EUOBSERVER / CLIMATE TECHNOLOGY - While new measures and commitments on fighting global warming are taken at the political level and while scientists and innovators are researching new technology to lower greenhouse gas emissions, Europeans as individuals also have an important role to play.

By changing our habits a little and becoming more conscious of how much energy we use, each and every individual can successfully limit their own carbon footprint and - as an extra bonus - save a little money on energy bills.

"It does not have to be a life altering change," says Karim Harris from Climate Action Network (CAN) Europe - a group that works to prevent climate change and promote sustainable energy and environment policy in Europe - "it's just a question of changing bad habits."

She added that it is clear that individuals also have a role to play, particularly in Europe where people have for decades been living well while emitting carbon dioxide without a thought.

The ambition of Manuel Santos Uribelarrea is written in big black letters on the side of machines reaping the plains of South America: MSU. It is harvest time and the state-of-the-art behemoths bearing his initials have a mission to revolutionise agriculture, change the world's eating habits and make their owner very, very wealthy.

At 28, Santos is on his way to achieving those goals, making him a lord of the pampas, master of all he surveys, and one of Argentina's most eligible bachelors. His company owns more than 100,000 hectares (247,000 acres) of farmland in Argentina and Uruguay, is expanding into Brazil and has plans for Ukraine.

Article continues The empire, however, is controversial - it is built on soya. Fast-expanding soya plantations are blamed for the destruction of forests across South America, posing an even graver threat than logging. The outcry has led to the tabling of a 'forestry emergency' bill in Argentina's lower house of congress. It would usher in a one-year moratorium on deforestation and oblige all 23 provinces to control and protect the region's biggest and most diverse eco-system outside Brazil.

One of the world's greatest wildlife spectacles is under threat because environmental projects to protect the monarch butterfly are failing, a leading expert has warned.

The flight of clouds consisting of millions of the orange and black butterflies migrating thousands of miles across North America to the mountains of Mexico is considered one of the great natural wonders of the world.

Scientists have warned for years that the butterflies are under threat because genetically modified crops are destroying the weeds and flowers they feed on and lay eggs in, and illegal logging is decimating their winter habitat high in the Mexican mountains.

Article continues Professor Lincoln Brower, who has been studying the species for more than half a century, claims a Mexican government scheme to protect the forests where the butterflies spend the winter is failing. He will visit Britain later this month to draw attention to the problems he has observed. 'The illegal logging has not only accelerated; it has become a lot more intense, with dozens, up to hundreds, of people involved in big logging operations,' he told The Observer.

Greece is mounting a nationwide effort to remove "eye candy" billboards from roadsides, amid growing evidence that images of women wearing not very much contribute to Europe's worst road accident figures.

With 15,000 hoardings in the capital alone, drivers are distracted by "unacceptable levels of eye candy", say campaigners who have convinced the courts to rule that all roadside adverts be dismantled.

Billboards invariably depict svelte females in outre poses. "Many of them not only hide traffic lights and road signs, they are put up illegally," said an Athens traffic police official.
"We believe they are the cause of 10% of all accidents in the city."

Driving in Greece is not for the faint-hearted. More than 2,000 people die on the roads annually; another 4,000 are seriously injured in 22,000 car accidents a year - one every 24 minutes.

They gave us the word "person" and invented a symbol of iron rule later adopted by the fascists. Some even argue it was they who really moulded Roman civilisation.

Yet the Etruscans, whose descendants today live in central Italy, have long been among the great enigmas of antiquity. Their language, which has never properly been deciphered, was unlike any other in classical Italy. Their origins have been hotly debated by scholars for centuries.

Article continues Genetic research made public at the weekend appears to put the matter beyond doubt, however. It shows the Etruscans came from the area which is now Turkey - and that the nearest genetic relatives of many of today's Tuscans and Umbrians are to be found, not in Italy, but around Izmir.

The European Human Genetic Conference in Nice was told on Saturday the results of a study carried out in three parts of Tuscany: the Casentino valley, and two towns, Volterra and Murlo, where important finds have been made of Etruscan remains. In each area, researchers took DNA samples from men with surnames unique to the district and whose families had lived there for at least three generations.

Airline pilots have challenged the "myth" that air transport is the major cause of carbon dioxide emissions.

Research published by the British Airline Pilots' Association (Balpa) said people who attacked air travel used "half truths and untruths" and made passengers feel guilty about taking a flight. But Balpa claim that the aviation industry has done more than any other transport group to cut CO2.

Their research has found that emissions of carbon dioxide and nitrous oxides from planes have already been cut by 50% over the last 15 years. Road transport's CO2 emissions in the UK, however, have increased by 11 million tonnes. It also highlights that world air travel accounts for only 2% to 3% of global carbon dioxide emissions according to the International Panel on Climate Change.

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It said: "While it is true that trains are less polluting than aircraft per passenger per kilometre, that is not true of long journeys over 800 kilometres and it is not true of the new generation of high speed trains in use on mainland Europe and soon to come to Britain."