The planet is now facing an emergency that will affect all humankind. But this may provide an opportunity to address our most difficult challenges together. Mitigating the effects of climate change can also mean addressing poverty and creating new ways of life.
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All Comments (16)
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LatinBros
http://www.lufkinisd.org/campuses/coston/
December 15, 2007 2:42 PM | Report Offensive Comments
Posted on December 15, 2007 14:42
In the age of an obesity epidemic it is hard to believe that humans are capable of controlling what we put into the air when it is obvious that we cannot control what we put into our bodies.
Turning resources into useful or elegant products has always been a human occupation, but it was not until the process became industrialized that danger started to emerge.
Just as humans get fuel from food, this planet consumes energy from the sun which generates all the get-up-and-go that life on earth relies upon.
The reasons why a threat now exist are due only in part to human activity. Industrial co2 have combined with natural emissions which results in accelerated global warming, just as a very unhealthy appetites combined with inactivity results in obesity. Both human activities add too much fat to the natural systems involved, so much so that neither can cope with the greed common to each example.
Greed is the underlying cause of the two problems and is not something which can be easily solved. Without reducing emissions and increasing the size of carbon sinks this planet cannot possibly absorb the present overabundance of atmospheric co2. Unfortunately current industrial development will push co2 equivalent concentrations (currently at 430) past the 450ppm by 2020. This is the dilemma without an easy solution, but first a problem and its gravity must be accepted by those most at risk before any effective measures can be taken.
Do we expect the morbidly obese to eat less and exercise more or a smoker to smoke less while taking less smoke into his lungs? I’m sure these remedies are effective but I’m also convinced that they have never worked.
The only way to solve this crises is to reduce the burdan of consumerism by raising taxes on luxury goods,food prices, raising fuel costs thereby ruining the economy before it ruins the earth.
A managed disaster will be better than having no plan at all.
May 10, 2007 9:10 PM | Report Offensive Comments
Posted on May 10, 2007 21:10
Global warming is the cause du jour for the hair-shirt-wearing, the-end-is-nigh zealots. Manmade global warming may be real, but is there really any evidence that it will be as catastrophic as people make it out to be? And more importantly, is there anything we can do about it? The Kyoto accord won't stop it.
April 17, 2007 4:43 PM | Report Offensive Comments
Posted on April 17, 2007 16:43
we do not know whether the global warming is a natural process in the climatic change or a result cause by humankinds . it is still to be identified .but from many statistics we can conclude that the situation is not so optimistic
April 17, 2007 9:57 AM | Report Offensive Comments
Posted on April 17, 2007 09:57
Energy independence starts in 2 places: 1 is your circuit breaker box in your house, and the other is at the door to your car. Both locations lend themselves well to your future considerations on energy usage, and will provide you the opportunity to vastly reduce your carbon footprint if you are willing to make some hard choices.
Another good place to make some energy decisions is when you're sitting in front of the TV, or even in front of your computer, and that 'off' switch is just sitting there, mutely begging your attention. If it's a sunny day, and you're inside, and you don't have to be, well....
April 17, 2007 7:04 AM | Report Offensive Comments
Posted on April 17, 2007 07:04
name one 1000 year period in which there was not cooling or warming. this is a fake - its only here because algore owns a business selling fake carbon credits
April 16, 2007 7:18 PM | Report Offensive Comments
Posted on April 16, 2007 19:18
Global warming is caused by the Sun. Please, refer to the "The Great Global Warming Swindle" by the BBC. If mankind needs to do anything it is what we have always done, we must adapt to our environment.
April 16, 2007 4:32 PM | Report Offensive Comments
Posted on April 16, 2007 16:32
We are in global warming... We have been in global warming for a minimum of 15,000 years when the current cycle started melting back the glaciers that covered large parts of Europe, Asia, North America, Russia, etc... So, who do we blame for that...
Al Gore aside, man did not cause global warming, we may have accelerated the current cycle of warming a bit in time but we still would have reached todays glaciation levels in any case within a century or so... In the context of multiple cycles of glaciation (global cooling) followed by melting (global warming) extending back more than 150 million years, the Industrial Revolution is miniscule and in the end will be only a footnote in future history texts...
On the issue of cutting down the tropical forests, future generations will curse us for that... However, I see no answer other than a world dictator who would impose solutions by force...
The real crises is not some small increase in the rate of global warming but the rate of over population by people... We are a plague vastly worse than any climate change... We give vermin a bad name...
April 16, 2007 4:21 PM | Report Offensive Comments
Posted on April 16, 2007 16:21
"This is a time for great decisions. Luckily, solutions converge. To mitigate the effects of climate change means to protect the poorest communities of the world; to reduce extravagant consumption in the richest countries means to create a new way of life all around the world..."
Umm...hasn't this been tried a couple times already? Hitler? Stalin? Mao? PolPot?
April 15, 2007 8:11 PM | Report Offensive Comments
Posted on April 15, 2007 20:11
Correction :
Reference 1. For direct access, one may want to try:
http://www.radio-canada.ca/sedna/
April 15, 2007 3:53 PM | Report Offensive Comments
Posted on April 15, 2007 15:53
Hunt: "There is no more Climate Change than what has always been. All this so called Gobal Warming is a joke. It is the Far Left Enviromentalist, NOT ALL scientist believe AL Gore."
I can hardly believe shameful comments like the above still make their way into the Washington Post, in 2007!
1. For what is true to be true, there is no need that ALL scientists agree...
2. Climate is now changing at an unprecedented rate, with more extreme conditions becoming always more frequent; and this has dire consequences on biodiversity, on people's health, etc.
