How About Making Some New Decade’s Resolutions?
January 9th, 2006(January 9, 2006) Okay, people. Enough of the niceties and polite conversation about taking baby steps to saving our environment. The news out of 2005 was not great, and the news going into 2006 is not even better.
First, we have a noted Australian scientist Tim Flannery, saying without severe reductions in emissions over the next two decades, the Earth’s climate will be irreversibly altered. His projection is based on the period he says it will take — at current emissions levels — to pump out enough carbon dioxide to warm the globe by around two degrees, to produce ”catastrophic” climate change. So okay, if it’s going to take a few decades, maybe we can enjoy this year with one last SUV or coal mine Clean Air exemption from President Bush— not so fast, Ratso.
No sooner have we taken down our Christmas and Hannukah lights, as well as other politically correct decorations, than the Scripps Institute of Oceanography in La Jolla announces it has discovered fossilized proof the Southern California coastal waters have warmed in recent decades to their highest level in 1,400 years.
This is a little early to echo British Scientist Sir John Lawton’s warning “This IS Global Warming!” but what else can you say? It’s the proverbial writing on the wall. To quote Stokely Carmichael: “Don’t tell me what you believe. Tell me what you do; and I’ll tell you what you believe.” It’s time to step away from savoring selfish interests, and step up to the plate to do what it takes to show the world (and ourselves) what we really believe. For suggestions treehugger.com has some great ideas and links. Good luck and walk proudly!!!
January 16th, 2006 at 4:46 pm
i’m sure you’ve already seen this report:
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2004/06/040611080100.htm, about the 750,00 year-spanning antartic ice core sample, indicating the distinct possibility that present climate change is, indeed, on a “runaway train” schedule.
i am always baffled when people, esp. so-called educated ones - and particularily national news editors - when directly confronted by essentially unassailable evidence, will turn away and watch another episode of “friends” or other pablum.
obviously, this should have been a top story, with lots of follow-up, but the media ran it as a one-time item, and forgot about it.
of course, there’s so much to worry about, and a political scandal or two will push out other, less immediately life-threatening news if the threat of our falling over the cliff isn’t accompanied by exciting video, or perhaps color photos of skin carcinomas, but still…
keep up the good work, and thanks for the link. i shall reciprocate, perhaps with an exciting full-color link. let me work on that for a minute.
January 17th, 2006 at 10:38 pm
I realize that you try to be optomistic on this website, pointing out actions and gains that folks are achieving in the effort to keep this planet from turning into an oven, so I hate to be a stick-in-the-mud, but James Lovelock is being pretty pessimistic these days.
Check out this article in the online version of the UK Independent:http://comment.independent.co.uk/commentators/article338830.ece