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A World Dying, but Can We Unite to Save It?
Pollution in the seas is now speeding global warming, says a devastating new climate report.
Humanity is rapidly turning the seas acid through the same pollution that causes global warming, the world's governments and top scientists agreed yesterday. The process -- thought to be the most profound change in the chemistry of the oceans for 20 million years -- is expected both to disrupt the entire web of life of the oceans and to make climate change worse.
The warning is just one of a whole series of alarming conclusions in a new report published by the official Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which last month shared the Nobel Peace Prize with former US vice president Al Gore.
Drawn up by more than 2,500 of the world's top scientists and their governments, and agreed last week by representatives of all its national governments, the report also predicts that nearly a third of the world's species could be driven to extinction as the world warms up, and that harvests will be cut dramatically across the world.
United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, who attended the launch of the report in this ancient Spanish city, told The Independent on Sunday that he found the "quickening pace" of global warming "very frightening".
And, with unusual outspokenness for a UN leader, he said he "looked forward" to both the United States and China -- the world's two biggest polluters -- "playing a more constructive role" in vital new negotiations on tackling climate change that open in Indonesia next month.
The new IPCC report, which is designed to give impetus to the negotiations, highlights the little-known acidification of the oceans, first reported in this newspaper more than three years ago. It concludes that emissions of carbon dioxide -- the main cause of global warming -- have already increased the acidity of ocean surface water by 30 per cent, and threaten to treble it by the end of the century.
Achim Steiner, the executive director of the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP), said yesterday: "The report has put a spotlight on a threat to the marine environment that the world has hardly yet realized. The threat is immense as it can fundamentally alter the life of the seas, reducing the productivity of the oceans, while reinforcing global warming."
Scientists have found that the seas have already absorbed about half of all the carbon dioxide emitted by humanity since the start of the industrial revolution, a staggering 500 billion tons of it. This has so far helped slow global warming -- which would have accelerated even faster if all this pollution had stayed in the atmosphere, already causing catastrophe -- but at an increasingly severe cost.
The gas dissolves in the oceans to make dilute carbonic acid, which is increasingly souring the naturally alkali seawater. This, in turn, mops up calcium carbonate, a substance normally plentiful in the seas, which corals use to build their reefs, and marine creatures use to make the protective shells they need to survive. These include many of the plankton that form the base of the food chain on which all fish and other marine animals depend.
As the waters are growing more acid this process is decreasing, with incalculable consequences for the life of the seas, and for the fisheries on which a billion of the world's people depend for protein. Every single species that uses calcium in this way, that has so far been studied, has been found to be affected. And the seas are most acid near the surface, where most of their life is concentrated.
A report by the Royal Society, Britain's premier scientific body, concludes that, as a result, of the pollution, the world's oceans are probably now more acidic that they have ever been in "hundreds of millennia", and that even if emissions stopped now, the waters would take "tens of thousands of years to return to normal".
Professor Ulf Reibesell of the Leibnitz Institute of Marine Sciences in Kiel, Germany's leading expert on the process, concludes in an issue of UNEP's magazine Our Planet, to be published next month, that, if it continues to the levels predicted by yesterday's report for the end of the century, the seas will reach a condition unprecedented in the last 20 million years.
He recalls how something similar happened when a comet hit Mexico's Yucatan peninsula 65 million years ago, blasting massive amounts of calcium sulphate into the atmosphere to form sulphuric acid, which in turn caused the extinction of corals and virtually all shell-building species.
"Two million years went by before corals reappeared in the fossil record," he says, adding that it took "a further 20 million years" before the diversity of species that use calcium returned to its former levels.
Scientists add that, as the seas become more acidic, they will be less able to absorb carbon dioxide, causing more of it to stay in the atmosphere to speed up global warming. Research is already uncovering some signs that the oceans' ability to mop up the gas is diminishing. Environmentalists point out that the increasing acidification of the oceans would in itself provide ample reason to curb emissions of carbon dioxide from burning fossil fuels and felling forests even if the dwindling band of skeptics were right and the gas was not warming up the planet.
But yesterday's cautiously worded report, which was agreed by the US government, also provides ample evidence that climate change is well under way, and is accelerating. It concludes that the warming is now "unequivocal" and "evident from observations of increases in global average air and ocean temperatures, widespread melting of snow and ice, and rising global average sea level".
It adds: "Eleven of the last 12 years rank among the 12 warmest years in the instrumental record of global surface temperature". It goes on: "Observational evidence from all continents and most oceans shows that many natural systems are being affected by regional climate changes, particularly temperature increases."
If humanity were not affecting the climate, it concludes, declines in the sun's activity and increased eruptions from volcanoes - which throw huge amounts of dust in the air that screen out sunlight - would have been likely to "have produced cooling" of the planet.
