Potsdam Institue Climate Director - US "Climate Illiterate", Planet "Not Even Near" Needed GHG Cuts

[hatrack]

OXFORD - U.S. wavering on climate commitment could undermine action to save the planet, the director of Germany's Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research said on the sidelines of a conference on Monday. Preserving the Greenland ice cap was the defining action needed to prevent several meters of sea level rise and warming which would threaten the world's food and water supplies, Hans Schellnhuber told reporters.

The doubts of many Republican U.S. senators over the practicality of a draft, domestic carbon-cutting law undermined the chances of strong global action soon, he said. "It's a deeper problem in the United States, if you look at global polls about what the public knows about climate change, even in Brazil, China you have more people who know the problem, who think that deep cuts in emissions are needed," he said. "The United States is in a sense climate illiterate still. If you look at what people in the Republican party think about this problem it's very unlikely you come up with something."

EDIT

Pledges so far would take overall reductions by all industrialized nations to a maximum of 15 percent, Reuters calculations show. President Barack Obama aims to return U.S. emissions to 1990 levels by 2020.

"We are not even near the reductions that are necessary," said Schellnhuber.

EDIT

http://planetark.org/enviro-news/item/54873

[Bigmack]

1. Thanks for posting this one

Obviously it's a touch on the depressing side, but this stuff needs to be shouted from the roof-tops...... Tho even then no one in this willfully ignorant land would hear/listen. Damn! Ms Bigmack

[joshcryer]

2. I would like to see Schellnhuber's source for "awareness in China."

Brazil, I know a lot about, and they have went to great lengths to be environmentally aware. This is the first I have heard of a country that puts online a GW of coal power every week being 'aware' or 'literate' of climate change. Perhaps by raw numbers it probably might break down that way, but as a percentage of population, I really doubt it.

If anyone has a source with a study in this vein I'd be interested, because it simply defies the evidence we have.

[excess_3]

3. perhaps the countries that actually want this, could go first

expecting the unwilling to go first,
is asking for failure