Climate change is the most serious problem facing the world today. From the beginning of the human race until about 100 years ago CO2 levels hovered around 280 parts per million (PMM) but since then CO2 has increased by 107 PPM to the current 387 PPM level and it increases by 2 PPM each year from burning fossil fuels to produce energy. Scientist’s observe 70 million tons of CO2 pumped into the atmosphere every 24 hours from smoke stacks and tail pipes.
The most obvious sign of climate change is melting glaciers. Over 30 glaciers in 9 mountain ranges around the world are melting rapidly. Some areas are inundated with too much water while others wither from extreme droughts. Bigger and more frequent storms ravage some areas while wild fires singe others.
The relationship between climate change and CO2 is no new concept. Svante Arrhenius, a Swedish chemist discovered the connection in 1896. As scientists observed the increasing magnitude of impacts on glaciers, permafrost melting in the arctic, ice-shelf deterioration in Antarctica, the northern migration of diseases like malaria, and the depletion of water supplies the urgency of doing something about it became obvious.
Let’s bag the history lesson and cut to the chase. Because of the urgency and magnitude of global climate change, many scientists and countries around the globe looked at the COP-15 Climate Summit in Copenhagen as the do-or-die summit to get a meaningful commitment to cut CO2 to at least 350 PPM to avert catastrophe.
Island countries like the Maldives are frightened about sea level rise and want immediate action while poor third-world countries strongly protest what they see as an “outrageous attempts by rich countries to kill the previous Kyoto climate summit targets in Copenhagen.”
Then Secretary of State Hillary Clinton showed up and delivered a slam-dunk take-it-or-leave-it proposal to provide $100-billion to developing countries by 2020 as long as they agree with U.S. terms which included killing the Kyoto agreement, ditching legally binding measures for a vague concept of “transparency,” and eliminating universal emissions targets for vague “national plans”, and completely dropped a plan that the U.S. signed with the UN climate convention agreeing that rich countries that emitted the most CO2 take the lead in cutting it.
Alright, when I look at the famous photo of the beautiful blue earth taken from Apollo 17 in 1972, I can strain my eyes but I can’t find a political boundary on it. Regardless of our race or origin, we are of this Earth and we have nowhere else to go. We have got to quit spending trillions of dollars on killing ourselves in wars and spend it on lowering CO2 levels to at least 350 PPM as fast as possible or civilization simply will cease to exist – pure and simple. If we can invest trillions in war why can’t we divert that to cutting CO2? The bottom line is, if the earth goes into climate upheaval, and that’s where we’re headed, there won’t be an economy.
To try to drive that point home, on December 12th around 100,000 citizens from around the world staged a 5 Km demonstration march in Copenhagen from the Parliament Building to the Bella Center where COP 15 was held. The overwhelming message was to stop bickering over money, work together and get on the fast track to lower carbon emissions. Younger generations feel their future is being short-sheeted by the older generations who now control industry and the government. They recognize that as long as older generations profit from doing business as usual, they don’t give a hoot about future generations.
The prevailing mind-set at the demonstration was that if COP 15 failed - which it did – it is the younger generation’s obligation and moral right to take matters into their own hands by any means necessary - be it through radical and violent methods - to wrestle the control they must have to assure them a survivable future. Brace yourself world, a new reality is coming.
669 words © 2009 Richard Whiteford
Monday, December 28, 2009
Wednesday, September 06, 2006
A new book by Richard D. Whiteford
Photos by Michael P. Gadomski -www.mpgadomski.com
Forward by Governor Ed Rendell
Will be in book stores in early October.
Book signing tour:
Barnes & Noble Scranton Dec. 2 at 1 pm
Barnes & Noble Exton Dec. 3 at 2 pm
Barnes & Noble Reading Dec. 4 at 6 pm
Chester County Book Company West Chester Dec 7 at 7:30 pm
Barnes & Noble Devon Dec. 9 at 1 pm
Boarders White Hall Dec. 10 at 2 pm
Barnes & Noble Easton Dec 16 at 2 pm
Barnes & Noble Exton Dec 23rd at 2 pm
Barnes & Noble Jenkintown January 6 noon till 3 pm
Barnes & Noble Lancaster January 20 at 1 pm
Borders Lycoming County Mall, Pennsdale, PA January 27 at 2 pm
Friday, May 05, 2006
President Bush’s declaration that “America is addicted to oil” is an astonishing pronouncement coming from an oil man. It is also astonishing because he and congress gave the oil companies billions of dollars of subsidies while the oil companies reaped record profits and we paid record prices at the pump.
The big question is why Bush’s sudden about face? Especially from an administration that stood so adamantly against conservation of energy, against raising fuel mileage requirements on vehicles (CAFÉ standards), and who authorized tax savings to purchasers of gas guzzling SUVs and pickup trucks.
The world’s oil supply was projected to dry up in about thirty-five years, but now that China and India have greatly increased their demand for oil, the world oil supply will run out much quicker. When this happens, our entire way of life will drastically change. We have no alternative energy replacement and the Bush Administration is in a quandary as to what to do. In Bush’s panic to keep America awash in oil, his best idea is to trade nuclear technology for oil with India; a deal that could undermine the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and send the world into an arms race.
The US oil supply peaked in 1971; world supplies will peak around 2010. Global demand is expected to increase by 50 percent in the next 20 years. According to James Howard Kunstler’s book The Long Emergency: Surviving the Converging Catastrophes of the Twenty-First Century, “the world is now using 27 billion barrels of oil a year. Of the one trillion barrels of the world’s remaining supply, if every last drop could be extracted, the entire endowment would last only another thirty-seven years.” More demand and dwindling supplies will skyrocket the price of oil.