But emissions of all the "greenhouse gas" pollutants that cause global warming increased 70 per cent between 1970 and 2004 alone, it reports, adding that levels of carbon dioxide, the most important one, in the atmosphere now "exceed by far" anything that the Earth has experienced in the past 650,000 years. And it goes on to conclude that "continued greenhouse gas emissions at or above current rates would cause further warming and induce many changes in the global climate system during the 21st century."
It makes a host of specific predictions for every continent and warns that "impacts" could be "abrupt" or "irreversible". One example of an irreversible impact is an expected extinction of between 20 and 30 per cent of all the world's species of animals and plants even at relatively moderate levels of warming. If the climate heats further, it adds, extinctions could rise to 40 to 70 per cent of species.
The IPCC scientists and governments say that they are also more concerned about "increases in droughts, heatwaves and floods" as the climate warms. They believe that the damage to the world's economy would be even greater than they had previously predicted, and were even more certain that the poor and elderly in both rich and poor countries would suffer most.
Yet the report also concludes that, while some climate change is now inevitable, its worst effects could be avoided with straightforward measures at little cost if only governments would take action. It says that the job can be done by using "technologies that are either currently available or expected to be commercialized in coming decades". It could be done at a cost of slowing global growth by only a tenth of a percentage point a year, and might even increase it.
The missing element, virtually everyone agrees, is political will from governments. Next month they meet in Bali to start negotiations on a new treaty to replace the current provisions of the Kyoto Protocol, which run out in 2012.
The timetable is desperately tight; time lags in the process of getting a new treaty ratified by the world's governments means that it will have to be agreed by the end of 2009 -- and there is no sign of anything on the horizon.
Yet the treaty will have to go far beyond the protocol in order to put the whole world on track rapidly to reduce emissions if the world is to achieve the pollution cuts that the scientists say will be needed to avoid catastrophe. And it will have to ensure rapid action. Dr Rajendra Pachauri, the IPCC's chairman, yesterday repeated a consensus among experts that the world as a whole will have to start radical reductions within eight years if there is to be any hope of preventing dangerous climate change.
Stephanie Tunmore of Greenpeace International said: "It is clear from this report that we are gambling with the future of the planet -- and the stakes are high. This document sets out a compelling case for early action on climate change."
The UN Secretary-General, agreed. The effects of climate change have become "so severe and so sweeping" he said "that only urgent, global action will do. There is no time to waste."
Mr Steiner called the report "the most essential reading for every person on the planet who cares about the future". He added: "The hard science has been distilled along with evidence of the social and economic consequences of global warming, but also the economic rationale and opportunities for action now. While the science will continue to evolve and be refined, we now have the compelling blueprint for action and, in many ways, the price tag for failure -- from increasing acidification of the oceans to the likely extinction of economically important biodiversity."
And Yvo de Boer, the executive secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change -- the parent treaty to the Kyoto Protocol -- told the IoS that reaching agreement was "incredibly urgent".
He pointed out that the world would replace 40 per cent of its power generation capacity in the next five to 10 years and that China is already building one or two coal- fired power stations a week. Those installations would last for decades - and the nations that built them would be reluctant to demolish them any earlier - so that unless the world rapidly changed direction it would be all the more difficult to avoid climate change running out of control.
Sticking point: It is crucial to get the US and China on board
Getting agreement on a new treaty to tackle climate change hangs on resolving an "after you, Claude" impasse between the United States and China, the two biggest emitters of carbon dioxide, the main cause of global warming.
China insists - with other key developing countries like India and South Africa -- that the United States must move first to clean up. It points out that, because of the disparity in populations, every American is responsible for emitting much more of the gas than each Chinese. But the US refuses to join any new treaty unless China also accepts restrictions.
There is hope of breaking the logjam. Chinese leaders know their country would be severely affected by global warming, and have done more than is generally realized to tackle it, not least by rapidly expanding renewable energy. The US will have a new leader by the time negotiations are completed, and even President Bush is backtracking, at least rhetorically.
Yesterday UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon said he was optimistic. "I look forward," he said, with a hint of steel, "to seeing the United States and China playing a more constructive role in the coming negotiations."
