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The Rich World's Policy on Greenhouse Gas Now Seems Clear: Millions Will Die
Rich nations seeking to cut climate change have this in common: they lie. You won't find this statement in the draft of the new report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which was leaked to the Guardian last week. But as soon as you understand the numbers, the words form before your eyes. The governments making genuine efforts to tackle global warming are using figures they know to be false.
The British government, the European Union and the United Nations all claim to be trying to prevent "dangerous" climate change. Any level of climate change is dangerous for someone, but there is a broad consensus about what this word means: two degrees of warming above pre-industrial levels. It is dangerous because of its direct impacts on people and places (it could, for example, trigger the irreversible melting of the Greenland ice sheet and the collapse of the Amazon rainforest) and because it is likely to stimulate further warming, as it encourages the world's natural systems to start releasing greenhouse gases.
The aim of preventing more than 2C of warming has been adopted overtly by the UN and the European Union, and implicitly by the British, German and Swedish governments. All of them say they are hoping to confine the concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere to a level that would prevent such a rise. And all of them know that they have set the wrong targets, based on outdated science. Fearful of the political implications, they have failed to adjust to the levels the new research demands.
This isn't easy to follow, but please bear with me, as you cannot understand the world's most important issue without grappling with some numbers. The average global temperature is affected by the concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. This concentration is usually expressed as "carbon dioxide equivalent". It is not an exact science - you cannot say that a certain concentration of gases will lead to a precise increase in temperature - but scientists discuss the relationship in terms of probability. A paper published last year by the climatologist Malte Meinshausen suggests that if greenhouse gases reach a concentration of 550 parts per million, carbon dioxide equivalent, there is a 63-99% chance (with an average value of 82%) that global warming will exceed two degrees. At 475 parts per million (ppm) the average likelihood is 64%. Only if concentrations are stabilised at 400 parts or below is there a low chance (an average of 28%) that temperatures will rise by more than two degrees.
The IPCC's draft report contains similar figures. A concentration of 510ppm gives us a 33% chance of preventing more than two degrees of warming. A concentration of 590ppm gives us a 10% chance. You begin to understand the scale of the challenge when you discover that the current level of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere (using the IPCC's formula) is 459ppm. We have already exceeded the safe level. To give ourselves a high chance of preventing dangerous climate change, we will need a programme so drastic that greenhouse gases in the atmosphere end up below the current concentrations. The sooner this happens, the greater the chance of preventing two degrees of warming.
But no government has set itself this task. The European Union and the Swedish government have established the world's most stringent target. It is 550ppm, which gives us a near certainty of an extra 2C. The British government makes use of a clever conjuring trick. Its target is also "550 parts per million", but 550 parts of carbon dioxide alone. When you include the other greenhouse gases, this translates into 666ppm, carbon dioxide equivalent (a fitting figure). According to last autumn's Stern report on the economics of climate change, at 650ppm there is a 60-95% chance of 3C of warming. The government's target, in other words, commits us to a very dangerous level of climate change.
The British government has been aware that it has set the wrong target for at least four years. In 2003 the environment department found that "with an atmospheric CO2 stabilisation concentration of 550ppm, temperatures are expected to rise by between 2C and 5C". In March last year it admitted that "a limit closer to 450ppm or even lower, might be more appropriate to meet a 2C stabilisation limit". Yet the target has not changed. Last October I challenged the environment secretary, David Miliband, over this issue on Channel 4 News. He responded as if he had never come across it before.
The European Union is also aware that it is using the wrong figures. In 2005 it found that "to have a reasonable chance to limit global warming to no more than 2C, stabilisation of concentrations well below 550ppm CO2 equivalent may be needed". But its target hasn't changed either.
Embarrassingly for the government, and for leftwingers like me, the only large political entity that seems able to confront this is the British Conservative party. In a paper published a fortnight ago, it called for an atmospheric stabilisation target of 400-450ppm carbon dioxide equivalent. Will this become policy? Does Cameron have the guts to do what his advisers say he should?
In my book Heat, I estimate that to avoid two degrees of warming we require a global emissions cut of 60% per capita between now and 2030. This translates into an 87% cut in the United Kingdom. This is a much stiffer target than the British government's - which requires a 60% cut in the UK's emissions by 2050. But my figure now appears to have been an underestimate. A recent paper in the journal Climatic Change emphasises that the sensitivity of global temperatures to greenhouse gas concentrations remains uncertain. But if we use the average figure, to obtain a 50% chance of preventing more than 2C of warming requires a global cut of 80% by 2050.
This is a cut in total emissions, not in emissions per head. If the population were to rise from 6 billion to 9 billion between now and then, we would need an 87% cut in global emissions per person. If carbon emissions are to be distributed equally, the greater cut must be made by the biggest polluters: rich nations like us. The UK's emissions per capita would need to fall by 91%.
