There’s a bloke I know keeps sending me snippets of info which seem to contradict the fact of global warming. June blizzards in Cincinnati, millennial solar flare cycles, or: “it’s all bunk”, says Prof. Nogo Contrarius of the Didymus-Rand Climate Foundation, that sort of stuff.
Now, far be it from me to buy hook line and sinker into the whole ball of wax being spun around global warming. I feel we should cast a wary and sceptical eye on what we’re being sold in the name of reducing our carbon footprints, individually and collectively. I don’t believe I’m being unduly cynical when I say governments and big business only seem to have got behind the imperative need to combat global warming now they’ve worked out ways to make money out of it, or to make someone else pay for it. It was ever thus.
So what’s new?
Just because the big business cartels have seen a way to make money out of global warming and get the governments (i.e. you and me, the taxpayer) to pay for it, thereby quadrupling their already obscene profits, doesn’t mean global warming isn’t a fact and we don’t need to do something about it. We just need to try and get clear about who’s trying to sell us what, and why?
Among the loony nay-sayers, there are still credible scientists to whom we should listen who question aspects of the definitive IPCC report submitted to UNFCCC Bali in December 2007, confirming global warming was real, is caused by green house gas emissions and requires the world to take urgent action to reduce them or face terrible consequences. Against that, there are many more scientists who now state the problem is a lot worse than the IPCC report ever allowed.
Trouble is, when doctors and scientists disagree, totally contradicting one another about something, it leaves the rest of us totally in the dark. Since we cannot know the truth of it or whom to trust, what then are we to do?
My own feeling is to go with the preponderance of scientific evidence, while maintaining a healthy skepticism as to the financial underpinnings of the whole process. And that goes for the weight given to the reduction of Co2 emissions. Yes, it’s important, but it’s not the only case on the agenda.
Proper stewardship of our oceans is just, if not more critical. Overfishing, the increasing cost of food, deforestation, species extinction, pandemics etc., they are all linked. Let’s not be railroaded in just one direction because big biz and carbon traders find ever more innovative means of creating money out of a can of Ponzi Air. We have, as they say, just been there and done that.
In a few months the Kyoto Treaty of 1997 will expire and the world will meet in December 2009 for the Copenhagen UNFCCC meeting to thrash out a new treaty, when the world has to agree to fair, verifiable and enforceable means of reducing GHG emissions. Despite the urgency, chances of effective agreement at Copenhagen are not good. A fudge is in the offing. The developed world will not accept limits to their economies, if the developing world can go right on emitting.
China and the other developing economies say, “you got us into this, we’re not going to forego growing our economies. You pay the bill”. Obviously a deal is called for involving enlightened self-interest on all fronts and, most importantly, addressing the question of technology transfer. It’s not going to be easy, and it’s going to take time…..and we don’t have any.
The Month in Gaia
A Million Ozzie women…. on the job
Natalie Isaac, a Sydney-based businesswoman, has just launched her “1 Million Women” campaign to cut Australia‘s Co2 emissions by 1 million tonnes. The campaign kicks off in Queensland where the aim is for 200,000 women to register and choose some simple way to cut one tonne from their own carbon footprint in the next 12 months. “For years I talked about what governments needed to do about global warming but never thought I could do anything myself. It’s not true, we can all play our part”. More than a few of us can resonate with that…
Good for Oz, Better in Bali….?!
What’s good for Oz, should be even better for beautiful Bali, right? Any reason not do something similar here? How about 2,500 people cutting 1 tonne Co2 emissions over a year. We could of course do it individually, but it’s a lot more fun and lots easier to do it in company.
So perhaps some committed individual or organization can take it on? The mechanics couldn’t be easier. All you need do is go to www.thegreenasiagroup.com and there you’ll find out exactly how to measure your carbon footprint and the various ways to reduce it. And while we’re about it, let’s include men and go for corporate sponsorships per ton for a worthy eco-cause, why not?
Phwaw! This Time We Really Really Mean it…..
The Badung government is finally calling on the relevant agencies to put a stop to the raw sewage and chemicals routinely and illegally pumped out by business, hotels and restaurants in the Double Six-Legian-Seminyak area into the drainage system, and flowing directly into the sea on Kuta’s world-famous beach. Every business in the area is required by law to have its own sewage capture and treatment system. “This problem has gone on for years and nothing has been done”, complained Wayan Suyasa of DPR-Badung. Pak Wayan apparently means business and promises to get onto the case of the Badung Environmental Chief. Good on yer Wayan….
(Reports NusaBali, Bali Discovery).
Co2 cuts in US to cost $40-$340 p.a. per household
It’s going to cost to de-carbonize the US economy, but nothing near as much as ideological opponents of climate action want the public to believe.
The Waxman- Markey bill on Co2 emissions currently wending its way through Congress will see carbon cap n’ trade provisions costing $22 billion p.a. by 2020, or an average $175 per household. Far below the thousands per household opponents of the bill claim.
Government estimates that in 2020, poorest Americans will actually be getting some money back. The bottom fifth of households will get a tax rebate of $40 p.a. The richest fifth will pay a net cost of $245 p.a. The remaining US households, those in the second lowest fifth will pay $40 p.a., those in the middle$235; and households in the second highest fifth, some $340.
Just $340 a year for the seriously rich is less than $1 a day per family to create a safer future. Most middle class Americans pay $300 a month right now just to keep themselves health-insured. So a couple hundred more a year to restore the health of the entire planet’s climate sounds a good deal.
Nonetheless right wing idealogues at the Heritage Foundation, dead set against the passage of the bill, claim the bill means that come 2020 every one will have to pay $1,500 a year.
Be Warned! Denying Global Warming can cost you….
Kivalina, a small Inuit village in N.W. Alaska, is being forced to relocate. Its 400 residents will shortly become the world’s first climate refugees and they’re suing energy companies in California, including Exxon Mobil for funding “fatuous” research to show there is no link between climate change and human activity to fund their move. Success on the merits could open a floodgate of similar litigation by other coastal communities grappling with the costs of adapting to rising sea levels and other environmental changes attributable to global warming.” It’s not total non-sense that companies that profited most emitting carbon into the commons should have to pay for the consequences of their actions.
Mega-cities, Mega-disasters to come says UN
We’re going to see more intense disasters caused by climate change, says UN Under Secretary General for Humanitarian Affairs, Sir John Holmes. Some of world’s biggest cities are at growing risk of “megadisasters”, the UN’s humanitarian chief said earlier this month. “The risks of megadisasters in megacities are rising,” Holmes warned, predicting a lot more deaths in future natural disasters. Megacities cited include Tokyo, with population over 35 million, and Mumbai, New Delhi, Mexico City and Sao Paulo with more than 20 million.