Arctic
Greenland ice sheet will virtually completely disappear, raising sea levels by over 30 feet, submerging coastal cities, entire island nations and vast areas of low-lying countries like Bangladesh
Latin America
The Amazon rainforest will become dry savannah as rising temperatures and falling water levels kill the trees, stoke forest fires and kill off wildlife
North America
California and the grain-producing Midwest will dry out as snows in the Rockies decrease, depriving these areas of summer water
Australia
The Great Barrier Reef will die. Species loss will occur by 2020 as corals fail to adapt to warmer waters. On land, drought will reduce harvests
Europe
Winter sports suffer as less snow falls in the Alps and other mountains; up to three-fifths of wildlife dies out. Drought in Mediterranean area hits tourism
Africa
Harvests could be cut by up to half in some countries by 2020, greatly increasing the threat of famine. Between 75 million and 250 million people are expected to be short of water within the next 30 years
© 2007 Independent News and Media Limited
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67 Comments so far
Show AllI fear that the promise of post-Armegeddon, eternal life on the gold paved streets of heaven will prompt too many not to concern themselves with this impending catastrophe. I suppose it is much easier to profess faith in the scriptures than to wrestle with the reality that we are far too selfish to make sacrifices in a preventative capacity just to ensure an inhabitable planet for our children. Perhaps human beings will be one of the predicted 30-40% of species extinctions, that is, if we don't bring about an armegeddon like ending long before we destroy ourselves slowly.
God save us, from your followers...
I have it on Good Authority that the Kingdom of Heaven is all about us but people don't see it. Forget about gold paved streets - what you see is what we and our issue have.
We have been warned about this over and over again. Will leaders of the world take action before it's too late ? If we are the most intelligent life form on earth why have we put ourselves into a situation that threatens our existence ?
Let's each do our part by consuming less, keeping others informed and holding our leaders responsible before it's too late.
I fear you are correct MARCTILESTON. Can we save this planet? __ Yes. ___Will we? __Probably not.
When I attempted to explain to a neighbor, the dangers of DU and our dying oceans, she replied with, "Thank God, at least our children and grandkids will finally be saved". I Guess the rest of the planet doesn't matter.
The fundamentalist nuts believe that they will be saved and have "eternal life on the gold paved streets of heaven". They should be cast into hell for destroying what their god created.
There is one good thing about this report -it is strong enough that it may just convince the powers-that-be to do whatever can still be done about climate change and preparing to deal with it. But people need to start demanding action on this. It will be interesting to see if the MSM carries this report - and if they don't, we may need to call their attention to it. Loudly.
What places if any will be positively affected by global warming?
I'm not so sure we humans are the most intelligent life form on Earth. We have thumbs and can easily make thngs is what seperates us from the porpoise and whales. They don't build weapons of war. Of course, ___ they don't have thumbs.
Possibly the bottom of the ocean trenches, or the space station EZEFLYER. Actually, this is not a thread for my attempts at stupid humor.
"Let's each do our part by consuming less, keeping others informed and holding our leaders responsible before it's too late."
Agreed, greenskier.
Look, nobody can predict what will happen. Hell, it's already happening and our "leaders" are doing what they've always done - deny and feed the beast.
I don't have the answer any more than does anyone else. All I know is that there is more that I can do as one person, and that is what I will do.
As others have commented, we also need to really scream about this. If we saw our family members and friends and neighbors being killed off in droves, we'd sure as hell be doing something more than writing about it. Is it just a matter of time?
P.S. This catastrophe is a bipartisan effort, so if any of the usual characters pops off about voting one way or another to curb this, tell them to stuff it! It comes down to each of us, as Jimmy Carter tried to tell us back in the 70's.
I want to share something with anyone who is interested in a viable, and simple solution to water pollution. I know nobody really gives a shit, but have any of you gringos ever considered how much water is polluted when we shit in it?
We built a simple composting outhouse in the summer of 2002 and have been using it ever since, even in our brutal Montana winters. Yes, it's true! And there's no flies and no bad smell.
How'd we do it? Welp, to summarize, I designed and built it in a way that allows maximum air flow all around. No closed in corners to trap insects. It has a nice view too. And I built it for almost nothing. I did splurge on nice oak toilet seats however. None of our house guests think we're weird either. At least they haven't told us to our face! They all tell us how cool it is, and that it's the cleanest outhouse they've ever used!
We poop in galvanized trash cans. I poked about 16 holes in the bottom of each one (it's a two seater). We put about 2 inches of saw dust on the bottom of each can. Then we keep a metal bucket inside filled with wood ash, and a plastic bucket with saw dust. Every time we crap, we sprinkle on about a cup of each wood ash and saw dust.
After about 4 months we rotate the cans out and replace with fresh cans. The half full cans get another layer of sawdust, then I top it off with horse manure and water it down, and leave it for another 4 months. Then after that 4 month rotation I dump the contents into a 4x4 compost bin made of logs stacked Lincoln Log style, with air spaces between the logs provided by the log layer below stacked perpendicular, if you catch my drift. Then I top that partially composted heap with more horse manure, and turn the whole works about twice a year. After a couple years I dismantle the log frame and turn the "soil" again. And build another bin from the logs.
