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Global Warming Crisis Council
Hot
climate news:
CLIMATE CHANGE WREAKING HAVOC WITH SEASONS
Methane Burp?
Move over carbon dioxide, methane's the
biggie
The Arctic is
warming much faster
New
report for northern nations.
Global Warming Spirals Upwards
Levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere
have jumped abruptly, raising fears that global warming may be accelerating
out of control.
An ice age for north Atlantic countries just ahead, or starting now: The
Gulf Stream is in trouble due to global warming.
Also, species extinction from climate
change is to be about one in four worldwide.
Read the above and other news stories on climate studies on our science page.
Environmental
refugees Searching
for a place under the sun
Hot
political news: Russia
supports Kyoto Protocol
The
United Nations links
to Culture Change's
international editor Pincas Jawetz's reports in this website (CCLetter
#46). He participated in the United Nations' Climate
Change Conference in Milan, Italy, Dec.10-12. His exclusive reports and
commentary by Jan Lundberg are on our UN
Climate webpage.
The
Environmental and Energy Study Institute has free programs in Washington,
D.C. on climate change. Contact them through the EESI
webpage. EESI, founded by members of Congress in 1984, is a nonprofit
organization dedicated to promoting environmentally sustainable societies.
Organic agriculture's answer to climate
change
From the Saskatoon Newsroom, Dec. 11, by Sean Pratt (excerpt)
Had the United States signed
the Kyoto Protocol, it could have met all of its greenhouse gas reduction
commitments simply by shifting to organic agriculture.
That is one finding from a long-running agronomic experiment comparing
organic and conventional cropping systems.
Researchers at Pennsylvania's Rodale Institute said organic agriculture
could be one of the most powerful tools in the fight against global warming.
A complete metamorphosis from conventional to organic farming would reduce
annual carbon emissions by about seven percent from 1990 levels, which is the
amount targeted for the United States under Kyoto.
"Besides being a significant underutilized carbon sink, organic
systems use about one-third less fossil fuel energy than that used in the
conventional cropping systems," said the executive summary of the
recently released report.
To read the rest of this news story, visit
www.producer.com/articles/20031211/news/20031211news19.html
The GWCC listserve is
running! To join in the discussion, email us with the subject as GWCC: info@culturechange.org
The Global Warming Crisis Council was formed in
July 2003 with a proposal emailed around the world to over 6,000
people familiar with Sustainable Energy Institute and Culture
Change. [see original document at Culture
Change Letter #26, July 26, 2003.]
Response was strong, and those wanting to get
involved are in touch with each other. A listserve started running in fall
2003.
Please email Wanda
Ballentine to contact the Global Warming Crisis
Council and get on the email list. Suggestions are also welcome for organizing the council and improving
this webpage. Another webpage on the science
of global
warming is on this site. Also see the Pledge
for Climate Protection.
Hot
flashes:
- A giant ice shelf the size of
Scotland is melting rapidly in the Antarctic, scientists have warned.
See the Oct. 31st story from The
Guardian.
- Global warming kills 160,000 a year already, according to a
study by scientists at the World Health Organisation and the London School of
Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. The deaths are from side-effects of global
warming ranging from malaria to malnutrition, and the numbers could almost
double by 2020. Read the news
story.
New
webpage: Coal: the dirtiest, most plentiful fossil fuel. Anti-strip
mining campaign is covered by our correspondent on the scene.
Climate-change implications for coal use, and its role in the hydrogen technofix,
is at culturechange.org/coal.html
The heat wave in France that
killed 15,000 people in August 2003 proved three things:
- Climate change can present lethal challenges
anywhere, as the globe warms and causes extreme gyrations in temperature and
precipitation
- Nuclear power, that France has so much of,, does
not help
- Elderly folk (the main victims of the heat) need
to be with family, not alone or with strangers
Reuters reported on Sept. 26, 2003:
PARIS - France's August heat wave claimed around
15,000 lives, more than previously thought, the
Inserm
national medical research institute said
yesterday in
a report commissioned by the government.
The report said there were a total of 56,000
deaths in France in this year's blisteringly hot August -
around 15,000 more than in a normal year.
