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Read
the Kyoto Treaty
Read
the EPA position on emissions in the US
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This
Ecological System We Call Earth
We all recognize
the fact that human society is the major source of the pollutants in our
water and our air; the greenhouse effect and climate change; diminishing
biodiversity in the world; tropical deforestation; the ozone layer problem;
and a litany of similar global ecological catastrophes.
Global warming
alone has been shown to cause increased flooding, wild fires, increase
in the conditions for the transmission of pandemic diseases, to name a
few calamities associated with the phenomena. A specific kind of human-induced
climate change leads to an increase in a particular communicable disease
in one specific ecosystem. But given that we live in an era of global
travel and transport of goods, this disease can quickly spread from one
continent to another. So what appears to be a localized threat, a problem
for the specific ecosystem, is in reality a global problem.
"Today
few scientists doubt the atmosphere is warming. Most also agree that
the rate of heating is accelerating and that the consequences of this
temperature change could become increasingly disruptive. Even high school
students can reel off some projected outcomes: the oceans will warm,
and glaciers will melt, causing sea levels to rise and salt water to
inundate settlements along many low-lying coasts. Meanwhile the regions
suitable for farming will shift. Weather patterns should also become
more erratic and storms more severe.
"Yet
less familiar effects could be equally detrimental. Notably, computer
models predict that global warming, and other climate alterations it
induces, will expand the incidence and distribution of many serious
medical disorders. Disturbingly, these forecasts seem to be coming true.
"
... Global warming can also threaten human well-being profoundly, if
somewhat less directly, by revising weather patterns" particularly
by pumping up the frequency and intensity of floods and droughts and
by causing rapid swings in the weather. As the atmosphere has warmed
over the past century, droughts in arid areas have persisted longer,
and massive bursts of precipitation have become more common. Aside from
causing death by drowning or starvation, these disasters promote by
various means the emergence, resurgence and spread of infectious disease.
That prospect is deeply troubling, because infectious illness is a genie
that can be very hard to put back into its bottle. It may kill fewer
people in one fell swoop than a raging flood or an extended drought,
but once it takes root in a community, it often defies eradication and
can invade other areas. Is Global Warming Harmful to Health?
Scientific
American, by Paul R. Epstein http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?articleID=
0008C7B2-E060-1C73-9B81809EC588EF21
If the human
species is to survive, the ecosystem we emerge from; belong to; depend
on; must not merely survive, it must be healthy. We cannot expect to abuse
and misuse our mother earth and then expect it to continue to deliver
the goods!
No, we must
educate ourselves so that we respect, cherish and love our environment.
We must train ourselves to use the tools of the environmental scientists,
and act in the connected realms of public and corporate policy as catalysts
for justice.
We have a
task that is no less than the creation of a global human society that
is fully cognizant of the links between human beings and the environment.
Such a global society would never pollute or destroy our ecosphere. Such
a society would never countenance environmental apartheid, environmental
racism. Such a society would properly insure that natural resources under
indigenous sovereignty actually means the exercise of indigenous sovereignty
in the preservation of indigenous people's natural resources.This calls
for efficient utilization of Earth Day celebrations, election campaigns,
cultural occasions, and other similar appropriate circumstances, to engage
others in serious discussion on the various relevant ecological subject
matter.
We deserve
ecological policies and management structures universally based on respect
and love for the Earth, our common home. A respect and love expressed
in the particular manners congruent with the discrete cultural values
of each of the various human culture created by our species. This will
take a multifaceted approach.
