LETTER TO THE EDITOR
Recent news items are indicating that we may be at the end of the recession. Over the short term this is great news for investors, job hunters, small-business owners and home owners. Simultaneously, there is news in a major national magazine that polar ice is melting at much greater rates than scientific projections anticipated and that the global warming picture is more dire than previously thought.
How are these two ideas related? It's simple: with the improving economy, the more stuff we purchase, the more buildings we construct, the more travel we undertake, the more energy required and the more greenhouse gases released into the atmosphere. All this human activity leads to worsening the situation with regard to the climate crisis and makes solving that problem all the more unlikely. Over the long term, what is needed to prevent the catastrophe of the climate emergency is a shrinking of world economies, a lessening of construction and travel and a serious decrease in the manufacture and consumption of unnecessary goods.
Len Frenkel; Bethlehem, PA; 610-709-8984; President- Initiatives for the Climate Emergency; www.iceworks.org
Showing posts with label initiatives for the climate emergency. Show all posts
Showing posts with label initiatives for the climate emergency. Show all posts
Wednesday, July 29, 2009
Wednesday, July 15, 2009
INITIATIVES for the CLIMATE EMERGENCY
The oncoming train of the global climate crisis is a greater threat to modern societies than the present economic crisis, even more than terrorism. It promises permanent damage to our culture, such as droughts in some areas, flooding in others, food shortages and undesirable insect and plant invasions. It is about to have immediate impact on our American way of life as well as on societies around the world. It is already causing havoc in some parts of the world.
Most of the climate problem is due to rapidly increasing levels of carbon dioxide, and to a lesser extent, methane. Burning of fossil fuels for industry, electricity production, transportation, home heating, travel and entertainment produces the carbon dioxide that has been building up since the beginning of the industrial age. It has been accelerating in the last 20 years to the point where many governments are becoming very concerned, including our own.
Efforts are being made to mitigate the problem by research into electric vehicles, increasing the performance of gasoline-powered vehicles, taxing carbon, cap-and-trade systems, and providing electricity using solar panels and wind turbines.
All of these methods to minimize carbon release into the atmosphere have value, but also some very serious problems associated with them. These include long time-lines to production, corporate cooperation and dependency, questionable benefits and non-established technology. What is needed is a method that will quickly and efficiently reduce the release of carbon dioxide, that can be instituted with existing government structure, that does not involve the banking systems, that will have a manageable impact on the economy (keeping in mind that doing nothing will eventually lead to economic crash) and that can be made acceptable to businesses as well as the public.
ICE (Initiatives for the Climate Emergency) has a solution. One of our many initiatives is to strongly encourage our government to institute gasoline rationing. At the same time that we are instituting a rationing program, we must develop the world’s most efficient public transportation system. Subsidies to the fossil fuel industries must also cease, with the savings being invested in the new, high-tech public transit infrastructure. During the Second World War, when democracies around the world were threatened, the U.S. took the drastic step of rationing gasoline and several food items. It worked. The same must be done now, along with a forceful educational effort to convince the population of the need for such an action. We cannot wait until disaster strikes us; that will be too late. We are rapidly approaching a tipping point where climate feedback systems kick in, making any changes in our policies and actions ineffective at preventing the calamity that climate scientists tell us is rapidly heading our way.
http://www.iceworks.org/ http://www.initiativesfortheclimateemergency.org/
The oncoming train of the global climate crisis is a greater threat to modern societies than the present economic crisis, even more than terrorism. It promises permanent damage to our culture, such as droughts in some areas, flooding in others, food shortages and undesirable insect and plant invasions. It is about to have immediate impact on our American way of life as well as on societies around the world. It is already causing havoc in some parts of the world.
Most of the climate problem is due to rapidly increasing levels of carbon dioxide, and to a lesser extent, methane. Burning of fossil fuels for industry, electricity production, transportation, home heating, travel and entertainment produces the carbon dioxide that has been building up since the beginning of the industrial age. It has been accelerating in the last 20 years to the point where many governments are becoming very concerned, including our own.
Efforts are being made to mitigate the problem by research into electric vehicles, increasing the performance of gasoline-powered vehicles, taxing carbon, cap-and-trade systems, and providing electricity using solar panels and wind turbines.
All of these methods to minimize carbon release into the atmosphere have value, but also some very serious problems associated with them. These include long time-lines to production, corporate cooperation and dependency, questionable benefits and non-established technology. What is needed is a method that will quickly and efficiently reduce the release of carbon dioxide, that can be instituted with existing government structure, that does not involve the banking systems, that will have a manageable impact on the economy (keeping in mind that doing nothing will eventually lead to economic crash) and that can be made acceptable to businesses as well as the public.
ICE (Initiatives for the Climate Emergency) has a solution. One of our many initiatives is to strongly encourage our government to institute gasoline rationing. At the same time that we are instituting a rationing program, we must develop the world’s most efficient public transportation system. Subsidies to the fossil fuel industries must also cease, with the savings being invested in the new, high-tech public transit infrastructure. During the Second World War, when democracies around the world were threatened, the U.S. took the drastic step of rationing gasoline and several food items. It worked. The same must be done now, along with a forceful educational effort to convince the population of the need for such an action. We cannot wait until disaster strikes us; that will be too late. We are rapidly approaching a tipping point where climate feedback systems kick in, making any changes in our policies and actions ineffective at preventing the calamity that climate scientists tell us is rapidly heading our way.
http://www.iceworks.org/ http://www.initiativesfortheclimateemergency.org/
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)