Read How to feed people
under a regime of Climate Change, by Edward Goldsmith, founding
editor of The
Ecologist magazine. This new paper has been sent by the author to contribute to
the knowledge of the Global Warming Crisis Council. Goldsmith, of The Ecologist fame, sent
Culture Change his book for funders, Climate Crisis, which points out that research on positive feedback loops that
add to global temperatures may result in a rise of 15.8 degrees Fahrenheit by
2100.
New Members:
- Dale Allen Pfeiffer is energy editor
of From The
Wilderness
- Richard Hansis, Coordinator, Environmental Science Program, Humboldt State
University, Arcata, California 95521
- Curtice Jacoby, Legacy
- The Landscape Connection, Arcata, California (letter below)
- Lance Olsen, Ambience Project, Missoula Montana
-
Germain Dufour, President, Earth
Community Organization (ECO) and Earth
Government, Nanaimo, British Columbia, Canada
- Eban Goodstein, with www.greenhousenet.org,
at Louis and Clark University, Portland
-
Dave Paulsen, permaculture and bioregionalism, Bellingham,
Washington www.attractionretreat.org/ECOBell/
- Alder Fuller, ProtoTista, Eugene, Oregon www.prototista.org
Chaos, Complexity, Symbiosis, Gaia
Principles of the
Global Warming Crisis Council
The scientific community has acknowledged global warming and its certain
devastating but unpredictable risks.
Fossil-fuel emissions must be reduced by 80% and deforestation must be
halted, in keeping with the findings of the Intergovernmental Panel on
Climate Change.
Massive
conservation will accomplish these goals, but more likely through the
sinking and replacement of today's global-warming economy.
Industrial
society has learned almost nothing since becoming aware of the threat of
global warming.
A new sustainable
culture must be fostered that does not need to warm the globe.
Traditional non-Western cultures offer a model for sustainability.
There is a war
against nature always going on as background to the headline-hogging
issues of the day such as Iraq.
Positive feedback
loops may take global warming out of our hands for now, but this only
heightens the need to stop the "Pollution Economy" sooner rather
than later.
Energy efficiency
e.g., improving cars' fuel-economy and switching technology of
propulsion are too little and too late to be major solutions.
Kyoto Protocol
was a start. Citizens must follow up with deep cuts in energy
consumption and live a sustainable lifestyle to the extent possible.
Mutual aid and tribal cooperation can assist in this.
A philosophy of
inclusion, to work in conjunction with others, such as grassroots groups
in London and the World Meterological Organisation, aids the GWCC in its
goals.
A renewable-energy
technofix Utopia misleads the public, as petroleum cannot be replaced
overall for the present global economy with today's population size.
Overpopulation
has been reached globally including in the U.S.
Those entrenched
interests opposing our saving our world from devastating climate
destabilization are not countered by the well-funded wing of the
environmental movement and its unworkable technofix agenda.
The GWCC utilizes
networking, research, providing information, fundraising, and direct
action either carried out or advocated.
Actions taken to
soften the fall of petroleum civilization for the sake of one's own
household e.g., turning a driveway and lawn into a food producing
garden respond simultaneously to the global warming crisis by not
engaging in purchasing oil-transported food.
The Pledge for
Climate Protection, a project of the Sustainable Energy Institute, offers
additional specific steps to slash energy waste and emissions, for a more
convivial and healthy society.
From Culture Change Letter #26
by Jan Lundberg, July 26, 2003. |
Climate News
Mt. Blanc,
Europe's tallest mountain, is melting and closed for the duration. Read
Jon Carroll's brilliant column from the San
Francisco Chronicle of August 26, 2003.
"Green" Congressional revolt against Bush
Salon.com's Glenn Scherer has written of the rising
support for the U.S. to respect the Kyoto Protocol to limit greenhouse gas
emissions. Click
here
Congressman Henry Waxman takes Bush Administration to task
on corrupting science with politics.
A host of areas of science have been
documented as having been interfered with by the White House. On global
warming, some of the skullduggery is of course sad reading, such as careers and
sound policy being derailed by the global warmers. Click on politicsandscience.org
from the House of Representatives.