There's no smell, only rich black humus! Funny, the word humus is so close to the word human. Eventually the humus goes back into the garden as all harmful pathogens have been killed off by the composting process, thus completing the cycle. Shitting in water creates a waste management problem, and pollutes perfectly good drinking water. Silly humans!
We believe we have discovered the proper way to shit, and the rest of the human race needs to catch up. If you want to read a comprehensive guide book on the subject, I highly recommend The Humanure Handbook, A Guide To Composting Human Manure by Joseph Jenkins, an award winning book that made Amazon's #1 best seller list. Check www.joseph-jenkins.com it's published by Chelsea Green Publishing.
Oh, I might also mention that our gray water, the water from our taps, our laundry, kitchen sink and shower are all diverted to watering the garden. We don't feel any urgent need to "save" water since we live on a glacier fed river...for now, until the glaciers disappear. We just do it because it's more in harmony with nature.
We all are beginning to realize that we can't sustain life on this planet unless we all learn how to live more in harmony with nature. I'm just glad that the rest of you gringos are finally waking up to that realization.
What does any of this have to do with saving our oceans and our precious earth for future generations? Meditate on it. The answers are found within.
Shanti Om...
Climate Change appears to be following an exponential curve: " for any exponentially growing quantity, the larger the quantity gets, the faster it grows" (wikipedia). Talk of stopping, slowing or even affecting the rate of increase of the rate of growth in warming or biosphere collapse seems futile - either we all stop using CO2-generating energies or we all die. Not tomorrow - today. But while we can breathe and type lets continue using power to discuss reducing our power consumption.
Global warming is real and the bigger it becomes the faster it grows - and everyone is involved 100% like it or not.
Good one Moondoggy. How do you heat it in the winter? BTW, does anybody know how Eskimos shit?
moondoggy talked about a simple privy. Yes, we too used that when we were forest lookouts and it worked very well.
I live in an old farmhouse and we have no bathroom upstairs were our bedroom is. We urinate into a plastic urinal ( $1) from any medical supply store or given free if you ever are in the hospital. We water out plants with the urine in the morning and then just rinse out the urinal with some water.
If everybody did this- a lot of water would be saved. Who needs a bathroom on every floor? On the other hand a friend broke their leg running down to the bathroom- so have a urinal handy.
Also- who knows, maybe that is why the deer do not come around to eat our flowers and we get free fertilizer to boot.
Pass it on.
However, the bigger problem I think is that we are 6 billion people right now and already too crowded and it took from eternity to now to get us here and in 45 years it will be 9 billion!!!!!!
Family planning has to start in every village and no child should be born who is not wanted.
Will we take action? Reduce, recycle, reuse.
I think most Americans understand that we are all on our way to a globally warmed hell -- but they just insist upon driving there in their air-conditioned SUVs (4-wheel drive vehicles).
Moondoggy and metamorph,
What you are doing is fine, (except for watering plants with urine) but water well pumps or even large public water supply systems don't represent much of a contribution of greenhouse gases.
And I know I belabor this point, but living out in the sticks almost alway means greatly increased automobile use compared to living in the city (not suburbs). All the compost piles or even solar panels on the roof probably don't make up for that.
What's the beef anyway? Didn't Bush's press secretary, Dana Perino, say something to the effect that global warming isn't all that bad because people die of the cold in the winter?
Why do neocons hate Mother Earth??
EZEFLYER, I spent a year living with the Eskimos and we shit on the ice, before it froze, the sanitary person of the tribe stomped on it until it was the size and shape of a big pancake. He was called the tribes shit kicker. No one messed with him. The kids used em for frizbees and the adults stacked em up and used them as 'stool' chairs.
MOONDOGGY, you are a good man, that is very similar to the toilets in the Netherlands. They don't have to make compost bins, they instead just allow it to accumulate for a year, pipe off the natural methane gas for fuel and there is no odor. The shit and toilet paper decays into garden humus and there are no harmful germs.
Thanks Kem, but that's too much information. I guess you missed the joy of reading a newspaper while taking a dump.
PJD, I just read an article on a science mag extolling the fertilizing qualities of urine. Maybe diluted ammonia adds nitrogen.
"Say Goodnight, Gracie."
Paul Crutzen, Nobel prize-winning scientist who discovered the ozone hole and its connection to CFCs, wants to spray sulfate particles across the stratophere to reflect enough sunlight to buy us time. Then it's up to the best minds on Earth to scale up the geoengineering projects (with IPCC-like scientific oversight) that will pull excess CO2 from the atmosphere. To paraphrase what Lovelock pointed out in his recent address to the Royal Society, he said earth is like a cancer patient, and chemotherapy is worth a try though it is unlikely to succeed.