But our governments appear quietly to have abandoned their aim of preventing dangerous climate change. If so, they condemn millions to death. What the IPCC report shows is that we have to stop treating climate change as an urgent issue. We have to start treating it as an international emergency.
We must open immediate negotiations with China, which threatens to become the world's biggest emitter of greenhouse gases by next November, partly because it manufactures many of the products we use. We must work out how much it would cost to decarbonise its growing economy, and help to pay. We need a major diplomatic offensive - far more pressing than it has been so far - to persuade the United States to do what it did in 1941, and turn the economy around on a dime. But above all we need to show that we remain serious about fighting climate change, by setting the targets the science demands.
© 2007 The Guardian
62 Comments so far
Show AllLet's face it folks . . . The Human Race is a failed experiment . . . We are only a blip on the geological scale anyway. As George Carlin says, Earth made us to invent plastic and now that we have she is just getting rid of use. This "Disposable Society" has become disposable.
China has achieved a society in which each couple has one child. All that's necessary is the willingness to exist under an authoritarian government. In the U.S., we appear to have established that we are willing over the past six years.
D. Decker, there is an objective reality, contrary to the post-modernist fashion. Some people's opinions are based on reality and others' aren't. The important thing is to educate people (and be willing to be educated by others). The truth becomes clear if you take the time, but time is what we don't have in our ADD/ADHD 15 second sound-bite culture.
As Stephen Colbert observed, "Reality has a liberal bias".
Adel, WTF RU talking about? Google "solar dish" my ass! I tried and saw nothing like what you mentioned in the first several pages. Give us a URL, please.
I am amazed that there are so many progressives who hate the human race as much as most CEOs do. Maybe a lot of you guys are on the wrong side. The CEOs have it right, according to you. They hate most human beings, and many apparently hate the entire human race, and so they get much pleasure from making humans suffer and providing themselves with luxuries. Besides, they figure the human race is doomed anyway and they are making the most of it, and the faster that brings on Armageddon and human extinction, the better, for then all the bugs and other vermin and trees and weeds can celebrate and repair themselves and the earth, with its molten rock brain, can live in happiness and harmony again, at least until another asteroid comes and wipes out 90+ percent of the life on the surface.
The real problem is capitalism. It simply does not work without unlimited resources and huge waste production. Make no mistake, global warming is a direct result of global capitalism. It is time to come up with a new economic theory and policy.
To all:
To-day is the May Day, the International Day of the Working Men Solidarity.
Workers of the world, those who sell their skills and brains, unite!
So -- what DO we do?
Make laws to regulate greenhouse gasses? Would they be like the "laws" we make to regulate highway speeds? Who obeys them? Who would obey the Greenhouse Gas Laws? All laws made to encourage clever lawyers and citizens to look for loopholes that benefit themselves. And who could trust those Greenhouse Gas Police to not circumvent the laws when it benefitted themselves?
Stop having children? Maybe we should make more laws, like a law that says a family can only have one child. But how would we reconcile that with the right wing's fervent desire to totally eliminate abortion rights? Mandatory sterilization? Let's make a law!
Drink and spit on SUV's? Great idea! That'll show 'em!
Join the Green Party? I have. Now I can't vote in primaries here in my town, because I am not a Republican and I am not a Democrat, and because there's nary a Green running for anything. So, I have essentially been disenfranchised -- or at least semi-disenfranchised. I can still vote for Hillary (gag!) or Obama (barf!), or Guiliani (ugh!) or McCaine (ooohhhhh -- too awful to imagine!), or whoever else media eventually decides will be the candidates of the two (who are basically one and the same) reigning parties.
Face it, folks. We can pontificate. We can give our two cents' worth about what's wrong with the planet and what needs to be done to fix it. But in the end, no matter what happens, no matter who's in power, no matter what laws are made, broken, amended; each and every one of us is just one person with one point of view. And opinions are NOT truth, NOT fact. Opinions are . . . opinions. I see devastation in the warming of the Arctic; some real estate tycoons see the opening up of new lands and new opportunities. I see nuclear power as a Pandora's box that can only lead to our planet's eventual destruction. Others see it as a clean environmental alternative (just ask Thomas Friedman -- or is it Freidman?) to oil. I see utter, cringingly arrogant, blatantly moronic idiocy in the Bush administration's determination to continue the war in Iraq. Others see strength, leadership, and moral and religious right.