Global Warming Edited Away by White House
Bruce Johansen wrote in the website Klassekampen, Oslo, Norway, on the 7th of
August 2003 an editorial on the censoring of EPA report on global warming.
See
http://www.ratical.org/ratville/glblWarming.html
On the climatic delay factor, by Bruce Johansen above article:
"We as a species will face and solve this problem because by the middle
of this century the penalties of doing too little or nothing will become
painfully obvious. The only problem with waiting is that correction will be more
protracted and painful. The actual effects on our warming Earth trail our fossil
fuel emissions by about 40 years. Thus, we are now facing the climatic
consequences of fossil-fuel use during the early 1960s, which were much lower
than today...
"Given this feedback delay, humankind by late in the
twenty-first century will face roughly two hot, miserable generations before the
fruits of corrective action even begin to show. During those two generations,
everyone will become convinced that global warming is the issue du jour. Doing
nothing to transform our energy base from fossil fuels to renewable forms (such
as solar, hydrogen, and wind power) is a very important issue. It becomes more
critical with each passing day."
Europe blisters under heat
wave
Massive forest fires ravage continent
Workers try to cool down nuclear plants
Aug. 6, 2003 - Four
nuclear power plants in Germany cut production drastically to avoid overheating
water in cooling towers that empty into rivers.
In eastern France,
technicians sprayed the inner walls of a structure housing a nuclear reactor in
Fessenheim with cold water. They were trying to figure out if the technique
helped lower the temperature inside.
"The idea is to wet
the reactor walls on the side that's most exposed to sunlight," said Joseph
Sanchez, the plant's assistant director. "We can't say if it works yet.''
Temperatures at the plant
rose to 48C, two degrees short of the point requiring an emergency shutdown.
REUTERS, ASSOCIATED PRESS
Alaskan Warming is Disturbing Preview of What's
to Come, Scientists Say
Alaska is melting.
Glaciers are receding. Permafrost is thawing. Roads are collapsing. Forests are
dying. Villages are being forced to move, and animals are being forced to seek
new habitats. What's happening in Alaska is a preview of what people
farther south can expect, said Robert Corell, a former top National Science
Foundation scientist who heads research for the Arctic Climate Impact Assessment
team.
Global warming has caused the Columbia Glacier to retreat 7 miles in the last 20
years, leaving calves of ice in Prince William Sound. Seth Borenstein, KRT.
For the full story, click on www.commondreams.org
Hans Blix, UN inspector who
told the truth on Iraq's weapons, and was deliberately intimidated by the Bush
Administration, was interviewed by Charlie Rose on U.S. public television on
June 24, 2003, right before Blix's retirement. When Rose asked Blix what
his parting idea would be after his career as arms inspector, he said "More
important than the weapons of mass destruction is global warming. We must
have anticipatory defense against global warming..."
Let us hope Mr. Blix will not promote nuclear energy as a
solution to global warming.
letters to the GWCC
Hi Jan,
Regarding the ten detailed steps for greenhouse relief and benefits, I believe
that protection of native vegetation should be at the top of the list. This is
critical to stem off the extreme high temperatures in a heated up world. To
achieve this dampening of the temperature flux we must preserve part of each
native plant community.
Connecting habitat is critical to ecological health. A linked
up landscape allows populations of populations to survive thereby perpetuating
each species in a changing environment. Also allowing disturbance (such as fire)
to occur with natural frequency and intensity which promotes ecological
integrity. Native vegetation is our best bet at weathering a changing world
supplying humans with water and a cooler climate. A connected landscape with a
natural disturbance regime will ensure that all native species will exist
somewhere in their historic range and abundance including humans.
Curtice Jacoby
Legacy
- The Landscape Connection, Arcata, California
Dear Jan Lundberg,
We receive your emails. The last one took us to the website
on Global Warming Crisis Council and Pledge for Climate Protection.