We should
learn from the experiences of others, Dr. Wenk key US oceanographer in
the LBJ administration points out the necessity of a multidiscinpline
approach to formulating environmental policy and values,
"We
endeavor to anticipate that review with a set of broad questions which
all reduce to one; What is our nation's - and the worlds stake - in
the oceans? That may seem to be a simple set of words but the fact us
that this country has forgotten its maritime heritage, we have not really
looked very hard at how important the oceans are, and the weakness of
our ocean-related industries reflect this. At this time in history,
as it seems to some of us, it is essential to ask another key question:
How do the oceans contribute to the maintenance of world order? This
goes well beyond the question of maintaining a navy; it goes into the
issues of maritime presence and of the opportunities that this decade
of exploration will provide for people from many countries to work together
towards a common goal.. The question of seabed ownership that has to
be solved at the United Nations is going to provide a similar opportunity.
It is going to be quite a challenge to this country and to others to
see whether we can meet this problem without reverting to some of our
older nationalistic approaches. I am inclined to be optimist, but it
is going to take a concerted effort by a new group of players, new in
the sense that this goes well beyond oceanography as a science to a
field that puts people and their institutions in the picture. From the
topics and processes mentioned here, it is clear that we are dealing
with engineering, economics, foreign policy, banking, public administration,
and international law. And that is really the substance of the subject,
that a multidisciplinary and integrated approach is the key to the future
of marine science affairs "
177-8,
Edward Wenk, Jr. Ocean Resources and Public Policy, eds. Washington
and English
Remember
this is our home, and without our home, we are absolutely nothing. |
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Save our Home!
Everyone has the right freely to participate in the cultural
life of the community, to enjoy the arts and to share in scientific advancement
and its benefits.
(Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Paris
1948, art. 27)
Nice sentiment isn't it? The arts and sciences jointly created
by the various peoples and cultures of the world should be the blessing and property
of the people of the world as a whole.
But we all know better. Just the opposite is true. People in
general, people in the majority, are deprived of even fundamental human rights
of virtually every type. Indeed, the alienation of all fundamental human
rights have become the hallmark of the political economic monstrosity that passes
as modern human society.
Some, such as Francis Fukuyama, even go so far as to argue that
this form of civilization is the end of history. Meaning, that because the post-Cold
War world has ended with the self-destruction of the USSR there can be no more
struggle, nor contention on the systemic levels. Ergo, no more history.
Faulty logic though it may be, some still believe it. But history is not just the unfolding
of warring entities. It is also the consequence and product of human cooperation,
collaboration, love and many other social psychological actions. Nevertheless,
many leading authorities have embraced this specious theory. Most to suit their
private agendas of aggrandizement.
The fact is far from there being an end of history, what we
are facing is the end of human civilization. Specifically because of the geophysical
and related damage done to our atmosphere and our planetary system generally.
In reality, we are not in a golden age, but in a period of extreme danger for
human civilization and species.
The human species is threatened with outright obliteration
due to decisions and actions by shortsighted, acquisitive, avaricious, meglomaniacal,
privileged sections of the species.
Technological innovation such as NASA's Measurements of Pollution
in the Troposphere (MOPITT) satellite program has provided organized science
with "unprecedented views of pollution plumes drifting around the planet."
A global view
staff notes header July - August 2005
http://www.ucar.edu/communications/
staffnotes/0508/global.html
The MOPITT views proves that pollution is no respecter of national
boundaries or borders. That pollution does not remain in the area of its creation,
but in fact the containments are spread all over, permeating around the globe.
That means we have a common problem, no matter where we are on the globe. That
common problem obliges us to work together to prevent the destruction of the
legacy given to us by our common ancestors and to preserve and protect the rights
of our collective progeny.
Gen. Richard B. Myers, USAF Chairman, Joint
Chiefs of Staff points out the importance of understanding the history of phenomena.
"As we chart our way ahead,
we do not begin with a clean sheet of paper. We must first understand how we
arrived at our current way of organizing..."A Word from the Chairman Shift to a Global Perspective," Air & Space Power
Journal, 4 September
03
http://www.airpower.maxwell.af.mil/
airchronicles/apj/apj03/fal03/myers.html
The venerable statesman, Fidel Castro, accurately outlines the
recent history of this ominous trend. In this short piece he fully discerns
and reveals the nature of the global threats to the survival of our species:
"We also face great risks that threaten the human species
as a whole. This has become more
and more evident to me since I predicted, for the first
time in Rio de Janeiro, --over 15 years ago, in June
1992-- that our species was threatened
with extinction as a result of the destruction of its natural habitat. Today, the number of people who understand
the real danger of this grows
every day.