If I have learned one thing, I've learned that there are as many opinions on an issue as there are people. Some people still don't believe in global warming. Some people think Al Gore is an fanatic and an alarmist. Yes, I want to call them "fools," but this is what they believe, whether because they listen to Limbaugh, or because they can't see the lack of forest for the lack of trees (to paraphrase an old saying), or because they
sit glued to the mainstream media all day and get their "truths" from the likes of Paula Zahn and Wolf Blitzer (rather than Keith Olberman and John Stewart). But -- you know
what? -- one on one, most people are not what we so cavalierly label "the people," ie thoughtless, self-centered, SUV-driving, plastic-wasting morons. Most people are just trying to get along in this very confusing, sometimes frightening world in the best way they can. I often remember the first line of a song I learned many, many years ago: Let There Be Peace on Earth, and Let it Begin With Me."
If we'd all stop trying to be right, to judge, to criticize, to justify our own opinions; if we'd get off the cel phone and start looking at and listening to our fellow-beings, if we'd try to "walk a mile in our brother's shoes," and stop being so damn sure our way is the best way, mayer then there'd be some hope for this sad, sorry world.
May we all be happy. May we all be well. May we all be compassionate to ALL our fellow beings.
PDFee,
Broadcasting your ignorance doesn't help your argument, not even a little bit. Anyone who read my post could see I was not advocating anything like your rediculous exadurations; and you also insult the Amish, who certainly do not wear loin cloths, good Christians that they are. But you complain that nobody answered your questions, (even though they did) yet you have ignored my question as to how many people the Earth can support. Isn't it time you stopped your rhetorical games and got serious about human survival on this polluted planet?
Show me the money!
Show me that we have a real plan for providing ample mobile energy (gasoline, ethanol, etc.) to meet expectations in the future.
Show me that we have a plan for sustainable non-mobile energy to meet expectation in the future?
Show me that we have the ability to manage conflict over resources.
Show me that we have a way to even keep conflicts from expanding.
Show me that we have the ability to repair systems and civilizations that are damaged (Iraq, New Orleans ...)
Show me that we have a way to keep our civilizations and communities functioning (see the increasing violent crime rates in any post-industrial city).
In summary ... show me that there is some sense in the world that as competition for energy heats up ... including calories as energy ... that we can keep a lid on social chaos.
As I often say ... the race is not always to the swift of foot ... but that's the way to bet.
So ... I put my money on social collapse.
The unmentionable core of the diplomatic logjam at the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change
is how this century's very limited budget of Greenhouse Gas emissions
is going to be allocated between the nations.
The first requisite shift is to acknowledge that there won't be a lasting inequitable global agreement over GW:
the West is utterly dependent on developing countries' co-operation on this issue,
and co-operation cannot be commandeered.
The second is to acknowledge that for a treaty to be negotiable, national shares in the emissions budget must Converge from the current GDP-based fractions at the outset
to the equity of per capita parity over an agreed number of years.
The third is to acknowledge that the annual global emissions budget must Contract, starting at a rate advised by science as reliably avoiding more than 2.0 degrees C of Warming.
The fourth is to acknowledge that to maximize the economically endurable rate of change from global fossil fuel dependence,
a capped trade in emissions entitlements must be established between nations as a means to fund sustainable energy development in poor countries.
This global climate policy framework is known as Contraction & Convergence (C&C)
and has been widely endorsed since its launch at the UN in '92,
including by the Africa Group of Nations at the UNFCCC and by the democratic vote of the European Parliament.
Those who would like to help advance the day of its adoption and the negotiation of a "Treaty of the Atmospheric Commons"
can find more information at www.gci.org
In this context, George Monbiot's fine article details the extent to which the "Great Powers" are willing to play brinkmanship over this issue
at the predictable cost of many millions of lives.
Regards,
Billhook
Once we burn all the fossil fuels, the earth's climate will return to how it was before those fules were sequestered. Unfortunately, Homo Sapiens evolved after this point.
You think it's tough having to pay for water supplied by corporations? Wait until you have to pay for air that has been "scrubbed" of enough CO2 to make it beathable.
pjkobulnicky,
If you put your money on social collapse, ecocide comes with it, so you will be dollar rich in a lifeless wasteland.
and eventually became mammilian, and much smaller too considering the possibility that the earth's gravitation was less during the dinosaurs.
Unless the earth has either shrunk and become denser or put on weight, Earths gravity was the same back then as now. It did rotate faster, (in the Ordovician era, 500 my bp the day was only about 19 hours long), but the effect of this on gravity was miniscule.
