Thursday, December 4, 2008
Bad News for the Environment
While I was exploring the internet today, I found a startling article from the Environmental section of www.msnbc.com. Unfortunately, recent research shows that greenhouse gas emissions have actually INCREASED from the U.S. from 2006 by 1.6 percent. The article details that this year's colder winter is cause for an increase in greenhouse gasses from not only the U.S. but nations worldwide. What this means to me is that we are stuck in a vicious cycle. Because the seasons are getting harsher and more unpredictable (due to global warming and the already present greenhouse effect) the world is forced to use more energy to stay comfortable. Thus we are actually perpetuating the problem! No doubt that next year's results will follow in the same pattern as the climate shift will certainly continue. For all those interested, the article, posted yesterday, is available at http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/28039737/.
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We are seeing the effects of global warming all around us – more intense heat waves that
disproportionately affect the elderly and poor, more severe storms that wreak havoc on our
homes and communities, and all kinds of changing cycles in the natural world. That’s why it is
unacceptable for the U.S. government and oil companies like ExxonMobil to continue to fuel
global warming while refusing to support solutions to the problem. While the rest of the world
is trying to stop global warming and protect the planet for future generations, ExxonMobil is
busy drilling for more oil and polluting the atmosphere. What is worse, is that ExxonMobil is
doing its best to stop other countries’ attempts to prevent the world from heating up.
Global warming is now a global emergency. Governments must ensure that there is road
map to agreeing to deep cuts in global greenhouse emissions. The challenges are to divert the
energy force towards clean energy and to stop the world’s forests for commodities such as
palm oil. But soft words do not move governments. Fortunately, a clean energy revolution is
sweeping across the country – we have the tools to put the Earth back in balance and we can
do it today.
When the global temperatures rise it will pose serious threats for the earth.
1. Rising sea levels lead to more coastal erosion and flooding during storms.
2. We also get an increased amount of drought and incidences of wildfires
3. Our forests, wetlands, alpine regions, and other ecosystems are put under severe stress
4. Our disease-carrying insects spread diseases over larger geographical regions
5. There is also a disruption of agriculture in some parts of our world due to temperature increases.
We also get economic costs of the climate crisis. By mid-century the extreme weather could cost about .5-1% of the global economic production. Sir Nicholas Stern, led a seminal study which suggests that the climate could reduce overall economic activity in the range of 5-20%. In order to stabilize the concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere it will slow the rate of global economic growth by about a 10th percent per year. This is equivalent to the world reaching the expected 2030 level in 2031 in order to prevent a climate crisis.
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