The human race has been blindly geoengineering our planet's climate for over 200 years and seems to have added a subconscious death wish in the past 30 years. It's time we start a massive conservation and sequestration effort of global proportions. If we wait much longer, there will no way to keep climate from galloping to a hothouse state.
I guess we can always pray for another Pinatubo to erupt in some uninhabited part of the world and buy us some time, but since we live in an age of multi-tasking, let's do all of the above.
This post written with solar energy,
RC
So now instead of "canaries in the mine" dropping over dead, we have coral reefs, plankton and 40-70% of living plant and animal species dying. One wonders exactly what it would take to get us to seriously confront this issue--probably only the death of ourselves or a loved one.
Does Bush or Cheney have loved ones?
When the ocean's phytoplankton die off another 20 to 25%, we will act. Those tiny plants, produce over 70% of the oxygen in our atmosphere. They are dying off at an alarming rate and the scientists do not know why, they suspect man made pollution is the most probable cause. In the past few years, they have died off at an estimated 10 to 12%.
When the die off reaches a 35 to 40% figure, we will act. We will act by dying off at a rate of 100%. This post is not my stupid humor BTW. ___ It is deadly serious.
GLOBAL WARMING REMISS
It is remarkable that it took the recent findings of the scientific panels and the warnings from the UN secretary General to alert many to the impending dangers from global warming, which has been obvious to anyone who had made even minor efforts to be informed. The evidence linking carbon pollution to warming is as close to certain as science can be. Its causes, consequences, and mitigation requirements have been documented by many dedicated environmental organizations including The Union of Concerned Scientists, and chronicled in the press for years.
The dangerous manipulation of essential scientific data used by this administration to conceal and derail corrective measures for this threat and other vital environmental reforms has also been apparent. Contrary to their assertions, measures to reduce greenhouse gases could only improve our economy by lessening our trade deficits, and improving our security by reducing our dependance on foreign oil. We could also regain some of our lost world respect that has resulted from our opposition Kyoto while arrogantly contributing disproportionally to carbon pollution.
Often overlooked is the fact that the same measures needed to mitigate global warming would be necessary even if it were not an issue. Conservation, alternative energy development, anti- pollution refinements, etc are essential for other vital environmental reforms such as air and water quality, reductions in toxic waste generation, land preservation, etc.
The environmental and social damage from our indifference to carbon pollution and related environmental measures can only worsen if we allow these destructive environmental policies of this reckless and unlearned president to continue.
That's serious stuff you're talking about, Kem. So if we end up with an atmosphere that is loaded with CO2 and an ocean that is loaded with carbonic acid, I know there will be life forms that can survive, but it won't be us. Except for the billionaires that will be living in bubble domes like the science fiction Mars stories with hydroponics and generated O2. Do you suppose that's what they want?
You know, twenty years or so ago, I don't recall seeing all of these cancer treatment centers, located in almost every city of any size at all. I don't remember seeing cancer treatment center ads on television twenty years ago. We see them several times a day, on several channels.
I don't remember seeing cancer, to a large degree, in children twenty years ago, nor was autism near epidemic levels then either. DU causes autism in children BTW. I just read a report that autism is really not any worse than it was 100 years ago. The author said it was just that it was now much easier to diagnose. Yep, I wonder who paid him to write that?
DU ammunition was first tested in the 1960s and we have no idea of how much has actually been expended worldwide. Many thousands of tons of depleted uranium ammunition having been fired since then would not be an overstatement. There will be more tons fired off tomorrow, ___ and every day after. It makes for swell ammo and bombs.
NO, BeForKIds, they are so involved with themselves, the elite are unaware of the danger until it is far too late to correct it and they control the assets to correct it. They'll die along with everyone else, but they'll likely die whie swimming in their pools or screwing around in their satin sheets. It is possible the final humans will be those orbiting the Earth in the space station. Of course the last one will possibly be a cannibal.
This global warming has been advertised, debated and argued for quite some time now. ___ NOW, SUDDENLY, it is big news, big bad news! ___ Well, you can bet that the scientists have just discovered, we don't have another 50, 60 to 100 years to START cleaning our messes up. The problem is far far worse than even they suspected, and we have little time left. That's my undereducated guess anyway. Time to shop for satin sheets anyone? Wonder if those are made in China too. If so, Wal-Mart will have them.
Of course it's what the NeoCons want Beforkids,
Extermination of all the world's poor people which is why they shell their countries with DU all day long. Why, just think of all the money that could be made on the World Spot Oxygen market if Kem's photoplanton cannot be saved! Why, if they "liberated" any country producing cheap oxygen, it would soon become worth more than gasoline!