Back to the topic, I don't think you refuted my points. The general body plan of terrestrial vertibrates (backbone, two eyes, four limbs is just the result of one of many forks in the road, that life took back in late paleozoic era. Yes, the initial path of evolution was toward greater behavioral complexity because of obvious survival advantage, but that trend pretty much ended with the development of placental mammals, and the thing called human "intelligence" which is largely a manifestation of the pretty much freakish adaptation called the language faculty - really the only thing that differentiates us from the chimps, orangutans and gorillas.
just do it - live as an example, take the bus and not your car or better still walk, stop buying commercial crap, don't get brainwashed by 'fashion' and 'updates', don't be greedy, eat less, reduce the amount of meat you eat, turn off lights you don't use, boycott companies that are the worst offenders, teach your kids, don't give up
The wealthy nations have been killing the poorer ones for over a century. Our wealth is based on their impoverishment and death. The results of our industrialization only up the ante of a continuing pattern. What is different is that the corporations are now multi-national powers. What is required are enforced global laws to regulate corprate activity and limit greenhouse emmissions. That will only happen when the multi-national corporations are not running our government.
Wealthy nations have been killing poor ones for all of human history. The only difference now, by which i mean post 17th century, is the rich nations don't get invaded and killed by poor nations. Modern governmental debates aren't about poverty relief and preventing climate change, You can have one or the other relatively easily but you cannot have both at the same time. Current actual treaties are all about hamstringing the US alot Europe a little and Asia none. Real treaties on the global enviroment require sacrifce by all countries including extremely poor ones. Until all Super,Great, and middle economic and military powers are on board nothing can be done about climate change or the enviroment.
The Earth is approaching a threshold beyond which no change in human behavior can prevent environmental catastrophe and the death of billions of people and other creatures. It may already be too late because our population growth, industrial expansion and spreading pollution go on relentlessly no matter what scientific warnings are given. Our addiction to money and power and our habitual, optimistic denial of reality keep us in a hypnotic state of wait-and-see. Do some corporate executives believe they will survive it all? They won't, because a collapsed ecology cannot grow food.
As long as the fools think they can compromise with the processes of nature, most life on earth will die.
We're already dead. We just don't know it yet.
The Goden rule-- "Who's got the gold makes the rules" applies to the grassroots too. Have you joined the grassroots Green Party yet?
Realists know this.
We are running out of natural resources at the same time we are suffering from population explosion and dramatic loss in habitation.
There were two ways to work with this inevitability.
1) The world in a spirit of sharing to avoid conflict would work out a plan to share diminished resources and at the same time find solutions to both controlling population and alternative sources of energy.
2) Or do what we've always done. Seek out what we needed and crush with the use of deceit and brutal force any and all that would get in our way not really caring that the consequences of our actions would seal the world to a horribly, miserable fate.
We picked #2 - again. I've never been a big fan of mankind.
So, we've blown it. We crawled out of the cave and never let go of the club and we wound up beating ourselves to death with it.
It's why I drink and spit on SUV's.
The essential problem is that we are brainwashed into believing that capitalism is the only workable economic system available (and that is not the same as democracy either). Who tells us this but those very same who profit from it. To keep the market going means creating more and more usless stuff and manufacturing its "need". Exploitation is a word easily a synonym for capitalism.
The other problem, inherent within us is hierarchy--a difficult thing to address but upon which capitalism feeds and which socialism tries to control.
He who has the gold, makes the rules and he who has the guns gets the gold. There's your human history lesson.
Do we have enough time? Barely, and getting more barely as time ticks away.
My only hope? That new planet that appears habitable may have an intelligent species on it better that the one that inhabits this world.
Global Warming has a 50 year delay --
In other words, what will happen in the immediate future has already been put in place by human activity and the recklessness of private ownership of our natural resources -- and the inhumane system of capitalism which judges "value" of nature and life based on the dollar bill.
Global Warming is also speeding up -- compounding and increasing in seriousness daily.
We have arrived at this sad point in the history of humankind because of private ownership, because of capitalism, because of organized patriarchal religions which are the support system for patriarchy.
Go see "Who Killed the Electric Car" -- and understand that we could have electric cars on our roads in two weeks.
If GM doesn't want to do it, our people's government can raise corporations to being the manufacture of electric cars. In five years, we could replace every gasoline-driven automobile on the roads.
Let's also stop throwing PLASTIC everywhere --
No plastic paper bags --
No plastic bumpers on our cars --
Let's stop dumping petroleum on our crops.
Stop the violence of animal-eating --
and you will help stop the pollution of our air, water, lakes, streams.
The First World has to reduce its standard of living considerably while the Third World standard of living must be raised. Population must be addressed and usually is once poverty is, but we also have to remember that a insatiable consummer is more polluting to the environment than an over-populated impoverished non-consummer.Interestingly, the elite are the worst offenders. They are also the offenders that put species such as leopards, tigers and turtles at risk for furs and fine foodstuffs.
We can all start by getting rid of dishwashers and electric can openers for example. But we also have to become active citiznry against corporate tyranny too.
Expect corporate money to fund more and more astroturf groups, promoting every cause under the sun, with the purpose to distract, confuse, and divide those who might become progressives unified in a struggle of international scope to retake control over the earth so that the economy and the governments serve the purposes of all of humankind.
