gordon Campbell announced the new protected areas on the B.C. coast on Tuesday. They cover 1.2 million hectares, where habitat conservation, maintaining biodiversity, and the preservation of special landscape, recreation and cultural heritage features are a priority. That brings the total protected to 1.8 million hectares.

So you see, there is hope.