We subscribe to the GWCC and Pledge
for Climate Protection. You will, we trust, agree that the 10 Steps for sane
sustainable living may have to be revised to make them more topical to
conditions prevailing in the poor countries as well as for the poor people in
the highly exploitative affluent countries. Our voluntary organisations,
Save Bombay Committee and Prakruti ( Sanskrit word for nature) work for
environment protection and finite resource conservation as well as promote
natural living and sustainable agriculture. We oppose public programmes that
support motorisation, urban congestion, commercial agriculture and we work
out alternatives for improving the quality of life for all living beings.
We are extremely worried about Climate Warming. We are
concerned about the recent changes which show that global warming has already
arrived. You have referred to the World
Meterological Organisation (see July 2 press release). We would like to
remain informed on such studies. We try to keep our authorities and concerned
citizens informed on studies and forecasts as well as suggest programmes that
can reduce strain on the earth. We would be happy to render any help in your
efforts from this side.
Best wishes, Kisan Mehta
President, Save Bombay Committee and Prakruti
620 Jame Jamshed Road, Dadar East,
Mumbai 400 014 India
Tel: 00 91 22 2414 9688 Fax: 00 91 22 2415 5536
___________________________________________________
Reaping the Whirlwind: Extreme weather prompts
unprecedented global warming alert
The Independent (UK), 03 July 2003
"In an astonishing announcement on global warming and extreme weather,
the World Meteorological Organisation signaled last night that the world's
weather is going haywire. In a startling report, the WMO, which normally
produces detailed scientific reports and staid statistics at the year's end,
highlighted record extremes in weather and climate occurring all over the
world in recent weeks, from Switzerland's hottest-ever June to a record month
for tornadoes in the United States - and linked them to climate
change...
"Global average land and sea surface
temperatures in May 2003 were the second highest since records began in 1880.
Considering land temperatures only, last May was the warmest on record. It is
possible that 2003 will be the hottest year ever recorded. The 10 hottest
years in the 143-year-old global temperature record have now all been since
1990, with the three hottest being 1998, 2002 and 2001. The unstable world of
climate change has long been a prediction. Now, the WMO says, it is a
reality."
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/environment/story.jsp?story=421166
Mike Gann, Humboldt County, northern California farmer
Take the
Pledge for Climate
Protection
Let the beautiful Earth provide
Here are 10 vital steps to slow global warming and climate destabilization.
Some of these steps may be difficult at first, but all are fun, save money,
and offer exercise and social opportunities. Apparently, government and
greenhouse-gas generating corporations are not up to the task of saving
the climate. So, let us act for the Earth at this critical time. The worlds
transport sector is the worst offender in greenhouse-gas emissionsespecially
the U.S. car fleet. Waiting for the technofix for industry could
be ecocide: renewable energy cannot support a huge consumer economy; it
is expected to rely on the same unsustainable infrastructure, and dwindling
cheap petroleum in its diverse uses cannot be fully substituted.
A climate background section follows the Pledge, and next are the steps
in greater detail: guided explanations and their benefits to you, society,
and our Earth. Our postcard featuring these steps is available: email us
to request
postcards (tree-free paper; 25 cents each or $14 for 100).
The Earth lovingly provides its wondrous array of species, food, water
and climates for our survival, so lets save it and be proud and conscious
of what we are bequeathing to the next generations.
I pledge to begin taking as
many of the following steps as I can to stave off the worst effects of global
warming, and spread the word. In so doing I will cut fossil fuel use.
I
will do some or all of the following:
1.
Cut down on driving my vehicle, or carpool. I will walk or bike,
and not buy a car if I do not have one (best of all). I will support and
use mass transit. I may work closer to my home.
2.
Cut down on working just for money: I can thereby barter more, and
cut down on commuting.
3.
Depave my driveway, or help others depave their driveways,
or depave parking lots, and grow food in depaved land.
4.
Unplug or retire my television, and perhaps go off the electricity
grid. I will reduce energy for heating, and share appliances such as my
oven with neighbors, and not buy or use power tools or jet skis, etc.
5.
Publicly oppose new road construction and road widening in my community,
to start undoing sprawl, prevent growth in traffic, and halt the spread
of forest roads allowing clearcuts.
6.
Take vacations without jet air travel, and avoid career activity
dependent on jet travel.
7.