If progressives cannot focus on developing a strategy to benefit human beings, all human beings, that confronts the profit-driven, amoral, corporate automata, and the elites which run them, that are coming to dominate the planet, then all will be lost.
As for the rest of the flora and fauna, some would do better and some would do worse without humans, but innumerable varieties of such will go on one way or another, on the surface of the land or below it or in the water, and for that reason concerns about such eventualities are seriously misplaced.
It's amazing to think that this world won't be livable in about 50 years. Millions will die, it's already starting. The wars in the Middle East and Africa for resources are just the prelude to global wars, maybe nuclear war. But most adults don't care because they're not going to be around anyway. I'm riding out the death of nature in Costa Rica, but even here the frogs, fish, turtles and monkeys are fast disappearing. The more fragile species, the canaries in the mine, will go first, quickly followed by humans. Some form of nature will survive, hopefully it'll take another 100,000 years before humans reappear and nature can recover a bit. Unless the earth gets hit by a meteor.
"hopefully it'll take another 100,000 years before humans reappear and nature can recover a bit."
Why would they "reappear". Extinction is forever.
And, there is a major misunderstanding that evolution is a "ladder" that leads to humans or human-like species. It does not. The human brain is just one of an infinite adaptive possibilities - not different than the sharp-eyes claws, and quick wits of a cat. If a supreme being repeatedly re-ran the clock of time from, say the K-T asteriod extinction event 65my years ago, there would arise a suite of entirely different species every time.
And presuming you mean humans being reduced to a few tribes in the arctic, then likewise, there is nothing fixed or ladder-like about the evolution of human societies. Repeatedly re-run the clock of history from the early stone-age retreat of the last glaciers 12,000 years ago, and you would likely get a totally different social orgainzation every time. A capitalist system dominated by light-complected subgroup of humans from northern termperate regions was just one of countless outcomes - which come to think of it, gives me some hope....
Actually the most damaging memeber of the world enviroment is the subsetince farmer. They are the ones massively burning whatever they can find to get one or two years of crop growth before it becomes desert. They are also contrary to popular belief the primary destroyer of jungles. Even the most doomsday global warming scenario won't kill ALL the humans. We're a tough and inventive bunch no matter how much we seem to fuck up on a day to day basis. I'm sure a couple thousand rich and intelligent people and their handsome mates could survive in artificial habitats even if all natural life was wiped out.
I agree that humans have blown it. But, to all of the posters who are you parents: YOU are the problem. Those of you who gave in to your primitive urge to reproduce in this post-agricultural age have doomed your children and all of the rest of us. Especially if you had babies in the U.S. Each of your children has the environmental impact of 40 or so children in the developing world. All of you who are parents of young children are the ruination of life on earth.
PJD--there are some who challenge the theory that there is an infinite number of possiblities for evolution; I am one of them. I think biology follows just about as many rules as physics or chemistry (and they actually intersect). There may have been different lines of evolution, but they would be more or less similar. No six-eyed mammals or insect-like intelligences like "Predator". DNA etc. probably follows similar roads on earth-like, carbon-based planets. Intelligence, like cat's claws and the eye probably evolved elsewhere too. Why does one have to presume that it is rare? Turn our clock back and perhaps the intelligence running the place would be saurian, that is because dinos were also evolving intelligence before they got snuffed--and it is possible they would have also evolved warm bloodedness (as they already had) and eventually became mammilian, and much smaller too considering the possibility that the earth's gravitation was less during the dinosaurs (30 tons would have a hard time now).Given that most human cultures historically and in the present have similar strategies and similar grammatical rules in their language, I am not given to think there would be a whole lot of differences but minor ones.
Human's have been in the bottleneck at least once--hence the lack of genetic variation you see in chimps--and other hominids died out. We should not think of ourselves as anymore special than any of the now extinct creatures, perhaps less so because we could have made a difference; we had choices. We can and we will die out--the question is not if but when.
blueorbz,
Why do you think people would care about life on earth if they do not care about family? It makes absolutely no sense. People develop the capacity to connect to humanity based on their development of family connections (humans evolved to develop emotional connections to those who take care of them). And then they may connect to other life, as it is necessary to and related to human life, including that of their family.
And note that before the advance of mathematics, science, and technology, the world could support fewer people. You are only here because of past technological developments, and you and your interests would not exist without them. There is no reason to believe the present generation cannot come up with new developments to allow a much higher sustainable population on earth, that is there is no reason except the corporate control of the economy. Maybe people should work together to defeat the corporate hegemony so that no one is doomed.
Or we can think like Stephen Hawking and try to make spaceships to find another planet to colonize and destroy.