When oil gets scarce and prohibitively expensive, the American way of life will suffer. Air travel will be prohibitively expensive causing the tourist industry to crash. Think about how dependent you are on your automobile. Can you walk or take public transportation to the grocery store and to work? It will become too expensive to transport food from distant locations so isolated housing developments will have to rely on local farmers for food and developers are still building isolated developments on farms. Coal will be the likely replacement for oil, however, the machinery used to extract coal is petroleum powered. If we don’t plan now, our extraction equipment will be useless when we need it most.
Since oil and coal are an environmental hazard both in the extraction process and consumption, we should shift the billions of dollars of oil company subsidies to funding alternative energy research. It makes no sense to subsidize a dead-end industry, especially one that is currently rolling in its own money.
During the 1980s the oil industry knew they had a finite supply. So why, in the past few decades, has we lived like there is no end to oil? Contrary to conserving oil, we moved far from cities into sprawling developments and corporate centers requiring an automobile to do almost everything. Many commuters have an hour’s drive to work. Not only do we have auto choked highways and consume mega-volumes of gas, we paved over irreplaceable farmland that we will need to grow food to feed isolated communities.
So much of our technology depends on oil that transportation is only one effected aspect. Most homes rely on oil for heat and also goods made of plastic, an oil byproduct. Many synthetic materials are oil derivatives, as are some cosmetics and medicines.
The oil crunch will hit the wall long before the supply runs out; probably in the next few years. We should immediately ration gas and find ways to drive less; dump the gas hog and get a car with high gas mileage, and take public transportation whenever possible.
During the 1990s a study showed that the average suburbanite made eleven trips per day running errands. Plan and consolidate your trips. Most importantly, a moratorium on building housing developments and corporate centers in the hinterlands should happen now. We need to target development in towns and cities with existing transportation hubs.
We need to demand and hold our do-nothing-but-bicker government accountable to implement an alternative energy program with the fervor, drive, determination, and funding that we did during World War II creating the atomic bomb or like we did in the race for space with Russia. If we fail to see and respond to this pending crisis immediately, a dire price will be paid by all.
754 Words
© 2006 Richard D. Whiteford
The big question is why Bush’s sudden about face? Especially from an administration that stood so adamantly against conservation of energy, against raising fuel mileage requirements on vehicles (CAFÉ standards), and who authorized tax savings to purchasers of gas guzzling SUVs and pickup trucks.
The world’s oil supply was projected to dry up in about thirty-five years, but now that China and India have greatly increased their demand for oil, the world oil supply will run out much quicker. When this happens, our entire way of life will drastically change. We have no alternative energy replacement and the Bush Administration is in a quandary as to what to do. In Bush’s panic to keep America awash in oil, his best idea is to trade nuclear technology for oil with India; a deal that could undermine the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and send the world into an arms race.
The US oil supply peaked in 1971; world supplies will peak around 2010. Global demand is expected to increase by 50 percent in the next 20 years. According to James Howard Kunstler’s book The Long Emergency: Surviving the Converging Catastrophes of the Twenty-First Century, “the world is now using 27 billion barrels of oil a year. Of the one trillion barrels of the world’s remaining supply, if every last drop could be extracted, the entire endowment would last only another thirty-seven years.” More demand and dwindling supplies will skyrocket the price of oil.
When oil gets scarce and prohibitively expensive, the American way of life will suffer. Air travel will be prohibitively expensive causing the tourist industry to crash. Think about how dependent you are on your automobile. Can you walk or take public transportation to the grocery store and to work? It will become too expensive to transport food from distant locations so isolated housing developments will have to rely on local farmers for food and developers are still building isolated developments on farms. Coal will be the likely replacement for oil, however, the machinery used to extract coal is petroleum powered. If we don’t plan now, our extraction equipment will be useless when we need it most.
Since oil and coal are an environmental hazard both in the extraction process and consumption, we should shift the billions of dollars of oil company subsidies to funding alternative energy research. It makes no sense to subsidize a dead-end industry, especially one that is currently rolling in its own money.
During the 1980s the oil industry knew they had a finite supply. So why, in the past few decades, has we lived like there is no end to oil? Contrary to conserving oil, we moved far from cities into sprawling developments and corporate centers requiring an automobile to do almost everything. Many commuters have an hour’s drive to work. Not only do we have auto choked highways and consume mega-volumes of gas, we paved over irreplaceable farmland that we will need to grow food to feed isolated communities.
So much of our technology depends on oil that transportation is only one effected aspect. Most homes rely on oil for heat and also goods made of plastic, an oil byproduct. Many synthetic materials are oil derivatives, as are some cosmetics and medicines.
The oil crunch will hit the wall long before the supply runs out; probably in the next few years. We should immediately ration gas and find ways to drive less; dump the gas hog and get a car with high gas mileage, and take public transportation whenever possible.
During the 1990s a study showed that the average suburbanite made eleven trips per day running errands. Plan and consolidate your trips. Most importantly, a moratorium on building housing developments and corporate centers in the hinterlands should happen now. We need to target development in towns and cities with existing transportation hubs.
We need to demand and hold our do-nothing-but-bicker government accountable to implement an alternative energy program with the fervor, drive, determination, and funding that we did during World War II creating the atomic bomb or like we did in the race for space with Russia. If we fail to see and respond to this pending crisis immediately, a dire price will be paid by all.
754 Words
© 2006 Richard D. Whiteford
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