The Urgency to Address Global Climate Change

There seems to be no urgency in the US. I mean, even Sen. Boxer looks at the problem as something to do when they clear health care reform off the table. Well, it is a hell of a lot more important than that.

I want to call everyone's attention to a paper by Dr. John Lemons that was posted at Climate Ethics earlier this month. I quote from the Introduction:

The goal of this paper is twofold: (1)to briefly describe recent scientific information on global climate change that suggests a greater need for urgency of action than might have previously been thought, and (2)to suggest that philosophers develop ethical stances that support nonviolent civil disobedience action to mitigate the problem of global climate change given its urgency.

(it loads faster from the 1st link).

There is a real opportunity to do something about this, now, not later. Obama gave a good speech today at the UN, mouthing all the right words as is his style. However, he can not deliver a good product out of a Congress where his party has overwhelming majority control. That is really sad. It says loads about the ethics of our leadership in Washington. Even our Senator Boxer seems to think that Climate Change is something that they will get to when health care is finally off the table. That just may be too late. The world will watch what the US does in Copenhagen in December and, based on past performance, it won't be much except talk.

This is no longer purely an economic issue, nor only about technology. As Dr. Lemons lays it out, our ethical standards are being challenged and we are failing.

Time for Greens to save this planet.

Earth Day 2009

(I sent the following to the National Committee, Green Party US this morning.)

It is one month and one day until Earth Day 2009.

This is a day that wants to be branded with the name Green. The Earth Day Network site says that this year they will start the Green Generation Campaign. The list of Earth Day Events starts with one on April 19th... Earth Day at the National Mall, but events will be held all over the country.

I can easily remember the first Earth Day. I thought it was a great event. At that time, 1970, it was very much at the center of the national consciousness. There were two highly respected members of Congress heading the committee: A Democratic Senator (Gaylord Nelson - WI) and a Republican Representative (Pete McCloskey - CA).

Today is very different. A recent (March 5-8, 2009) Gallup Poll says that American concern for economic growth is higher than their concern for the environment. This, at a time when economic growth deals with the quality of life and the environmental issue is whether we will be able to sustain life as we know it at all.

April 12 - 18 has been named National Environmental Education Week. It is an effort to raise the level of awareness for children in K-12 schools.

So, what do your State and Local Green organizations plan to do for these events?

Last week was the International Scientific Congress on Climate Change: Global Risks, Challenges & Decisions in Copenhagen, DK. Attended by over 2000 scientists, the Conference published some key findings, beginning with the fact that what was recently considered to be worst case scenarios for climate change must now be considered most probable outcome. Coupled with the current economic crisis, we will see social disruption on a massive scale. Consider that the homes of over 20% of Vietnamese will be flooded.

Do we just let this happen or do we try to turn the spotlight on the Know Nothing Republicans and the Do Nothing Democrats? This is a time of moral crisis and future generation, if there are any, will judge us by what we did or didn't do.

Media coverage of Global Warming.

I have on multiple occasions found reason to fault the media for taking the easy road, asking questions of any supposed player and then expecting the public to make up their own mind. This may be OK when there are no verifiable facts regarding the issue being presented, but it is inexcusable where one presenter lies misrepresents the facts.

But the biggest sin practiced by the media is to define news as old or to ignore it completely. That is exactly what nearly every major US media outlet has managed to do regarding the recent Copenhagen Climate Science Congress. This was a major meeting of 2000 scientists involved in the study of climate and the disruption of normal climate patterns that we are currently experiencing. More details by clicking Read more!


The Congress had 5 key findings. Any one of these would have been news had the media not been saturated with a universal reaming of AIG and their bonus policies. Some in the media, and almost all of the Republican Congressional delegation will say that the climate scientists have been alarmist, scaring people, fabricating data to keep their projects funded, etc. In fact, most scientist are so scared of the alarmist title that they have been conservative in their forecasts for future climate scenarios and almost universally wrong. The #1 finding from Copenhagen was:

Recent observations confirm that, given high rates of observed emissions, the worst-case IPCC scenario trajectories (or even worse) are being realized.

In the face of an increasing amount of data and an increasing imperative to take some action, the Republicans in the House of Representative are holding fast to their Do Nothing policies. In fact, it seems that they are so reactionary to have returned to the policies of one of their predecessors, the Know Nothing Party. That rather fits their immigration policies, but that is another story.

It is not unreasonable to claim that we are living in The Age of Stupid. As this UK Documentary looks back at our time from a not to distant future, it finds many instances of Know Nothing-ism and, sadly, too much of do-nothing form those who really understood but failed to act for one reason or another. That clearly defines the Republican (Know Nothing) and Democratic (Do Nothing Effective) stances.

At least, the UK Greens do not accept the status quo of the Age of Stupid. They turned out en masse to swell the numbers attending the public premier of this documentary.