Humans are doomed if they are expected to control themselves-especially their population. War, disease, famine probably have to do the work.
I was visited by the House of Saud, the ambassador to the US, and their conservative antagonists. "Most governments protect the individual from the corporation. The US government protects the corporation from the individual."
Despite warnings and threats to my family, I talked to the press about the economics of new solar technology. The US government sent a 25 man SWAT team with helicopters to our research site, fired tear gas grenades in our buildings, shot dogs, and terminated our press conference. The message rebuttal was clear, global warming rhetoric is a threat to big corporate interests in the US. Google - solar dish .
War causes global warming:
http://www.gravel2008.com/?q=node/271
"The Rich World's Policy on Greenhouse Gas Now Seems Clear: Millions Will Die
by George Monbiot"
Wow, when I read that I swore I was on a Fox News or CNN website....Talk about alarmists... But I guess scaring the shit out of progressives makes somebody money. It's all part of this amazing spin machine.
oluk: if only everyone had your sense personal responsibility and empowerment... Instead most blog on internet forums about how there's no hope and that George W and the multi-nationals have fucked up the planet.... shame.
I don't see the necessary link between environmental degradation and environmental collapse. I've witness entire villages in other countries covered in industrial waste. Homes, crops, even people literally covered in industrial waste. People eat the crops, life goes on. Isn't the more likely process one of continual environmental degradation, rather than collapse?
The things we need to do to prevent global warming are the things we need to do to prepare for climate change. The things we need to do to prepare for climate change are the things we need to do to prepare for peak oil. Let's face it business as usual has the potential to end all life on this planet as we know it.
When was the last time the U.S. government made decisions based on the wellbeing of its people or a multi-national corporation was concerned about the environment over profit. It is not up to our government officials and corporations to take steps in regulating carbon emissions. The evidence is out and is being freely distributed to all that want to stay informed. Global warming hit the mainstream with Al Gore's DVD presentation. The governments and corporations can not hide the truth any longer. The power to change is in the hands of the people.
- oluk May 1st, 2007 11:08 pm – is right "just do it".
In the eyes of corporations we are the means by which they make profit. If it is true that corporations control the government then stop contacting the government, cut out the middleman, send a letter to the automakers and demand multi-fuel electric hybrid vehicles. Do not buy a new car that gets less than 50 miles to the gallon. Don't spend time researching the next political candidate spend that time researching your corporations and vote with your hard earned cash by buying goods and services from corporations that are committed to fighting global warming.
If you want to slow down China's carbon emissions then don't by goods "made in China" or support American manufacturers that use Chinese suppliers.
Stop protesting in the streets and start congregating in the parks. Hold consumer rallies to help people make better choices and make them understand that they hold power to make a difference.
It is time for consumers to understand that our purchasing decisions are directly related to global warming. We are responsible for global warming and it is our responsibility to mandate change by divesting in harmful technology and industries and investing in corporations and businesses that cater to our interests.
I like the view of Oluk. There are a lot of people already decreasing their Co2 gasses. I, for one, have been working at it for the last ten years on a daily basis with a group of people that follow the philosophy of Voluntary Simplicity. Living mindfully concerning how you are impacting the environment and using the resources of the earth is a good way to live. The change to live simply by a lot of Americans incorporates many of the suggestions made by contributors to this conversation. www.simplelivingnetwork.org is a place one can learn more about what a lot of people are already doing about this problem. This is not something that can be solved by a few and it will not be done overnight. It is a life style change that takes a lot of mindfulness. It starts at the roots by knowing what you want out of life and doing it. That is easy and difficult at the same time. It does work!
PJD -
Human intelligence dates to Cro-Magnon and "his" ability for symbolic abstraction. I'm no expert, but as I recall Cro-Magnon was not a descendent but a parallel speciation from Neanderthal. But Cro-Magnon was altogether smarter and basically displayed all the bizarre behavior of modern Man. When a Neanderthal died, its tribe pushed it into a pit and shrugged. When a Cro-Magnon died, it was adorned and buried in a ritual. Human weirdness had arrived. What was the nature of the jump from Neanderthal to Cro-Magnon? Personally, I think there was a monolith in there somewhere.
I especially like the banner placement on this one...
"..MILLIONS WILL DIE"
"THE LIES GO ON"
So true. You all realize of course that there is NO direct science, verifiable using the scientific method, which links human activity and temperature fluctuations of our planet, right?
This political tar-baby called "Global Warming" that the left has created out of lies and fear has begun walking on it's own, much to the chagrin of anybody with any common sense!
You've taken a good and noble cause, the logical and reasonable protection of our planet, with it's requisite set of laws, directives and procedures to keep us safe and sane with regard to environmental policy so we don't pollute ourseves into extinction, and you've twisted and warped it to meet your own poltical agendas which include the transfer of wealth, the demonization of corporations, and somehow blaming America for all of it.