The problem with gasoline is that if the poor people stay home, the demand goes down (unless you start up phoney wars to keep the fear priced in.) But with oxygen shortages, people have no choice but to pay your extortion.
Ahhhhh, the NeoCON war marketplace!
No matter how ugly it gets, they just keep getting richer (unddergound in Dr. Strangelove silos that is!)
The cockroach will inherit the earth.
What a gas, aghast!
From my reading, many scientists accept predictions of accelerated and synergistic increases of green house gases that will result from initial stages of global warming, as frozen arctic organic_material(peet)/ice/mud mixtures melt and outgass, merrily continuing their long interrupted decay processes. There goes that trapped CO2, making us warmer still, what rotten luck.
At least one scientist goes much further, predicting possible catastrophic mega-disasters from immense ocean methane gas fountains, released from trapped accumulations of decayed bio-mass (in a unstable super saturated suspension). And if the green house (warming) effect doesn't slowly kill our planet's balance, we could conceivably be both roasted by fire (lightning ignition) and later tsunami'd with huge ocean waves (explosively propelled). The world's most nasty fart, ever.
The later should give policy makers a wakeup call for simple fixes like just dosing the ocean's plankton plumes with iron (nutrients), to more quickly trap more CO2 (into new biomass that then sinks into the ocean's depths). No matter what we do, there is "no away" to throw these astronomical accumulations of nasty CO2 (OK, methane is worse).
One cool idea floating around for some time is to dump our predilection of padding the GNP, as if there were no environmental consequences (economically), and re-invent a new standard for measuring national productivity, and corporate profits -- based on actual costs.
What is the replacement cost for 40 yr of polluting the once clean ground water with toxins? Another 40-50 years pumping the contaminated water through very expensive chemical filtering, ionization, and processing. Quite a bit more than it would have cost to incinerate the dry cleaning solvents initially, when so readily accessible (in the store's tanks).
How much does a nuclear power plant really cost, when all life-cycle costs accumulate, say for 100,000 years of expected radioactive decay (talk about long term leases), and likely repackaging along that timeline?
All of a sudden, those "impossibly expensive" alternative energy systems (eCars, solar, tidal, geothermal) actually save money, as it's all in how one balances the books (with or w/o including mother Gaia's charges).
Anyone recall tv's (oleo?) "it's not nice to fool mother nature "?
Namaste
Logic dictates that love and compassion comprise the true nature of what it is to be human. We will all die one day, whether it be by the almighty microbe or the CEO scimitar or poisoned water or simple old age. The question is not when but rather, What do we take with us? Is it our anger at the ignorance of the world, or might it be, if we so choose, an inexpressible sorrow borne of compassion, and as such inexpressibly interwoven with bliss and joy and the boundless light at the heart of all phenomena? Why do we attach so to a world so utterly impermanent? Why are we so fervently convinced that the wood of our house and the upholstery of our furniture is so absolutely real? Given this, why not love everyone and everything as much as we can, regardless of appearances? Or are we to let our cynicism and nihilistic hopelessness run amok in our dreamworlds too?
Really now, what doesn't pass away? What doesn't go back to where it came from, what one might call the "luminous void"? What ultimate good does any of our attachments to this world bring about? Lots of misery and suffering, as far as I can see.
So why not have love and compassion for all the ignorance in the world that thinks anything sticks around, not to mention those who wantonly and heedlessly do harm to the life-force of the planet? May all the compost toilets of the world be the very germinating seed of all the change we wish to see. But it only begins within first (O alchemy of ignorance into wisdom, anger into primordial awareness!), and even then it is ultimately only toward the end of what we take with us.
Well, this has certainly been one of the more enjoyable and elementary strings of comments to follow any "environment-related" CD article that I have read in months and months. Thank you all, and to all "best of luck", for not only will individual projects, proposals and protests, and collective resolutions and revolutions make the necessary difference, but a good dose of luck will sort out which children and grandchildren will keep moving forward, from those who just "don't make it". Please, let's avoid more of the same: "religious wars" of conservationists fighting earth firsters, ecologists versus rightist green economists, greener-than-thou evangelists versus left bio-centrists. Viva la diversidad!
You've got a lovely smile, Padma.
We should approach this as the societal crisis it is. We should boycott as many petrolium and industrially produced products as possible, have neighborhood "victory gardens" and community efforts that range from gardening and land reclamation to clean-up and alternative power grid building.
One way or another a new order that sees the planet as a global cooperative must be built. Capitalism has nothing left to offer but barbarism and extinction. It will collapse as crops and economies fail. We have to start building our local green-cooperative social institutions now if we are to survive.
