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Dr. Richard Alley, climatologist, commenting on atmospheric CO2 levels passing an historic 400ppm last week.
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As CO2 Concentrations Reach Ominous Benchmark, Daily Updates Begin
Greenhouse Gas Levels Near Milestone: Highest in Millions of Years
Doug Grandt, climate warrior and friend of 350orbust, is inviting Rex Tillerson, CEO of Exxon and Eagle Scout, to become a climate hero. The world is desperately in need of visionary leadership from business leaders as well as political leaders, as we stand on the cusp of catastrophic climate change. Here is Doug’s recent video letter to Mr. Tillerson, Challenge of a Lifetime:
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oeEsyjdfGBw&feature=youtu.be]
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Please join me in encouraging Eagle Scout — and Boy Scouts national President and Exxon Mobil CEO — Rex Tillerson to play a prominent role.
I have asked him to change the course of human history with true climate solutions leadership this year.
Eagle Scouts should live by “We leave our campsites cleaner than we found them” as well as the Scout Law and Scout Oath. We share reverence for God; our family, neighbors and society; and our environment, which supports life for all species. Read more on Think Progress: My Word: Who Better Than an Eagle Scout To Show Bold Initiative On Carbon Pollution.
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The Trillion Dollar Question Is: Who Will Lead The Climate Battle?
The evidence continues to pile up: humanity’s uncontrolled appetite for slashing, burning, and polluting is rapidly pushing the earth’s ecosystem to a tipping point that will have disastrous consequences for our children and grandchildren:
A prestigious group of scientists from around the world is warning that population growth, widespread destruction of natural ecosystems, and climate change may be driving Earth toward an irreversible change in the biosphere, a planet-wide tipping point that would have destructive consequences absent adequate preparation and mitigation.
“It really will be a new world, biologically, at that point,” warns Anthony Barnosky, professor of integrative biology at the University of California, Berkeley, and lead author of a review paper appearing in the June 7 issue of the journal Nature. “The data suggests that there will be a reduction in biodiversity and severe impacts on much of what we depend on to sustain our quality of life, including, for example, fisheries, agriculture, forest products and clean water. This could happen within just a few generations.”
…Co-author Elizabeth Hadly from Stanford University said “we may already be past these tipping points in particular regions of the world. I just returned from a trip to the high Himalayas in Nepal, where I witnessed families fighting each other with machetes for wood – wood that they would burn to cook their food in one evening. In places where governments are lacking basic infrastructure, people fend for themselves, and biodiversity suffers. We desperately need global leadership for planet Earth.”
The authors note that studies of small-scale ecosystems show that once 50-90 percent of an area has been altered, the entire ecosystem tips irreversibly into a state far different from the original, in terms of the mix of plant and animal species and their interactions. This situation typically is accompanied by species extinctions and a loss of biodiversity.Read the full story at UC Berkeley’s website.
Now, take a big breath into your heart space, and think about what you love, and what you would defend fiercely. Now is the time to do all three of those at the same time – breathing/loving/protecting – in and out, over and over. It’s the “great turning”; humanity has the chance to grow up; we are alive in an extraordinary time. We – you, and me, and each one of the people alive today – have the opportunity to take a huge evolutionary step towards living cooperatively with each other, and realizing the sacredness of each life on earth, of “all our relations” as the Anishinaabe say, and of the earth herself. “Hope isn’t something you have, it’s something you do,” says eco-philosopher Joanna Macy. Go to JoannaMacy.net for more information on, and tools for, on The Great Turning.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=01FE9cPXE3M]
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Five days after the devastating earthquake and tsunami off the northeastern coast of Japan, the country and its citizens are still reeling from those natural disasters while alarm continues to rise over a looming man-made nuclear disaster.
Japan is a country lauded for its emergency preparedness, yet although the Japanese government and people are responding as quickly as possible in an extremely difficult situation (compare the U.S. response to the comparatively smaller disaster of Hurricane Katrina), there are still countless people without access to food, clean water, and shelter. The death toll continues to rise, with more than 15,000 people unaccounted for.
All of us in the industrialized world should sit up and take note of the Japanese crisis. One lesson we should take to heart is that there’s no avoiding nature. People who live in the developing world, who are generally less cushioned from the day-to-day impacts of nature than those of us with air-conditioned houses and cars and well-stocked refrigerators, already know that. Those of us in the industrialized part of the world, who burn a disproportionate amount of the world’s fossil fuels, need to absorb this lesson before we have pulled the rest of the world with us into climate chaos.
Once we hit the climate tipping point, the cumulative effects of global climate instability will be unstoppable, like Friday’s tsunami wave that took out everything in its path. Scientists have been warning us for decades about the effects of our continued warming of the earth’s atmosphere by unrestrained burning of fossil fuels. Why wouldn’t we all be working together now, while we still have time, to stop the climate change “earthquake” from happening?
From Al Jazeera, a summary of how a nuclear meltdown could happen at the Fukushima power plant:
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For comprehensive information on how to reach out to the Japanese people, to go CBC’s Japan Relief page.
Peter Sinclair over at Climate Crock of the Week has been providing excellent and frequent updates on the Japanese nuclear situation: ClimateCrocks.com
Special Rep0rt: Disaster In Japan
Lesson From Japan: There’s No Avoiding Nature
Compilation: Japan Earthquake, Tsunami, Nuclear Emergency 2011