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OpEd: Kyoto and Beyond (Waking Up a Divided, Mesmerized World)
Posted on Tuesday, February 15, 2005 @ 19:30:33 UTC by vlad
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Anonymous writes: On February 16, 2005, the Kyoto Protocol on Climate Change goes into effect to begin a global rescue mission. It's a historic first step, but the U.S., the top greenhouse gas producer hasn't signed on. And developing countries, including China and India, are exempt.
Still, every country in the world meeting Kyoto's goals wouldn't save our children from the catastrophes a consensus of scientists predict. Meeting the Climate Challenge, a report from the International Climate Change Task Force, warns we're approaching a point of no return. If we don't act decisively, average global temperatures could over decades rise almost four degrees Fahrenheit above 1750's levels. They're already up over one degree. We'd face agricultural failures, diseases, droughts and floods. Some experts forecast a 10 degree jump, much higher sea levels and possible abrupt, runaway changes to ocean currents.
Europe's 30,000 heat wave casualties in 2003 and four hurricanes battering Florida may have been statistical flukes. Yet, especially for billions of coastal residents, these images, along with the earthquake-generated tsunami, are horrifying harbingers of future disruptions.
Concerned citizens and leaders worldwide may now be more inclined to think about the unthinkable and our closing window of opportunity.
But how do you wake up a planet divided and mesmerized by political, social, economic, religious and cultural conflicts?
H.G. Wells and Ronald Reagan both said only an external threat could motivate humanity to see beyond our differences to common goals. In films like Armageddon and Deep Impact, unlikely personalities team up to avert collisions with asteroids -- life-ending million-megaton warheads. This June, Steven Spielberg's War of the Worlds remake will show us uniting against space invaders.
What if we redefine global warming as an asteroid barrage, hitting earth with deadly impacts through this century -- and decide to defend ourselves? If enough of us become convinced that's our future, would that change global priorities?
If so, we still have time to conserve far more energy and find substitutes for most uses of coal, oil and gas. Unfortunately, we can't stop climate change entirely. But we can slow it way down.
I spend my days working with a growing coalition to bring to market new vehicles known as "gas-optional" or "plug-in" hybrids. This missing technological link can triple gasoline efficiency and pave the way to zero-carbon cars. When skeptics warn me how long it takes industry to introduce new automobiles, I remind them what happened after Pearl Harbor. When the War Production Board ordered tanks and aircraft engines, Detroit's factories re-tooled in under a year.
We can apply our abundant resources strategically and with similar determination. We can harness existing technologies, without awaiting R&D. Wind and photovoltaic power, improving batteries, a modernized electricity grid and conservation can take us very far. So can cellulose biofuel plantations and reforestation.
What would this transformation cost? A few percent of the gross global product for many decades -- along with institutional and political changes giving us enormous economic and social benefits.
Today, fossil fuels seem cheaper than renewables only because we subsidize them. We pay their hidden costs with wars, diminished health and environmental damage. And who can estimate the full price our children will pay for climate change?
What's the cost of business as usual? Ask Californians to envision life with no Sierra snow pack for reservoirs, flood control -- or winter sports. Ask Central Valley farmers to feed the world from salt water-soaked fields. Ask people living on coastlines that will become uninsurable, then uninhabitable. Then ask the Pentagon how often droughts, famines and epidemics fuel political instability.
What sounds like the better deal?
# # #
Felix Kramer is a Silicon Valley entrepreneur and founder of the California Cars Initiative.
The author encourages others to freely reproduce this article (in its entirety, including a link to the AlterNet version, where it originally appeared on February 14, 2005).
Note: Thanks to Overtone and a few others who submitted the same article. Sharing important information is the reason for this site to exist.
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Cool heads required (Score: 1)
by vlad on Tuesday, February 15, 2005 @ 21:13:33 UTC
(User Info | Send a Message) http://www.zpenergy.com | Article from Spiked-science on-line, 11 February 2005: Cool heads required
As long as the climate change debate is fuelled by politics, the science will remain up in the air.
by Rob Lyons
At a recent global warming conference in Exeter called by UK prime minister Tony Blair, all the usual fears were aired. Yet real debate about climate change seems to be strictly prohibited.
The week before, another conference organised by the Scientific Alliance at London's Royal Institution raised critical questions about the global warming thesis. This time the Royal Society's president Sir Bob May received frontpage coverage for arguing that the event would be biased and dangerous.
'On one hand we have the IPCC [Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change], the rest of the world's major scientific organisations, and the government's chief scientific adviser, all pointing to the need to cut emissions', he wrote. 'On the other we have a small band of sceptics, including lobbyists funded by the US oil industry, a sci-fi writer, and the Daily Mail, who deny the scientists are right. It is reminiscent of the tobacco lobby's attempts to persuade us that smoking does not cause lung cancer. There is no danger this lobby will influence the scientists. But they don't need to. It is the influence on the media that is so poisonous.' (1)
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Read the whole article here: http://www.spiked-online.com/Articles/0000000CA8CF.htm
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Re: OpEd: Kyoto and Beyond (Waking Up a Divided, Mesmerized World) (Score: 1)
by ElectroDynaCat on Wednesday, February 16, 2005 @ 23:29:00 UTC
(User Info | Send a Message) | This entire debate over Global Warming will only be resolved at a time when its results will be irreversible. The Politicians and Corporatists that support GreenHouse Emissions will be long dead before the results of their policies bring about catastrophic change.
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