". . .its [climate change] worst effects could be avoided with straightforward measures at little cost . . .It could be done at a cost of slowing global growth by only a tenth of a percentage point a year, and might even increase it."
Yet we have an administration that continues to deny the science of global warming, the potential economic upside and the unambiguous environmental gains to be had by taking counter measures now.
One more reason to start impeachment proceedings immediately.
We need a democracy instead of a corporatocracy. We need a revolution -- impeachment is a good start.
We need a system that has universal principals like human rights, environmental rights, limits on wealth accumulation; but decentralized power -- an inverse pyramid where neighborhood and rural associations have the sovereignty as long as these universal principals are followed. Forcing people to follow these principals cannot be legislated, it must be a social movement that makes materialistic accumulation and environmental degradation unacceptable behavior.
Local autonomy, universal principals, diffused power, no standing armies. That's where we HAVE to go -- the option is destruction, if there's still even a choice.
"What does any of this have to do with saving our oceans and our precious earth for future generations? Meditate on it. The answers are found within."
Moondoggy,
I grok. It will take individuals acting in accordance with their values to see real change.
I applaud you for applying your conscience to your work.
Demanding action is great. We are responsible as individuals for this problem as well. Live close to work, share housing, walk, bike, eat locally. Help others to do these things.
Humans have the potential to live sustainably, but will we learn how to before it is too late? I look at the U.S. and I say there is no way--the indoctrination is too deep, the institutional hurdles are too great. If we had another hundred years...maybe. But we probably should have taken action decades ago. Instead, we have in power the worst leader at the worst possible time: Bush. At a time when even Nader may have been too tame, we ended up with a guy who set us back 100 years.
Everyday I hear about global warming happening at an accelerating pace. It seems there are a multitude of positive feedback mechanisms driving atmospheric CO2 levels ever higher. I don't hear much about negative feedback mechanisms that might help mitigate the disaster. It seems they ought to still exist since nature likes equilibriums.
We've acted like the veritable bull in a china shop with regards to our relationship to the planet( I almost wrote, "our planet", which betrays the deeply-internalized attitude underlying the problem ).
If reducing carbon emissions can grow the global economy, then what is the remaining objection to change? Only the reluctance to leave the comfortable and familiar ways behind.
Large scale commercially "viable" Coal fired power plants have been demonstrated that remove almost all of the smokestack gases, including CO2, and efficiencies through the roof with co-generation extraction and "recycled" use of heat products for sister industrial processes.
Well viable is only a bit of stretch here, they're not competitively priced in today's skewed market of false profits, based on no economic consequences for egregious life threatening pollution.
This is a pivot issue that we all can push upon!
Consider that what we have today (in coal power production) is like a simple "lemonade stand", but instead of getting the promised return on our payments, we get just a "glass of water" and the promise that someday we'll have lemons to add to the drink, and maybe even cool it down a bit (the solution to our pollution). We've been sold a glass of an incomplete product, and yes the cost including lemons, sugar and cool water might be somewhat higher than water alone -- but what were expecting it to be, free?
NOTE: the real upfront costs are only ~ 7 % higher, but w/o strong leadership and consumer advocacy, along with idiotic deregulation -- this hardly is compensated for by profits of only ~ 30%, right?
Namaste
Global Climate Change is just a phrase to describe the manifestation of over-population and accumulated pollution on MY planet. Maybe the rich/TPTB are awaiting the die-off of the relatively poor and weak masses. The mega-rich may outlast most of us but I am not sure that outcomes, during the final days or years of civilization on MY planet, will be all that predictable. The bottomline is, we are all going down together, or we will survive by great effort of those poor and weak masses. I am sure the SUV-driving, mini-mansion dweller hopes those efforts to reduce, re-use and recycle by the poor, stupid, and or weak, will pay off for them in the end by allowing them extra time to outlast those holding them up. Sad. Sad.
The west enjoyes superior living standards compared to the vast majority in the world. Are we prepared to give up that? For a noble cause such as the survival of MY planet, I would. I believe, the more a super-user of MY planet's resources, of us in the West, the more effective even a small change has and is, therefore, a worthwhile pursuit.
The Global Environment Report 4 (GEO-4) is the best look, overall, at the crisis facing humanity and the community of life on which we depend and for which we are responsible.
Here is a link to a summary article:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7060072.stm
There you can find a link to the full text of the summary study.
As for what to do? For Americans, the situation is akin to the WWII crisis of 1942. Our response was to retool our entire society. Now the stakes are higher: our children, nephews, nieces; our grandchildren; all generations of tomorrow. Do we give them a livable planet? Or a destroyed planet? We must retool our society.
