Environmentalists won't say this for fear of sounding alarmist or defeatist. Politicians won't say it because then they'd have to do something about it. The world's top climate scientists have been sending this message, however, with increasing urgency for many years.... Until now, most public discussion about global warming has focused on how to prevent it -- for example, by implementing the Kyoto Protocol, which comes into force internationally (but without U.S. participation) on Wednesday. But prevention is no longer a sufficient option. No matter how many "green" cars and solar panels Kyoto eventually calls into existence, the hard fact is that a certain amount of global warming is inevitable.
The world community therefore must make a strategic shift. It must expand its response to global warming to emphasize both long-term and short-term protection. Rising sea levels and more weather-related disasters will be a fact of life on this planet for decades to come, and we have to get ready for them.
Among the steps needed to defend ourselves is quick action to fortify emergency response capabilities worldwide, to shield or relocate vulnerable coastal communities and to prepare for increased migration flows by environmental refugees.
Hertsgaard is right: Most folks, green groups included, have been largely ignoring this elephant in the living room.
Even if the world community does a U-turn tomorrow and embraces the challenge of completely revamping our energy and industrial systems (and we all know how likely that is), we're still toast. Climate change is here, it's now, it's happening, it's inescapable. Cutting greenhouse-gas emissions will just make it less catastrophic. (Not that we don't still need to be cutting -- cut, cut, cut, says Hertsgaard!)
If greens thought it was hard to rally people with the message that action must be taken to avoid future warming, how tough will they find it to galvanize action with the message that climate disaster is unavoidable but we must try to make it slightly less bad?
This is a change of approach for Hertsgaard, who has long used sunny language in talking about climate change by touting a "Global Green Deal" that would "make restoring the environment the biggest economic enterprise of our time, a huge source of jobs, profits and poverty alleviation." It's the sort of message that has picked up steam with the Apollo Alliance, and that more and more environmental activists are getting hip to.
But how to effectively combine the sunny and the gloomy? Greens want to inspire -- need to inspire, as the fear-n-doom approach obviously hasn't been working. And yet somebody has to be responsible and speak truth about what's happening to the climate -- we need to prepare for coming disasters, now. Can environmental groups and climate activists effectively communicate both of these messages? Now there's a PR challenge.
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jdhlax Posted 10:28 am
14 Feb 2005
Changing from a fossil based economy to a more Earth friendly one could provide many well paying jobs and stop many ecologically destructive activities centered around oil, and this "Green Deal" should be touted as a positive message that would attract people to the environmental movement. However, people also need to simplify their lifestyles. For example, driving must be greatly curtailed or eliminated, because roads themselves cause significant ecological harm and because the manufacture of motor vehicles is a great waste of water and other natural resources and causes much pollution.
We need to be honest with the public: our modern industrial lifestyle is not compatible with the Earth and needs to be greatly changed or possibly even eliminated. Cessation of drilling, transporting, refining, and burning of fossil fuels would provide a large environmental benefit, but will not come close to solving many of our ecological or environmental problems. We need both positive and negative messages if we are to accomplish anything substantial.
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felixkramer Posted 4:33 pm
14 Feb 2005
The author encourages others to freely reproduce this article (in its entirety, including a link to the AlterNet version, where it originally appeared on February 14, 2005).
Kyoto and Beyond
by Felix Kramer
On February 16, 2005, the Kyoto Protocol on Climate Change goes into effect to begin a global rescue mission. It's a historic first step, but the U.S., the top greenhouse gas producer hasn't signed on. And developing countries, including China and India, are exempt.
Still, every country in the world meeting Kyoto's goals wouldn't save our children from the catastrophes a consensus of scientists predict. Meeting the Climate Challenge, a report from the International Climate Change Task Force, warns we're approaching a point of no return. If we don't act decisively, average global temperatures could over decades rise almost four degrees Fahrenheit above 1750's levels. They're already up over one degree. We'd face agricultural failures, diseases, droughts and floods. Some experts forecast a 10 degree jump, much higher sea levels and possible abrupt, runaway changes to ocean currents.
Europe's 30,000 heat wave casualties in 2003 and four hurricanes battering Florida may have been statistical flukes. Yet, especially for billions of coastal residents, these images, along with the earthquake-generated tsunami, are horrifying harbingers of future disruptions.
Concerned citizens and leaders worldwide may now be more inclined to think about the unthinkable and our closing window of opportunity.
But how do you wake up a planet divided and mesmerized by political, social, economic, religious and cultural conflicts?
H.G. Wells and Ronald Reagan both said only an external threat could motivate humanity to see beyond our differences to common goals. In films like Armageddon and Deep Impact, unlikely personalities team up to avert collisions with asteroids -- life-ending million-megaton warheads. This June, Steven Spielberg's War of the Worlds remake will show us uniting against space invaders.
What if we redefine global warming as an asteroid barrage, hitting earth with deadly impacts through this century -- and decide to defend ourselves? If enough of us become convinced that's our future, would that change global priorities?
If so, we still have time to conserve far more energy and find substitutes for most uses of coal, oil and gas. Unfortunately, we can't stop climate change entirely. But we can slow it way down.
I spend my days working with a growing coalition to bring to market new vehicles known as "gas-optional" or "plug-in" hybrids. This missing technological link can triple gasoline efficiency and pave the way to zero-carbon cars. When skeptics warn me how long it takes industry to introduce new automobiles, I remind them what happened after Pearl Harbor. When the War Production Board ordered tanks and aircraft engines, Detroit's factories re-tooled in under a year.
We can apply our abundant resources strategically and with similar determination. We can harness existing technologies, without awaiting R&D. Wind and photovoltaic power, improving batteries, a modernized electricity grid and conservation can take us very far. So can cellulose biofuel plantations and reforestation.
What would this transformation cost? A few percent of the gross global product for many decades -- along with institutional and political changes giving us enormous economic and social benefits.
Today, fossil fuels seem cheaper than renewables only because we subsidize them. We pay their hidden costs with wars, diminished health and environmental damage. And who can estimate the full price our children will pay for climate change?
What's the cost of business as usual? Ask Californians to envision life with no Sierra snow pack for reservoirs, flood control -- or winter sports. Ask Central Valley farmers to feed the world from salt water-soaked fields. Ask people living on coastlines that will become uninsurable, then uninhabitable. Then ask the Pentagon how often droughts, famines and epidemics fuel political instability.
What sounds like the better deal?
# # #
Felix Kramer is a Silicon Valley entrepreneur and founder of the California Cars Initiative.
Felix Kramer
Founder, California Cars Initiative
http://www.calcars.org
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/priusplus/
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