It's difficult to read all of the hand-wringing articles that spew forth in this atmosphere of fear that has been created, knowing that the so-called scientists that are writing them are salivating at the prospect of the funding spike that follows in it's wake. Funding does not happen without a crisis, and now there's a crisis to bring the dollars.
But, of course, the progressives know better, and they have a higher perspective brought about by their vast knowledge of all things.
Two Questions:
1. - If Man's activities are to blame, please explain why ALL the planets in our solar system are undergoing the same rate of change Earth is seeing?
Any one want to take up that question?
2. - Please explain why over the entire recorded history of Earth, as well as the "data" that is theorized looking back at such specious elements as the thickness of fossilized bean husks, that there has been NO time where the planetary temperature has been static. Why is there no "normal" temperature?
But suddenly, because it meets the progressive POLITICAL goals, why does "Global Warming" rear it's ugly head, demanding money be funnelled into progressive political causes?
Please answer those two questions, and maybe skeptics like me will consider becoming advocates for this concept.
Challenge:
If you're a global warming hardliner, review this information:
http://www.friendsofscience.org/index.php?ide=3
See if it confirms or questions your devotion to this concept.
Thanks for considering the options.
"If back in the mid-nineties, we knew what we know today about climate, Kyoto would not exist because we would have concluded it was not necessary" Dr. Tim Patterson - Professor of Geology, Dept. of Earth Sciences, Carleton University
"No matter if the science is all phony, there are collateral environmental benefits...climate change provides the greatest chance to bring about justice and equality in the world" Christine Stewart, former Canadian Environment Minister
"Unless we announce disasters, no one will listen" Sir John Houghton, first chairman of IPCC
Hey "real world":
According to those global warming alarmists at NASA, the warming on Mars is being caused by massive dust storms (see http://space.newscientist.com/article/dn11531-dust-blamed-for-warming-on-mars.html).
Also, if you actually took the time to read the scientific reports instead of regurgitating the misinformation propagated by conservative think tanks, you would understand that the planetary warming caused by human greenhouse gas emissions is much faster and potentially catastrophic than any of the historical climate fluctuations.
If you really want to educate yourself (and I'm not holding my breath on this one), you should read the report "Climate Change Science" by the U.S. National Academy of Sciences. The report's authors, a panel of America's leading climate scientists, conclude in no uncertain terms that:
"Greenhouse gases are accumulating in Earth's atmosphere as a result of human activities, causing surface air temperatures and subsurface ocean temperatures to rise."
You can download a free PDF of the report's executive summary at http://books.nap.edu/execsumm_pdf/10139.pdf.
expatincebu, Gail Woodbury, oluk -
There is a further alternative - to arrange our communities similar to the Amish of Pennsylvania. Those gentle people work hard to create a life in balance with the land and each other. They're not perfect, but they cause no harm to people or environment.
To translate this to a global scale here is what we humans might do:
Organize continental networks of eco-tech villages that surround themselves with miles of healthy wilderness. These villages are free to trade with each other, using whatever technology is helpful. Their women are free to decide if and when to birth how many or few children depending on the community's ability to support them. That way their population remains stable. As the elderly pass on, the youngsters grow to replace them and the community neither grows nor shrinks.
Obviously, such continental networks would have no need of corporate hierarchies or state or federal bureaucracies.
PDFee, real world,
How many people can this living biosphere support? 7 billion, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12 ? Our human population and our capitalist economy keep on growing relentlessly. So how many will this planet feed before it collapses under our escalating demand for more and more of everything? When, in your opinion, should we stop growing our population and stop expanding our economy?
Communitarian ~ I'll do you one better; let's all wear loincloths, live in mud huts and smoke ganja leaves all our days. We won't need cars, we won't need factories, we won't need consumer goods. No war, no hate, no racial or sexual-orientation strife. Why didn't I see it before? It all makes so much sense!
Oh, dang. I forgot. Society has actually evolved since the mud hut days. We've produced great edifices and cured many of the diseases that filled our short lives with misery, and gone out into the universe and explored space and expanded the ability to produce mass quantities of food.
However, you are free to live in whatever conditions you choose for yourself. Loincloth optional even, if you prefer. You are personally free to do whatever pleases you.
Just don't dictate it to the balance of the planet how they or we should live our lives please.
As I was thinking about global warming yesterday, I asked myself a question: Why is it that the phrase "global warming" evokes such a kneejerk denial reaction from so many people, whereas "weapons of mass destruction" or "mission accomplished" or "uranium from Niger" never seemed to evoke much skepticism among the American public? Given the generally abysmal level of scientific literacy in our country, you would think the average person might be willing to take the word of the vast majority of experts in the global warming matter.