Solutions require new politics. In political terms, retooling our society for sustainability is a big part of the progressive agenda and platform. So I am doing what I can locally, and personally, and supporting progressive Democrats, and the one national progressive party: the Green Party.
JohnR and Mas: Your points are right on.
Over consumption is killing the planet. Our economic model is based on growth through over consumption. China and India are adopting our economic model. It is spiraling out of control.
The problem is us.
Can we collectively, governments and societies, change in time? I don't know.
Can we individually change? Yes.
I'm doing my part, if everyone else does theirs, maybe it will be enough.
It is easy, and perhaps true, to say that man was doomed from the start. But I wish to believe that if we were smart enough to get into this mess - then we are smart enough to get out of it.
And the solution seems simple to me, if over consumption causes the problem, then conservation solves it.
Just some rambling thoughts,
Ramsay
Not to be a smart ass, but I wonder if those who state overpopulation is the major problem, and indeed it is, would be willing to jump off of a high cliff. We are all here and until the population does decrease to a level of a billion or less, we'd better attempt to save the planet for the ones who will finally be left. Am I stupid or just tired?
I'll give you a perfect metaphor for the current U.S. perspective on global warming: Atlanta, and all of Northeast Georgia, is experiencing a drought of historic proportions. This week Lake Lanier, which supplies the majority of metro Atlanta's drinking water , will hit a record low. At the same time the same city is putting up condos and office units like never before (there are no less than 16-18 building cranes dotting the Atlanta skyline... yes, I counted). What did the govenor Sonny Perdue (a fundamentalist) do??? Did he propose a freeze on new development? No. What did he do? He held a public prayer vigil asking God for rain !!!
I don't hold out much hope for U.S. We in the States are clearly driving global warming not only by our behavior but by the propaganda we send around the world encouraging others to live as wastefully as we do. And we seem determined to hold on to this way of live no matter what the result. If we were serious, all new production of SUVs would be outlawed !!! But, of course, we won't consider that. Apparently the most valued freedom is the freedom to destroy the planet we all have to live on.
But no matter the result we must all attempt to do what we can, to do the right thing. Not because it will meet with success (although we may hope it does) but because it is the right thing to do.
RE: Moondoggy and Metamorph et al who mention composting toilets...
I am reminded of a native truism:
Human Beings exist for two purposes on planet earth;
To tell stories and to make soil.
It is helpful to know one's true purpose ; )
So, what happens when a mouse wants a "cookie"
to go along with his incorporeal "lemonade"?
(cross posting from "On the Verge of Democracy Collapse Disorder" thread, to attempt weaving threads together into an illuminated tapastry.)
And what of _ c o r p o r a t e _ S A N I T Y ?
My sense is that they stuck on raiding every "cookie jar" imaginable,
extending their unfettered reach and grab, and each time expecting a glorious delicious cookie (there have been so many, yummmm, in past years).
Well, with its abundance temporarily stolen, Gaia and mainstream USans no longer have much to give to the HAND, especially with the near demise of shared mutually beneficial existence. Many question and observe the state of our vastly diminished "cookie jars", but striving to be the joyous Keabler elves is not possible with continually growing family demands, health issues, sub-prime collapse, and real loss of wages while working so much harder. (Our productivity goes up and only the richest benefit??)
That's corporate insanity for me, each time the HAND reaches, it expects greater rewards (of past memories), regardless if only crumbs are found. And the HAND continues to squeeze (until something else becomes more important). When? What? We all know why.
Namaste
NSPIRE----Some very good posts, and since I am one who reads them all most of the time, I have to smile ( with genuine happiness) when I see one's like PADMA's. There is much to chew on there, and I do not disagree with the spirit of the message. We need to see these more and more. Keep posting, please.
Unfortunately, since we are "souls having a human experience" or consciousness having same, we are educating, or expanding awareness about any number of things---the nature of reality and our co-creative powers, just one of many.
The truth of what you state so eloquently speaks for itself. What I take away is that every moment in the NOW is what we ARE. We learn and move on to still another lesson. It's not about outcomes, it's about conscious creation of each and every moment. And if one believes, as I do, that LOVE is the glue that holds this vast creative enterprise together, we contribute to its beauty, its diversity and its liveliness by aligning ourselves with LOVE. Didn't all the Ascended Masters convey the same message, " Love, and then do as you will"?
Gaia is a vast expansive consciousness of which we are but a small part. She is giving us a very clear and challenging curriculum at this time. As long as we see ourselves as something apart from her much older and wiser consciousness, we remain self-interested in our own viability. Perhaps truly getting beyond that narrower focus is a necessary prerequiste for continued viability. Just a thought---