Climate: Time Is Short

[RedEarth]

Climate: Time Is Short

By Ted Glick

April 14th was without doubt a turning point in the movement to prevent catastrophic climate change. Many tens of thousands of people in all 50 states took action on Step It Up day. We demanded that Congress move now to cap and begin reducing the carbon emissions that are dangerously heating up the earth, toward the goal of 80% reductions by 2050.

However, I've been thinking all week about this fact: despite the tremendous upsurge in consciousness about and activism on the climate crisis over the past year and a half in the USA, those greenhouse gas emissions just keep going up. Despite everything that is being done by the tens of thousands of grassroots activists, many mayors and city councils, students and college administrators, businesses and state governments, famous politicians and movie stars, and individuals and families in their homes, when it comes to an actual capping of emissions and the beginnings of a downwards turn, it just isn't happening.

This is not surprising, given the pervasiveness of fossil fuel use throughout the economies of the world, the maddening intransigence of the Republicans and the timidity until very recently of most national Democratic leaders. But it is not something to be sanguine about.

..........

We don't have the luxury of time on this issue. Scientists like James Hansen have said we have less than 10 years to fundamentally alter our energy policies, and that was a year and a half ago. A small number of scientists think we may have already reached the point of no return. Other scientists think that we are fast approaching it.

What is that "point of no return?" Climate scientists say that it's when there is so much carbon and heat in the atmosphere that the world's forests, oceans and soil-currently carbon "sinks," absorbers and storers of carbon-are so saturated with it that they cannot absorb any more and become actual sources of carbon. There is a chance that this point will be reached when we get to 400 parts per million of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. We're currently at 382, and each year brings an additional two and a half parts per million (ppm).

According to the Potsdam Institute, as reported in George Monbiot's Heat: How to Stop the Planet from Burning, with the "equivalent of 440 ppm of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, there is a 67% chance of holding the temperature rise" to a point which will avoid catastrophic climate change. And as Monbiot explains, when you add in the other greenhouse gases-methane, nitrous oxide, several fluorocarbons-we are right around that "equivalent of 440 ppm" right now.

As study of the earth's climate history demonstrates, if we reach a point where the earth's carbon sinks become sources of carbon, it is virtually certain that we will enter a period in the world's history that can best be described as climate hell. James Hansen believes that, under these circumstances, eventual sea level rise of 80 feet is a distinct possibility, probably inevitable.

Each year that passes without action to seriously reduce carbon emissions is one more year that we are rolling the dice for ourselves, our children and future generations.

We need to do more. We as a country need to lead the world on this issue. We need to provide an example in action that we get it. We need to operate as if we were on a war footing, a nonviolent war against anything which prevents the rapid and urgent unfolding of a clean energy revolution.

............

The conditions are ripe for a political offensive directed at Congress on this issue, demanding that they move now, pass strong legislation and refuse to give in if Bush vetoes. We should make it clear to Congressional Democrats and Republicans who say they care about this issue that we expect them to "go to the mat" with Bush in defense of our ecosystem, our economy, our children and future generations.

I'm prepared for a long fast. I'm ready to get arrested, again. Is there anyone else who feels the same?

Ted Glick is the Coordinator of the U.S. Climate Emergency Council and co-founder of the Climate Crisis Coalition. His Future Hope columns are archived at www.ippn.org. He can be contacted at [e-mail] or P.O. Box 1132, Bloomfield, N.J. 07003.


http://www.climatecrisiscoalition.org/tedclimatecolumn.html

[patrice]

1. 400 non-weirdo, ordinary, normally passive people marched through

the Country Club Plaza here in K.C. on April 14th. This says something!

P.S. I know the "weirdos" and these were not they.

[kestrel91316]

2. I think the fundies might be right about something.......

very soon now, this planet is going to get virtually uninhabitable for human civilization. The lucky ones will get "Raptured" (they will DIE) up to "heaven" and the rest of us will be stuck here in a "hell" of our own making, knowing that it's all our fault.

:cry: