World Wide Strike, July 7, 2007

My Solution

Submitted by Sherwy on Sat, 04/28/2007.

Well finally got the opportunity to watch AIT and my gut feeling on how I would feel after watching this mind bending truth of what society has created was right. It made me feel sad, scared and sick. Sad that this could actually have happened, sad for my children who will potentially grow up only knowing destruction, death, disasters, animal extinctions, disease………………………… Scared that we want do anything, scared that our ability to change will be taken from us by a handful of people, organizations, politicians and corporations. Sick of doing nothing, sick of listening to those in charge lying and manipulating us and I feel sick thinking about those poor animals and eco systems that also live in this world, having no idea no warning of this destruction that man is and has created.

We have to stop talking about the changes, stop talking about implementing small decreases of emissions by say 2012. Those kinds of discussions have been going on for 20+ years now and still only small changes have been implemented. In most cases increases in emissions have occurred, as we have seen in AIT in those years of talks the environmental impact of our current way of life is speeding this fatal process up. This will lead us to only one outcome as they say “to the end of life as we know it”. So if we don’t stop as a world wide society killing our planet WE WILL END LIFE we know this!!!!! Those people who are continuing this situation and controlling the people blinding and lying to us all to protect there annual profits will at the end of the day LOSE , because end in some form is coming life as we know it is on a knife edge. For me it has gone beyond just doing your bit, to now the only way is to unit as one world one society and make the changes required.

My solution is to implement sudden change by pre-empting that end. How???? By stopping simple stopping, you think if we as ordinary people just stopped going to work and protested across the world, who would be hardest hit??? We are lead to believe that we would suffer. If we stopped around the world and said enough they would have to listen and change would happen rapidly. If we spent those billions, trillions of dollars world wide that have been generated by that which is KILLING OUR PLANET us!!! If we as a world wide society just spent some time and money implementing those necessary changes, then I believe in 1year maybe 2years who cares how long we could divert a forced and inevitable destruction, that would have a far greater impact on man then 1 or 2 years of hard work.

We need to be not one person making change but one world making that world wide change.

Am I making sense here? I need some feed back, could this work??? What do you think???

Sherwy's blog:
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World Wide Strike
Submitted by WestTexasBliss on Sat, 04/28/2007.

Okay, how about doing this July 7, 2007.
Starting 12:00 A.M. to 12:00 P.M. 24 hours,

What do you think?

Wembley's Live Earth Lineup Announced
Madonna, Genesis, Foo Fighters and the Red Hot Chili Peppers are to play at the new Wembley Stadium for a concert highlighting the threat of climate change.
Other acts at the London leg of the Live Earth series of concerts include James Blunt, Duran Duran, Snow Patrol, Razorlight and Damien Rice.

Seven Live Earth shows will take place around the world on July 7. The line-up for the UK leg of the 24 hour event was announced yesterday by Live Earth founder and executive producer Kevin Wall. He said: "This monster line-up will ensure Live Earth meets our goal of bringing together people from around the world to combat the climate crisis. Live Earth will not only span all seven continents, but the musicians who have answered our call span multiple genres and generations."

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Boxer will 'hound' Bush on emissions regulations

Sen. Barbara Boxer promised to pressure the Bush administration to adopt California-style global warming regulations, saying Wednesday that the Supreme Court "handed us a gift" with its recent landmark decision authorizing the Environmental Protection Agency to reduce greenhouse gases as a pollutant.
The decision "put the wind at our backs," the California Democrat said, vowing at the National Press Club to haul administration officials before her Senate Environment and Public Works Committee to ask them what immediate steps they will take to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, which are produced by the consumption of fossil fuels.
"I will hound them on this week after week after week after week," said Boxer, who chairs the committee. "It doesn't take China doing anything. It doesn't take India doing anything. It doesn't take Congress doing anything."
The administration has the power to act on its own, she said, and "I intend to move to make sure the administration uses its powers."

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Pelosi Opens Doors

The Bush administration and its allies in the media have been heaping scorn upon House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., for her trip last week to Syria to speak with Syrian President Bashar Assad.The conservative media claim Pelosi has undermined U.S. foreign policy. How? By ignoring the Bush administration's policy to not have direct talks with Syria, which they claim is one of the world's leading sponsors of international terrorism.
Some have gone so far as to call for Pelosi's prosecution under the Logan Act, which makes it a felony for any American "without authority of the United States" to communicate with a foreign government in an effort to influence that government's behavior on any "disputes or controversies with the United States."
If you agree with that line of argument, since we are at war, Pelosi is guilty of treasonous behavior. There's just one problem. The argument is total nonsense.