Plant trees, collect rainwater, and avoid overusing municipal water
as it is energy-consumptive (and thus may emit CO2, the main heat-trapping
gas that fossil fuels release).
8.
Buy local products, buy as little plastic as possible, carry a travel
mug. Minimize consumption. Support alternative plant materials to cut down
on petrochemicals and trees for paper. Avoid eating animal products especially
shipped-in beef.
9.
Not bring more children into the world, or limit my offspring to
one, and possibly adopt. I recognize the threat of overpopulation.
10.
Inform my community and the greater national and global community
on the need to take action such as the above for climate stability.
Ten detailed steps for greenhouse relief
and benefits
1. Drive your car less, or give it up. Perhaps you can
try carpooling or renting a car. Eventually you could move your residence
closer to work, or find a job closer to home. Ride a bike, walk, take the
bus or the train. Use bike-carts for hauling. Each gallon of gasoline burned
means five pounds of carbon into the atmosphere. The U.S. burns over 115
billion gallons a year.
2. Cut down on working just for cash. Personal arrangements
reduce commuting and boost community. Garden or farm locally so you can
share in the food. Help clean or repair someones home, and in return
perhaps get your hair styled or get a massage! Do some child care or teaching
in your immediate neighborhood so others dont have to drive their
kids, and you may be compensated in the form of getting some clothing, firewood
or music lessons. Establish local currency.
3. Depave your driveway or someone elses. Grow
food. Tear up a parking lot. Good soil for growing food is often under
asphalt and concrete, except when a bed of rocks was put in and soil scraped
away. Narrowing a road (which calms traffic and lowers the urban heat
island effect of pavement) can allow for all-important tree planting.
Create compost with kitchen scraps and garden clippings, for growing depaved
veggies. Save urine for fertilizing trees; dilute it for garden plants.
4. Unplug the television and other electric or motorized
appliances or toys. Read books, play non-electric musical instruments, and
talk with your family. Get news and entertainment from a solar or handcrank
radio. Get off the grid: use no electricity in first one room, then
others. Reduce heating. Share ovens: Six loaves of bread can bake at once
instead of one-this means getting together with neighbors! Go to bed early
so as to not turn night into day. Use non-petroleum oil lamps. Minimize
outdoor lighting. No motorized recreational toys or two-stroke engines.
Push-mow lawns; bring back the scythe to clear fields.
5. Halt road construction at local, state and national
levels. More roads and wider roads bring about more car and truck traffic
and CO2 emissions, and allow sprawl development which means more electricity-demand
and less green space. Roads are the way forests have been clearcut. There
should be no compromise: our biosphere is running out of time. Cheap oil
is running out too fast for myriad roads to be useful.
6. Reject the jet: Take vacations without air travel. Sail.
Go into a line of work not requiring jet travel. Jets are less energy efficient
than cars, per capita, comparing a jet full of passengers to one person
driving. Forget jet skis too!
7. Plant trees on lawns (including golf courses), and everywhere:
they suck up CO2. Vital places for restoration include stream
and river banks, and dirt roads that have been closed. (Do close roads;
the Earth would approve.) Hope that increasingly violent storms due to global
warming will not destroy forests and plants too badly. Collect rain water
and use water sparingly for washing, especially cars, as pumping municipal
water can use much fossil-fuel energy that adds to global warming.
8. Buy and consume locally: This cuts down on petroleum-based
transport. Also, buy smart: little or no petroleum plastic. Reuse
paper bags and glass containers. Support sustainable, nontoxic materials-industries
such as hemp: it replaces pulping of trees. Buy in bulk. Reuse and recycle
everything including kitchen scraps for compost. Avoid eating animal
products especially shipped-in beef. Consume no factory-farm
animal products; the herds create methane and demand great quantities of
electricity and petroleum. Earths petroleumoil and natural gaswill
be virtually gone before 2050. Growing food organically does not use fertilizers
made from natural gas or pesticides from oil. To improve diet for health
and localization, look into www.living-foods.com.
9. Reduce population growth: Adopt a child instead of reproducing,
but bearing one child is better than adding two to the population. Fewer
consumers especially in the highest per capita energy-using nation (the
U.S.) means lower global-warming emissions. Why bring another life into
an overpopulated, greenhouse world? Instead of More Jobs for
more people, what about less people? More jobs=more CO2 emissions.