"A recent book by Joseph Stiglitz, former Vice-President
of the World Bank and President
Clinton's chief economic advisor . . ., Nobel Prize
laureate and bestselling author in the United States,
offers up-to-date and irrefutable
facts on the subject. He criticizes the United States,
a country which did not sign the Kyoto Protocol, for
being the largest producer of carbon
dioxide in the world, with annual emissions of 6 billion tons
of this gas which disturbs the atmosphere without which
life is impossible. In addition
to this, the United States is the largest producer of other
greenhouse gases.
"Few people are aware of these facts. The same economic
system which forced this unsustainable
wastefulness on us impedes the distribution of Stiglitz's book. Only a few thousand copies of an excellent edition
have been published, enough to
guarantee a margin of profit. This responds to a market demand, which the publishing house cannot ignore if
it is to survive.
"Today, we know that life on Earth has been protected
by the ozone layer, located in
the atmosphere's outer ring, at an altitude between 15 to
50 kilometers, in the region known as the stratosphere,
which acts as the planet's shield
against the type of solar radiation which can prove
harmful.
"There are greenhouse gases whose warming potential is
higher than that of carbon dioxide
and which widen the hole in the ozone layer above Antarctica, which loses as much as 70 percent of its volume every
spring. The effects of this phenomenon,
which is gradually taking place, are humanity's responsibility.
"To have a clear sense of this phenomenon, suffice it
to say that the world produces
an average of 4.37 metric tons of carbon dioxide per capita.
In the case of the United States, the average is 20.14,
nearly 5 times as much. In Africa,
it is 1.17, while in Asia and Oceania it is 2.87.
"The ozone layer, in brief, protects us from ultraviolet
and heat radiation which affects
the immune system, sight, skin and life of human beings.
Under extreme conditions, the destruction of that layer
by human beings would affect all
forms of life on the planet."
...
"The news on the events in Pakistan we received today
also attest to the dangers that
threaten our species: internal conflict in a country that possesses nuclear weapons. This is a consequence of
the adventurous policies of and
the wars aimed at securing the world's natural resources unleashed
by the United States.
"Pakistan, involved in a conflict it did not unleash,
faced the threat of being taken
back to the Stone Age.
"The extraordinary circumstances faced by Pakistan had
an immediate effect on oil prices
and stock exchange shares. No country or region in the world
can disassociate itself from the consequences. We must
be prepared for anything.
"There hasn't been a day in my life in which I haven't
learned something. Martí
taught us that "all of the world's glory fits in a kernel
of corn".
"Many times have I said and repeated this phrase, which
carries in eleven words a veritable
school of ethics."
Fidel's Message to the National Assembly GRANMA, December
28, 2007
The twin shocks of ecological degradation and constant global
warfare, if unchecked, will destroy the basis of human existence. We must develop
communication and agency capacity to educate and organize the majority of the
global population to address these matters.
Failing in that, there is no way we will be here to create the
fruits of our productive capacity as individuals and groups. We won't exist
because we will have allowed our world to be destroyed by a minority of human beings.
Beings who collectively have formed something akin to a nefarious cabal of retrograde
elements suffering from delusions of grandeur, unwarranted hubris and an extreme
God complex.
Together we can save our home. Divided we will doom ourselves
and future generations to a bleak existence that can barely be called human
and then to an ultimate demise of our kind. A complete destruction of our race,
the human race. Ask yourself is this what I want?
Think about it. If you agree with our logic spread the word,
help create a pro-green, anti-war of predation sentiment and movement among
humanity -- Remember: Our Planet Depends on US.
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