We must cut carbon emissions immediately. If we don't the next generations will face devastating sea level rise, twice what has been previously predicted.
Reporting on the new models, the Washington Post reports, "'Under the high emissions scenario, the 22nd century would be the century of hell,' Strauss said. 'There would really be an unthinkable level of sea rise. It would erase many major cities and some nations from the map … That century would become the century of exodus from the coast.'" Researchers warned American Petroleum Institute in 1968 that the release of carbon dioxide from fossil fuels could lead to ‘worldwide environmental changes’
Last year, it was revealed that ExxonMobil, the world’s largest oil company, knew of climate change as early as 1981, only to spend millions of dollars over the following 27 years to promote climate denial. By the Rev. Jeffrey Spencer
Us radical lefty tree huggers have been saying for years that fracking is dangerous for the environment and human health. Now there's data that prove it. "The body of evidence is growing that fracking is not only bad for the global climate, it is also dangerous for local communities. "And affected communities are growing in number. A new report, released Thursday, details the sheer amount of water contamination, air pollution, climate impacts, and chemical use in fracking in the United States. "'For the past decade, fracking has been a nightmare for our drinking water, our open spaces, and our climate,' Rachel Richardson, a co-author of the paper from Environment America, told ThinkProgress." by the Rev. Jeffrey Spencer
Exxon knew. "Here’s the story so far. We have the chief legal representatives of the eighth and 16th largest economies on Earth (California and New York) probing the biggest fossil fuel company on Earth (ExxonMobil), while both Democratic presidential candidates are demanding that the federal Department of Justice join the investigation of what may prove to be one of the biggest corporate scandals in American history. And that’s just the beginning. As bad as Exxon has been in the past, what it’s doing now -- entirely legally -- is helping push the planet over the edge and into the biggest crisis in the entire span of the human story." That's how Bill McKibben starts a lengthy, comprehensive, and very important essay on the fact that Exxon knew all about climate change and the role burning fossil fuels plays in causing it back in 1977, that they spent money lying to the public about climate change, and they are now being investigates for fraud. I encourage you to read it. Then I hope you will take action. If you live outside the United States, please ask the appropriate governmental agency to investigate Exxon. If you live in the United States, please sign this petition to the U.S. Department of Justice calling for an investigation of Exxon, then contact your State's attorney general to call for an investigation in your state. And if you live in New York or California, contact your state's Treasurer to point out the fact that maybe your state should divest from a company that it is criminally investigating. Manmade global warming helped spark the brutal civil war in Syria by doubling to tripling the odds that a crippling drought in the Fertile Crescent would occur shortly before the fighting broke out, according to a groundbreaking new study published on March 2.
The study, published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, is the first to attribute the drought in Syria in large part to global warming. In doing so, it provides powerful evidence backing up the Pentagon and intelligence community’s assessments that climate change is likely to play the role of a “threat multiplier” in coming decades, pushing countries that are already vulnerable to upheaval over the edge and into open conflict. New poll shows majority of Americans believe human activity causes rising greenhouse gases and that people are ethically responsible to address it.
Published on CommonDreams.org; written by Nadia Prupis, staff writer A majority of Americans believe they are "morally obligated" to fight climate change, a new poll by Reuters/IPSOS has found. Of the 2,827 people surveyed in the poll, 66 percent said world leaders are ethically bound to reduce carbon emissions, while 72 percent believed that responsibility lay with themselves as well. In addition, 64 percent believe that rising greenhouse gases, which drive climate change, are caused by human activity. The poll was conducted to parse the impact of moral language in the climate debate and the results suggest that an ethics-based appeal to address environmental issues may be the key to shifting the debate on the topic. "When climate change is viewed through a moral lens it has broader appeal," Eric Sapp, executive director of the American Values Network, a grassroots organization that mobilizes faith-based communities on politics and policy issues, told Reuters. "The climate debate can be very intellectual at times, all about economic systems and science we don’t understand," he continued. "This makes it about us, our neighbors and about doing the right thing." The poll indicates Americans may be responding to recent comments on climate change by religious leaders, including Pope Francis, who in December urged all Catholics to take action against global warming on moral and scientific grounds as "Climate change, the loss of biodiversity and deforestation are already showing their devastating effects in the great cataclysms we witness." In January, he also said that it is "man who has slapped nature in the face." Pope Francis also criticized world leaders ahead of environmental discussions in Lima, Peru last December for their lack of initiative in addressing climate change and other calamities, calling the issue a "grave ethical and moral responsibility" and warning that "the time to find global solutions is running out." The pope is scheduled to address Congress later this year, where he is expected to deliver a similar appeal. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 License For years, many of us who have been warning of the dangers of climate change have noted that one danger is that changes in climate and sea level will result in mass migrations of people. Now the mainstream media are picking up on the story.
Seas are rising more than twice as fast as the global average in the Sundarbans, a low-lying delta region of about 200 islands in the Bay of Bengal where some 13 million impoverished Indians and Bangladeshis live. Tens of thousands have already been left homeless, and scientists predict much of the Sundarbans could be underwater in 15 to 25 years. New science shows that thanks to methane leaks, gas won't work as a "bridge fuel."
Bill McKibben writes in Mother Jones about the science and politics of fracking and how Obama's "all of the above" approach to fueling the nation won't work without destroying the earth's climate. Keep Dangerous Oil Trains Out of California
Dozens of towns along California's treasured central coast, from Sacramento to Los Angeles, could soon see mile-long oil trains rumbling through filled with dangerous crude oil if we don't act fast. On the table before San Luis Obispo officials is a proposal for a crude-by-rail expansion in Santa Maria by oil-giant Phillips 66. The only possible benefit from this project is added profit for the oil company -- everyone else along the rail route will be left to deal with the fallout. Our railways weren't built to transport this kind of oil, and our first responders aren't prepared to fight the fires, explosions and spills that could ensue. The toxic tar sands these trains carry is also some of the most climate-polluting crude on Earth. Even Phillips 66 admits that transporting this oil will result in "significant and unavoidable" levels of toxins released into the air along the rail route. We beg to differ: The many harms from this project are significant, but they're not unavoidable. Take action -- tell the San Luis Obispo County Planning Commission and Board of Supervisors to use their vote to block this dangerous project now. |
Climate ChangeThe best way to stop the oil trains is to get off the fossil fuel habit. This page will have posts about climate change and ideas on how to address it. Archives
April 2016
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