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Broad Irony

The first rule when criticizing popular science presentations for inaccuracies should be to double check any 'facts' you use. It is rather ironic then that William Broad's latest piece on Al Gore plays just as loose with them as he accuses Gore of doing.

We criticized William Broad previously for a piece that misrepresented the scientific understanding of the factors that drive climate change over millions of years, systematically understating the scientifically-established role of greenhouse gases, and over-stating the role of natural factors including those as speculative as cosmic rays. In this piece, Broad attempts to discredit Gore's "An Inconvenient Truth" by exaggerating the legitimate, but minor, criticisms of his treatment of the science by experts on climate science, and presenting specious or unsubstantiated criticisms by a small number of the usual, well-known contrarians who wouldn't agree even if Gore read aloud from the latest IPCC report.

This article is very disappointing, not just because it gets things so wrong, but because it misses an opportunity to address a much more substantive issue. It is inevitable that working scientists will find popular presentations of their work lacking in depth and nuance (after all, depth and nuance are what we do!). Whatever you may think about Al Gore's movie, it is indisputable that it has raised awareness of the issues and left a substantial part of the public hungry for more information. That hunger can only be fed by people who are closer to the science than Gore, and it is inevitable that the AIT will be used as a springboard or contrast for further presentations. A better article would have investigated how that is happening and how that is affecting public awareness of the science. Unfortunately, this article does nothing to improve public awareness, and that is deeply ironic.
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Michael Mann and Gavin Schmidt
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Edited by WestTexasBliss
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Global Warming Debate

Along with Richard Somerville (UC San Diego) and Brenda Ekwurzel (Union of Concerned Scientists), I'll be appearing at a debate on Wednesday (March 14th) about whether Global Warming is a crisis (or not). That might have gone without notice (like most of my public talks), except that our opponents are Michael Crichton, Richard Lindzen and Philip Stott. The preliminary position statements (from me and from Philip Stott) are available on the ABCnews site. It's sold out, but the proceedings will be broadcast on NPR (for instance, WNYC 820 AM on Friday, March 23, 2007 at 2PM) and there will be a podcast (though I don't know if it will stream live). There's an online poll as well for what that's worth.

I'm quite looking forward to this, but I have to admit to conflicting thoughts. Does participating help perpetuate the idea that global warming per se is still up for debate? Is this kind of rhetorical jousting useful for clarifying issues of science that most people there will only superficially grasp? Can this be entertaining and educational? Or does it just validate the least serious opposition? Is it simply a waste of time that would be better spent blogging?
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I'd be interested in any thoughts people might have.
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Gavin
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Gavin, RealClimate (Read the Full Story)

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Swindled: Carl Wunsch responds

The following letter from Carl Wunsch is intended to clarify his views on global warming in general, and the The Great Global Warming Swindle which misrepresented them.

Partial Response to the London Channel 4 Film "The Global Warming Swindle"

I believe that climate change is real, a major threat, and almost surely has a major human-induced component. But I have tried to stay out of the `climate wars' because all nuance tends to be lost, and the distinction between what we know firmly, as scientists, and what we suspect is happening, is so difficult to maintain in the presence of rhetorical excess. In the long run, our credibility as scientists rests on being very careful of, and protective of, our authority and expertise.

The science of climate change remains incomplete. Some elements are so firmly based on well-understood principles, or for which the observational record is so clear, that most scientists would agree that they are almost surely true (adding CO2 to the atmosphere is dangerous; sea level will continue to rise,...). Other elements remain more uncertain, but we as scientists in our roles as informed citizens believe society should be deeply concerned about their possibility: failure of US midwestern precipitation in 100 years in a mega-drought; melting of a large part of the Greenland ice sheet, among many other examples.

Swindled

Swindled: Carl Wunsch responds

RealClimate (Comments)

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Al Gore's energy bill…

I don't believe this; this is it? Al Gore's energy bill… This has ExxonMobil's finger prints all over it. This is a page out of Karl Rove's play book. Let me see if I have this straight. ExxonMobil $$$, Karl Rove's play book and Drew Johnson's Stink Tank and the best they can come up with is Al Gore's energy bill! This is a spin if I ever seen one. If, you ExxonMobil ($$$), Karl Rove (play book), Drew Johnson (Stink Tank) are going to have me believe that Al Gore is the bad guy, you better think again. I have seen what you did to people like McCain, John Kerry, Joseph C. Wilson and Valerie Plame. Typical smear campaign. Tell me Drew Johnson what is your energy bill? Where do you get your funding from? Maybe someone should start digging in your trash-can. Let me go over this again, ExxonMobil $$$, Karl Rove's play book, Drew Johnson's Stink Tank and Al Gore, devoted 30 years of his life to educating people about global warming.