10. Community action: Aim it toward governments and big corporations.
If todays level of outcry against genetically engineered food and
the excesses of world corporate trade were combined, that might be enough
to get the ball rolling. So, write letters, demonstrate in the streets,
form boycotts, and attend city-council and county-supervisor hearings. Use
the Internet to email this, and link websites to www.culturechange.org. Take
loving action to discourage fellow citizens climate-changing habits.
Good luck to us all; we are all one.
***
The Beautiful Earth Provides
by Jan Lundberg
Our world is wondrous and still is mysterious. May it always contain
and nurture development of species, and rocks too, in all their amazing
variety and function, as vital to the whole. Simply because civilization
recently came along and allowed overpopulation of one confused species (most
of us by now), does not mean we should give up hope for resuming our evolution
in an accepting, joyful fashion.
As daunting as todays problems arethat we have foisted on
the future as wellwe are fortunate to be here and alive. In our time
on the Earth we need to love one another and our common home, for our own
happiness and peace of mind, as well as for securing for the future the
beauty of this little third stone from the Sun. Our achievements can be
said to be awesome, but perhaps the best of them return our attention to
the original state of abundance shared by all: Please dont destroy
these lands/Dont make them desert sands. (the Yardbirds, mid
1960s)
What you may have already known:
Greenhouse gases are building up due to human activity. The result is
a measurable rise in average global temperature of one degree Fahrenheit
from one hundred years ago. That is amazing in geohistory, and the trend
is accelerating. The hottest seven years since record keeping began have
been in the 1990s. The resultant distortion of the planets sensitive
climate system is now bringing on sea-level rise and new patterns of drought,
affecting crops and fisheries. More intense storms are part of rapid global
warming; this phase has begun. Four-fifths of the main greenhouse gas, carbon
dioxide, is from fossil fuels combustion. Meanwhile, industry propagandists
(fossil-fuel lobbyists and corporate news-media commentators) spin myths
that more carbon is good for plant growth, and that there is scientific
debate on global warming. The grains of truth in those concepts are more
than offset by the reality of deforestation and loss of fertile soils that
are drying and eroding as never before. Desertification has accelerated,
but is nothing new as a by-product of civilization.
What you may NOT have known:
Current climate change from global warming is happening more rapidly
than expected by scientists and their computer climate-change models, because
the models do not incorporate the effects of humans actions
such as deforesting the Amazon rainforest. Climatologists warn that
if the Earth loses much more precipitation-regulating forests, then warming
and droughts could rapidly intensify. Ice caps are melting, most glaciers
are in retreat, and huge chunks of Antarctic ice shelves are breaking off,
promising to boost ocean temperature and sea-level rise several times more
than the models forecast. The U.S. had its warmest spring on record this
year, which followed the warmest winter on record. The National Oceanic
and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) said this year the climate is warming
at an unprecedented rate. If cooling sulphur emissions and aerosolswhich
may cease in production, and do not linger long in the atmosphereare
taken into account, global warming is significantly greater than
calculated.
What we are putting into the atmosphere today will not be felt or detected
in terms of global warming for another 50 years or more. The discernible
warming today due to fossil fuel burning comes from prior to 1950.
Not to slow global warming now is madness.
Positive feedback loops mean that carbon or methane sinks
become greenhouse gas sources (emitters), and rising temperatures cause
more release of the gases, causing quicker global warming which releases
more gases more quickly, and so onthe runaway greenhouse effect.
The Arctics permafrost is melting, releasing CO2 and methane contained
there; ocean temperatures are rising which kills phytoplankton that soak
up carbon; ocean water expands when heated and would engulf more land, killing
vegetation that releases CO2. Meanwhile, bodies of water hold heat while
ice reflects it away. Vast amounts of frozen methane on sea bottoms can
be released, contributing to oceanic and atmospheric warming. Species are
being driven extinct at a rate of perhaps over one hundred a day, before
much global warming has even hit.