3. As for Global Warming being "a joke", the Hunts of this world are invited to read what Canadian biologist Jean Lemire has to say, after leading a 430 days scientific expedition in Antarctica, recently, on board the Sedna IV. The winter Lemire's team spent there was no winter, really, and every indication appears to be that Global Warming is becoming a reality more rapidly than most scientists have predicted.
References:
1. http://ww.radio-canada.ca/sedna/index.html?/spip/sommaire.php3?lang=fr
2. http://www.radio-canada.ca/nouvelles/Science-Sante/2006/12/01/001-lemire-sedna.shtml?ref=rss
April 15, 2007 3:39 PM | Report Offensive Comments
Posted on April 15, 2007 15:39
Global warming should be taken seriously animals need our protection as well as the environment that we all live in. we should all come together to help perserve so our children may ee what we have enjoyed while growing up..
April 15, 2007 2:22 PM | Report Offensive Comments
Posted on April 15, 2007 14:22
>> This is a time for great decisions. Luckily, solutions converge. To mitigate the effects of climate change means to protect the poorest communities of the world; to reduce extravagant consumption in the richest countries means to create a new way of life all around the world. We are all together on the same planet, confronting the same destiny, threatened by the same global dangers. Can World leaders see the extreme risks and unparalleled opportunities of the present time? I wish they could.
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I wish too but they can not. Rich countries do not care how live others. It's life.
April 15, 2007 9:07 AM | Report Offensive Comments
Posted on April 15, 2007 09:07
There is no more Climate Change than what has always been. All this so called Gobal Warming is a joke. It is the Far Left Enviromentalist, NOT ALL scientist believe AL Gore.
April 15, 2007 1:07 AM | Report Offensive Comments
Posted on April 15, 2007 01:07
Time is running out. Worldwide mobilization is urgently required, in order to save mankind and the planet. All the precursory signs are already there for everyone to see, yet blindness prevails.
I do not share your optimism.
I believe that only when major catastrophes strike in rapid succession, will large numbers awake, begin to move and demand action; but by then, we will be well beyond the point of no return.
It will simply be too late. "The revenge of Gaia" (Lovelock) will then be formidable, irresistible. Our world will just crumble: "not in a bang, but a whimper." (T.S. Eliot)
May the ensuing silence bring us peace!
April 14, 2007 9:16 PM | Report Offensive Comments
Posted on April 14, 2007 21:16
Míriam, boa Noite. Estamos diante de uma revolução,´porque sómente agora, países pobres e países ricos enfrentam a revolução do século:o aquecimento global. Economia e ecologia terão que ser solidárias e andar lado a lado. E o sumário de culpa pelo desastre ecológico não será do Brasil, mas do primeiro Mundo. Se declaravam defensores da causa ecológica, mas deixaram o ônus da conservação para o terceiro Mundo. Hoje a Terra está morrendo e junto com ela a própria vida, se os países super industrializados não assumirem a sua responsabilidade. Desrespeitam todos os relatórios. As tragédias ecológicas não tem origem no Terceiro Mundo e o nosso país está provando para as nações ricas que ainda conserva mais de 60% de suas matas e florestas primitivas. E hoje querem utilizar na cesta da especulação financeira um tal de sequestro de caborno, dando como garantia as nossas florestas, para que a poluição continue no primeiro Mundo, beneficiando uma casta privilegiada e minoritária. O Brasil não pode dar aval a esta aberração, mas cobrar que outras nações resolvam internamente os seus problemas. O ônus da responsabilidade ecológica não é do Brasil e nem da América Latina. O primeiro Mundo tem uma dívida ambiental de mais de 300 anos com os paises do terceiro mundo e com os países em desenvolvimento, porque utilizou recursos sem computar o custo de reposição e que o desenvolvimento se faça de maneira suto sustentada e sem degradação do ar, da água, dos solos e da vegetação. Para acabar com a pobreza mais rapidamente, uma solução simples humanitária e solidária, seria a criação de um imposto internacional sobre as grandes fortunas. Para o profeta do capitalismo Lester Thurow, que esteve em nosso país em 1997 e publicou o Futuro do Capitalismo. Muitas profecias aconteceram e, uma das principais, ainda deve ser uma nova filosofia do modelo perverso de capital volátel de bilhões de dólares sem pátria e destritivo e que hoje se volta contra o principal criador - EUA -. Disse ainda que o principal problema de nosso país " é ter uma população com baixo grau de escolaridade e despreparada para enfrentar a onde tecnológica que está definindo, hoje em dia, a economia mundial de amanhã". Já se passaram dez anos e sómente agora o país está acelerando as bases do desenvolvimento, que de fato é o conhecimento. Disse ainda que " o Brasil errou quando adotou uma estratégia totalmente errada dos novos parceiros internacionais ( a indústria automobilística).Tendopara cá de quaçlquer forma oferecido grandes incentivos fiscais para uma indústria que, se olharmos o mapa mundi, não teria outro lugar para ir. Logo, os brasileiros estão jogando dinheiro fora ao dar incentivos a quem viria para cá de qualquer forma. A estratégia brasileira é tola ", concluiu. E ainda continuamos dando incentivos. Thurow disse também em 1997 que o euro vai mudar o papel do dólar no mercado mundial, o que será mais apropriado para uma era em que os EUA, como potência hegemônica, darão lugar ao mundo multipolarizado". E as suas profecias, na maioria, estão dando certo. A concentração de 50% das riquezas mundias em mãos de sómente 2% da população mundial não está correta.
April 14, 2007 8:57 PM | Report Offensive Comments
Posted on April 14, 2007 20:57