My ever-wise husband cleared this up for me by pointing out that I was applying the wrong standard. I was asking people to think logically, examine evidence, and look for truth. He suggested that the real question for most people is "What do I want to hear?" Global warming, nope, that would require me to make a change in my lifestyle and consider others when I make decisions. "Weapons of mass destruction", yep, I feel great when my country can kick some a** somewhere else far from here.
I challenge everyone to consider this idea and tell me where it's off base.
ceecee_em, I think that's true. People want to be scared in theaters not in real life. So we stick our heads in the sand and ignore the crisis that's in front of us. And make no mistake, it is in front of us. Greenland is melting. Hurricanes are 50% more powerful. Lake Chad is almost gone.
If we could all tour the planet, we could touch the evidence. But we can't, so buy the DVD "An Inconvenient Truth" and see it with your own eyes. Use Google Earth and examine the satellite pictures for yourselves. Then buy compact fluorescent bulbs, drive a Toyota Prius, and recycle everything you can. Support the Kyoto Protocol. Vote for politicians who are committed to significantly reducing greenhouse gases, to implementing renewable energy, and to respecting verifiable science.
Our parents saw the planet complain; we're seeing the planet sicken; and, without immediate and significant action, our children will see the planet die.
It's said that conservatives are those who have the most to conserve. The richer they are, the more conservative they become and it seems, the more greedy and fearful of losing their hoard and power.
Their religious zeal helps conservatives lose the guilt for the depredations they cause. Superstition, homophobia, racism, sexism, punishment, fearmongering, warmongering, crime and other forms of authoritarian behaviour, they call "traditions", "patriotism" and "God fearing". With these handles they manipulate the poor, middle class and simply rich conservative believers of their propaganda, like lambs led to slaughter.
Nature controls the amount of resources any animal can hoard by limiting these to what the animal can personally defend, enabling diversity, competition and natural selection. Money enables the human animal to monopolize and hoard resources without limits, circumventing natural selection. That's why modern conservatives are sorry examples of human beings.
Republicans are uniformly conservative authoritarian beasts. The more beastly, the more they deny their bestial nature. We are not animals they say, because we are smarter, or have souls, or possess some other divine characteristics that separate us from beasts. But conservatives daily prove to be the followers of Mammon the proverbial biblical beast.
Republicans and Democrats are ruled by conservative's money. Yet conservatives have become freaks of nature who don't rule by strength, intelligence and information like their alpha male animal counterparts. They rule by self defeating, world destroying, unfettered greed enabled by unlimited hoarding of money-power. As opposed to their animal cousins, the dumbest and weakest rule for the most corrupt.
There is a way for the people to break free of the rule of Mammon. See: http://www.gravel2008.us/
Communitarian,PDFee, Ceecee-em,Oluk
You are trying to visulize an alternative from what you already know. You need to remember that we are a creative bunch and we want to find solutions to problems.Education of larger numbers is a start. We will survive, I do believe, and there will be a form of social organization with social conflicts always popping up.
I see basic Western thought in need of change to allow people to get out of their mental boxes. Recently more western religious thinkers are exploring a partnership with nature rather than conquoring nature. Living in parnership with nature and in a world that has developed advanced technologies can help people to create new life styles and alternatives to suburban sprawl.The population bomb is now showing its ugly head.
Change can take place and it only takes a few to start the gradual changes that can decrease the C02. Today with the use of media cultural changes and volantary life style changes can happen in less than the 5 years that was the rate in the 1960's. One has to be mindful and include the earth and other inhabitants in their decision making.Educating people to the reality of groups and how they function(Social Relations: Social Psychology,Social Anthropology and Sociology) have been downplayed in education since the 1960's, which has not taught a whole generation that they can work and live in groups.
Simple Living is a way to bring people together in groups and discuss ways of living lightly on the earth. These groups are popping up in many places. There are variations on this theme in many books, web sites and experiments to help extend education.
All are welcome! The point is that people include the environment in their thinking. I agree with CeeCee-em that "Global Warming Recognition" would take a change in my life style and consideration of other people and non people(environment) How far from your personal family relations you can venture may have something to do with your ability to incorporate "the other" into yourself and be compassionate.
This is nothing that can be forced on people,but if enough people in your community decide to live lightly on the Earth and make regulations to protect their community or reward people who make the effort to improve the environment in their community. Planting trees in a community is a simple thing that can help increase the plant cover and cool that community a couple of degrees. Riverside,Ca and other places now are givng away a tree to people on their electric bills. There are numerous things that can be done when people "just do it".It is a balance between what one thinks and what one does in response to the preceived threat. Early man had the ability to change in the face of a perceived threat. We are a living example!