Individual and mass action is clearly required now; we must not wait
to see what Al Gore would do. He supports more highway building, which increases
motor vehicle use. U.S. automobiles are the single biggest contributor
to greenhouse-gas emissions. If non-petroleum fuels were the new propulsion
for vehicles, the amount of CO2 emissions would increase with electric
vehicles charged up on a fossil-fuel electric utility grid. But most emissions
from cars are from the mining and manufacturing of the cars and components.
The Kyoto Protocol, a United Nations-spawned proposed treaty adopted
in 1997, calls for the U.S. to cut greenhouse gases by 7% of 1990 levels.
The Senate has not yet ratified it. Meanwhile, emissions have risen, to
over 11% beyond 1990 levels. So, emissions are supposed to go down by 18%
between 2008-2012, assuming they stopped going up now. The revised goal
for arithmetic accuracy by then may have to be 25%, although that is less
than half of what the climate needsassuming other nations came through
too. Unless this happens, the result may be the runaway greenhouse effect.
Scientists with the U.N.s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
stated in 1995 that the worlds fossil-fuels emissions reduction must
be 60-80%. In Kyoto, Fossil Fuels Policy Action was advised that transport
is the sector accounting for the rise in greenhouse gas emissions in the
1990s. To offset this means no new roads globally. It means retiring
cars as Cuba did upon losing its Soviet oil. It means massive birth control.
It means neighbors sharing the use of ovens to cook meals, and more.
In June 2000 the San Francisco Chronicle referred to the Global
Warming Debate in a headline. This adds to confusion and prevents
needed action. The reality of climate-change is not getting through, despite
the alternative media. The U.S. government demands cheaper gasoline from
the oil companies and more oil from OPEC. With that kind of leadership,
when it knows full well what global warming is doing, our choosing lifestyle
change on the individual level is what the Earth demands. In the process
of a mass movement we will save money and improve health and sociability.
Due to heatwaves at present, perhaps due to global warming, energy shortages
exist for electric power. This seems like the best reason and time to implement
Kyoto-type cuts in consumption to cut emissions.
The technofix hope, pinned on renewable energy, can be a
misleading dead-end when we consider dwindling oils unique applications,
and we face existing overpopulation propped up by cheap petroleum. The technofix
is well supported in the environmental movements literature because
the industrial approach gets well funded. The inefficient, overbuilt infrastructure
that the technofix would attempt to preserve relies on oils non-energy
uses: e.g., asphalt, tires and plastic.
This documents list of steps to take is limited. Be creative! Eventually,
a natural balance can be restored, and we will along the way achieve local
food-supply security through non-petroleum farming and non-oil transport
and trade. The steps in the Pledge for Climate Stabilization would aid the
grassroots movement to fight climate destabilization.
Legislation and court decisions limiting secondhand smoke was possible
through active respect for individual and public health. To pass and enforce
laws against motor-vehicle exhaust is harder than fighting tobacco companies,
because the national and global economy would collapse without ongoing sales
of new motor vehicles. Some would welcome collapse, but society is already
challenged to adequately care for stockpiles of nuclear weapons and radioactive
waste.
There is hope in grassroots, nonviolent direct action. It is peaceful
when people in the oppositionthose in denialare thought of as
lacking information or in experience in using courage. Shutting down the
WTO meeting peacefully in Seattle last fall proves people can be motivated
to turn off the televisions and computers, get out of their cars, and make
a long-term difference.
See Culture Change's United Nations Climate
Change Conference page.
Check out the website of the Campaign
against Climate Change/Rising Tide
and The Independent's report on the alarming findings of the World
Meterological Organisation.
Climate change could be next legal battlefield: Climate
Justice Programme
The ABC's of global warming from Environmental
Defense, Inc.
Hear Have a Global Warming Day by The Depavers
See City of Arcata's adoption of Kyoto
Protocol's goals
For general global warming information visit www.earthisland.org
and www.theecologist.org
Climate Crisis - a Briefing for Funders, a book by the Climate Initiatives Fund,
is available on request by contacting Jon Cracknell at jon@climatefund.org
or Simon Retallack at simon@climatefund.org.
See SEI's/Culture Change's Donate page
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