You can attack the messenger but the message remains the same". Mr. Gore's fuel bills failed to tell the whole picture. All the energy used for the Nashville home came from a green power provider to the Tennessee Valley that draws its energy from solar, wind-powered and methane gas supplies, among other sources.

Laurie David, the producer of An Inconvenient Truth, said that the furore was only to be expected. A leading global warming campaigner, she is familiar with criticism of this kind having been called a "jetstream liberal" for using private planes. "What this lame attempt to discredit Al Gore tells me is that we are winning.

Minn. Raises Bar on Renewable Energy Use

Minnesota put its faith in a future fueled by renewable energy Thursday as the governor signed a law requiring utilities to generate a quarter of their power from renewable sources such as wind, water and sun by 2025. Considering where Minnesota stands now - about half the power produced in the state is from coal, and only 5 percent from renewable sources - the move is the most aggressive in the country, analysts say.

"We have to break our addiction to fossil fuels," Gov. Tim Pawlenty said in signing the legislation.

The new law, which sailed through the Legislature, encourages the use of wind farms, hydroelectric power and solar energy, as well as cleaner-burning fuels.

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Al Gore's Musical Call to Action

The hit-making record producer Pharrell Williams, the wizard behind the beats of everybody from Ludacris to Britney, promises it will be "the biggest party on Earth." How big?

At the news conference Thursday announcing this summer's ambitious "Live Earth" concerts -- designed as an exercise in "mass persuasion" about threats of global warming -- Al Gore described his vision: a 24-hour musical extravaganza across seven continents, featuring as many as 150 of the world's top recording artists, introduced by an army of "celebrities and thought leaders" (think: Cameron Diaz and Richard Branson), playing before a total live audience of a million people, and reaching 2 billion more via television, radio and the Internet on July 7.

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Photovoltaics, or PV for short, is a solar power technology

Photovoltaics, or PV for short, is a solar power technology that uses solar cells or solar photovoltaic arrays to convert energy from the sun into electricity. Photovoltaics is also the field of study relating to this technology.

Solar cells are regarded as one of the key technologies towards a sustainable energy supply.
Mankind's traditional uses of wind, water, and solar power are widespread in developed and developing countries; but the mass production of electricity using renewable energy sources has become more commonplace only recently, reflecting the major threats of climate change due to pollution, exhaustion of fossil fuels, and the environmental, social and political risks of fossil fuels and nuclear power. Many countries and organizations promote renewable energies through taxes and subsidies. Varying definitions of the term renewable energy have been adopted to define eligibility under these policies.

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Phaeton's Reins

The human hand in climate change.

Kerry Emanuel.

Two strands of environmental philosophy run through the course of human history. The first holds that the natural state of the universe is one of infinite stability, with an unchanging earth anchoring the predictable revolutions of the sun, moon, and stars. Every scientific revolution that challenged this notion, from Copernicus' heliocentricity to Hubble's expanding universe, from Wegener's continental drift to Heisenberg's uncertainty and Lorenz's macroscopic chaos, met with fierce resistance from religious, political, and even scientific hegemonies.

The second strand also sees the natural state of the universe as a stable one but holds that it has become destabilized through human actions. The great floods are usually portrayed in religious traditions as attempts by a god or gods to cleanse the earth of human corruption. Deviations from cosmic predictability, such as meteors and comets, were more often viewed as omens than as natural phenomena. In Greek mythology, the scorching heat of Africa and the burnt skin of its inhabitants were attributed to Phaeton, an offspring of the sun god Helios, who, having lost a
wager to his son, was obliged to allow him to drive the sun chariot across the sky. In this primal environmental catastrophe, Phaeton lost control and fried the earth, killing himself in the process.

These two fundamental ideas have permeated many cultures through much of history. They strongly influence views of climate change to the present day.

• The myth of natural stability.
• So what saved the earth from fire and ice?
• Greenhouse physics.
• Why the climate problem is difficult.
• Determining humanity’s influence.
• The consequences.
• Science, politics, and the media.
• The politics of global climate change.

Like it or not, we have been handed Phaeton’s reins, and we will have to learn how to control climate if we are to avoid his fate.

Kerry Emanuel is a professor of meteorology at MIT and the author of Divine Wind: The History and Science of Hurricanes. In 2006 Time magazine recognized him as one of the world’s 100 most influential people.

SOURCE: Originally published in the January/February 2007 issue of Boston Review:

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