This is Depressing


Rex passes this along from the SHIFT list:

http://www.commondreams.org/views06/0222-27.htm

The scientific uncertainty in global warming isn’t about whether it’s occurring or whether it’s caused by human activity, or even if it will “cost” us too much to deal with it now. That’s all been settled. Scientists are now debating whether it’s too late to prevent planetary devastation, or whether we have yet a small window to forestall the worst effects of global warming.

Our children may forgive us the debts we’re passing on to them, they may forgive us if terrorism persists, they may forgive us for waging war instead of pursuing peace, they may even forgive us for squandering the opportunity to put the nuclear genie back in the bottle. But they will spit on our bones and curse our names if we pass on a world that is barely habitable when it was in our power to prevent it.

And they will be right to do so.


12 responses to “This is Depressing”

  1. I hope they blame the individuals who ignored the warnings for the last two decades. I believe it was back in the 1980s that Global Warming was first brought to the publics attention. And which political party has basically passed on taking responsibility. I’ll give you one guess. And the author of “Earth in the Balance” isn’t part of this party.

    I know who I will tell my son to blame.

    Ray Whitford

  2. You mean ALL the political parties. The Government has done just as much if not more than any major Corporation and the apathetic publics turned eye has done to devestate the planet.

    If you don’t blame everyone, including every car driving person on this planet, your missing who is to blame. One can’t single it out to one part.

    But then of course at this point, I’m just one of the apathetic. Humanity will probably make it thru someway or somehow, but it will become much rougher than it is now. Eventually our economic “global” balance will be devestated and things will be forced to return to local economies. The only areas that probably even have a chance are the currently colder regions of northern Europe and the US (Japan too).

    Of course nobody really knows and no one seems to be doing a really accurate job of predicting anything. It’s still a big gambling game for too many right now.

  3. A ray of hope? Haven’t we made some significant gains in greenhouse gas emissions here in this region? And without much pain and agony too. Its not near enough, but maybe a model for local action until corporate America forces the “Rs” to get with it.

  4. >Haven’t we made some significant gains in greenhouse gas emissions here in this region? And without much pain and agony too

  5. What taht report says is that even if every human being in the entire world stopped burning anything – wood, oil, whatever – we could already have triggered a runaway Greenhouse scenario, and we could be facing 900-degree temperatures 30 years down the road.

    We’ve already surpassed their doomsday scenario carbon atmospheric carbon concentrations.

    Have fun!!

  6. >Greenland’s ice cover is breaking apart and flowing into the sea at rates far in excess of anything scientists predicted, and it’s accelerating each year.
    In the Antarctic seas, another potentially devastating feedback loop is taking place. Populations of krill have plummeted by 80% in the last few years due to loss of sea ice.If (or when) Greenland’s ice cover melts, it will raise sea levels by 21 feetThe scientific uncertainty in global warming isn’t about whether it’s occurring or whether it’s caused by human activity, or even if it will “cost” us too much to deal with it now. That’s all been settled.http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/pubs/ngrip2004/ngrip2004.html
    “undisturbed climate record from a North Greenland ice core, which extends back to 123,000 years before the present, within the last interglacial period. The oxygen isotopes in the ice imply that climate was stable during the last interglacial period, with temperatures 5°C warmer than today. We find unexpectedly large temperature differences between our new record from northern Greenland and the undisturbed sections of the cores from central Greenland, suggesting that the extent of ice in the Northern Hemisphere modulated the latitudinal temperature gradients in Greenland. This record shows a slow decline in temperatures that marked the initiation of the last glacial period. Our record reveals a hitherto unrecognized warm period initiated by an abrupt climate warming about 115,000 years ago, before glacial conditions were fully developed. This event does not appear to have an immediate Antarctic counterpart, suggesting that the climate see-saw between the hemispheres (which dominated the last glacial period) was not operating at this time”

  7. Adron says “You mean ALL the political parties”

    I agree. Liberals like to blame corporations and consumer behavior, which is partly true. However, when you come up with expensive government projects that creates a finacial burden which then causes people to scramble to keep footing the bill, it can exacerbate the problem. Thus, more economic activity and greenhouse gas. Also, you have more government workers cruising around in their publicly funded vehicles. And it ain’t just cars, by Crikey! You have to figure in the use of fossil fuels to heat and cool big, drafty houses, the heating and cooling of office buildings, the power generation for a multitude of purposes of the increased bureaucracy….Many of the mainstays of the “liberal”…. Isn’t there a real economist somewhere on this board?

    Hopefully, we can prevent this from happening in the rest of the world! How? By direct action to
    provide for consumer needs, as contrasted to reliance on export economies, which require a massive investment in infrastructure.

    But then I guess you guys aren’t going to the UN Urban Forum? (Maybe Chris will let me post reports.)

    BTW, bringing up the deficit caused by the Iraq War (and we know who caused it) doesn’t really produce a solution to controlling it in the future. We’ve got it now and have to integrate it in to the spending equation. It’s sort of like being an eight year old child and your daddy blows the paycheck at the racetrack. What are you gonna do? Move out?

    Fortunately, there are some true innovators around the world working on alternative technologies. I’m watching the passive solar and cooling and Sterling cycle–including quasiturbine–technologies. I hope are third world relatives will continue bicycling and design urban communities around that mode.

  8. Thanks, Chris. I am not sure who will be there, but I suspect Canucks will be a big group. It is still probably too expensive for many developingworld people to get to Vancouver, although I believe it may be well attended by Commonwealthers–Australia, India, Brits. China (wouldn’t you know it) is gonna have a huge exhibit. I tried to get a rental booth to feature NW projects but couldn’t get any group to cooperate to make the required application.

    2002 Forum was in Nairobi, 2004 in Barcelona: this is in Vancouver, BC. There was an online discussion Dec 1-3 with 39,00 participants. The results are supposed to be edited to major threads, but we’re still waiting. Here is the website: http://www.wuf3-fum3.ca/en/home.shtml

    scroll down to WUF3 Program Outline (in three languages)

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