Myron (Mike) Stagman, PhD
Concerned Citizens Information Network
www.ccin.info
[environmental website: information on Drastic Climate Change, Genetic
Engineering, and the Destruction of Nature which Climate Change and
Genetic Engineering are promising to accomplish]
www.MyronStagman.com
Doomsday Global
Warming: Fact-Sheet/What To Do?
I.
Global Warming
(Drastic Climate Change): Fact-Sheet
For
the past 30 years in particular, due to heavy air
pollution from the burning of fossil fuels (oil.
gas, coal),
global temperatures have risen dramatically -- with equally
damaging
effects. A continuation of the pattern will lead -- and
swiftly -- to
disastrous climate changes obvious to the most unobservant.
Heat-trapping
gases ("greenhouse" gases) are the poisonous causes, produced
especially by carbon dioxide emissions poured out from airplanes,
automobile tailpipes, power plants, industrial smokestacks.
Global Warming has already
brought
about the breaking up of arctic ice shelves and the retreat of mountain
glaciers. It has brought about changes in winds and
currents in both
the Atlantic and Pacific oceans.
These
in turn cause extreme weather events with countless human and wildlife
victims -- storms, floods, droughts, soaring temperatures in some
places and plunging temperatures in others.
["Kilmanjaro's
'Perpetual Snows' Melt Away" , International Herald
Tribune, 20
February 2001. "The ice cap atop Mount Kilmanjaro, which for thousands
of years has floated like a cool beacon over the shimmering equatorial
plain of Tanzania, is retreating at such a pace that it will disappear
in less than 15 years, according to studies.
["The
vanishing of the seemingly perpetual snows of Kilmanjaro that inspired
Ernest Hemingway, echoed by similar trends on ice-capped peaks from
Peru to Tibet, is one of the clearest signs that a global warming in
the last 50 years appears to have exceeded climate shifts and is at
least partly caused by gases released by human activities, a variety of
scientists say."]
Sahara
desert conditions are insidiously invading parts of southern Europe,
while Siberia has had temperatures dipping below minus 50 degrees
centigrade (minus 58 Fahrenheit).
Britain
and parts of northern Europe have seen widespread flooding.
In other parts of the world, shorelines have been destroyed.
Environmental
refugees,
people who lost their livelihoods and homes due to drastic climate
change, clamour to enter northern countries, such as the UK.
[The
inhabitants of the south Pacific Island of Kiribati, the Marshall
Islands, Cook Islands, and low-lying islands of Papua New Guinea "are
all preparing to evacuate their lands forever as rising sea levels
threaten their homes now. For them, as for the families of
the many
thousands of people across Europe who lost their lives in last year's
heatwave, climate change is not about the day after tomorrow, it is
about today".
[The
Ecologist, July/August 2004]
Animals
and birds have lost their natural habitats, particularly
from droughts and a loss of wetlands and estuaries. Animal
and plant species have become extinct.
["North
Sea birds dying as waters heat up: Scientists warn that warmer
conditions could have a catastrophic effect on east coast
ecosystem". The Observer, 20
June 2004. "Climate change is ridding the North Sea of its
precious
stocks of plankton, the microscopic organisms on which all life in the
sea depends. As the very building blocks of the food chain
disappear,
fish and the birds that feed on them, such as the puffin and guillemot,
are starving to death in what has been their natural home for thousands
of years."]
Malarial
mosquitoes have extended their range, and events like this
cause side-effects such as increases in the use of toxic pesticides.
Money:
A report in early June 2004 by the Association of British
Insurers
deals with financial losses in their industry, past and projected, from
climate change. "The
financial losses caused by natural catastrophes have increased
seven-fold within the last 40 years."
Losses
will continue to escalate.
"A major coastal flood affecting London costing £40 billion
in
insurance claims alone" will occur before 2050. "The ABI report is
distressing reading for anyone tempted to see global warming as meaning
longer summers. It will also mean heat stress, skin cancer,
food
poisoning, exotic diseases such as malaria, and
drought."
(Guardian editorial, 11 June 2004)
"Collateral damage"
-- Fossil fuels cause other damage occasioned by giant
businesses and the governments they influence -- wars
(e.g. in Afghanistan and Iraq), oil spills
(e.g. the Exxon Valdez catastrophe in Alaska; the
200,000 gallons
dumped near the pristine Galapagos islands off of Chile), European
spills such as the fairly recent Spanish disaster; Cancer,
derived in significant part from air pollution.
On
the latter point, it is worth quoting the U.S. National Institutes of
Health publication, Cancer -- Rates
and Risks (4th edition): "Air
Pollution.
Pollutants in the urban air have long been suspect as causes of lung
cancer. . . . Of special concern are products from the combustion of
fossil fuels found principally in motor vehicle exhausts (especially
diesel engines), residential and commercial space heating, oil and
coal-fired power plants, and industrial emissions."
The
overall economic losses stretch into the trillions of dollars --
already. According to the New
Scientist (1 May 2004), Australia
alone, due to extraordinary drought conditions in recent years, has
experienced US$5 billion in lost production.
[Estimates
of economic losses do not include financial losses from the
Iraq War,
fought primarily over oil, that has cost to this date (spring
2004)
about 100 billion dollars, with another half-trillion dollars estimated
to go for the rebuilding of the country. Fossil
fuels must be replaced.]
Global
Warming threatens
-- to get
much, much worse.
-- to drive one million species of animals and plants to
extinction within a few decades.
"A
quarter of known land animals and plants, more than a million species,
will eventually die out because of the global warming that will take
place over the next 50 years, the most important
study of its kind has concluded.
"International scientists from eight countries have warned that, based
even on the most conservative estimates, rising temperatures will
trigger a global mass extinction of unprecedented
proportions."
[The Independent, 8 January 2004, "Revealed:
how global warming will cause extinction of a million species", by
Steve Connor, Science Editor]
[Example. Europe -- "Many birds are threatened by
climate change due
to the loss of climatically suitable habitats. The red kite
could lose
up to 86 per cent of its range as a result of warmer
temperatures -- an
additional pressure following centuries of persecution." (Independent)]
[Example. South Africa -- "The Cape Floristic Region is one
of the six
richest plant regions in the world. The toffee-apple
conebrush is
found in just a few localities and it is predicted that all
of them
will become climatically unsuitable by 2050 -- a
major dieback of the
plant has already occurred following extensive droughts. (Independent)]
Global
Warming threatens
-- to create 20 million environmental refugees
per year. By 2050, the total may reach 150
million displaced persons.
-- According to a secret U.S. Pentagon report,
suppressed for 4 months by President Bush (prompted by the Giant Oil
Lobby), the passage of a mere 20 years may see the deaths of millions
of people from wars and natural disasters, mega-droughts, famine, a
rise in sea levels inundating large areas, water and energy
shortages,
violent storms, and a multitude of internal conflicts caused by these
events.
Within 15
years time, it is predicted, Europe will become much colder.
Britain
will likely fare worse than other European
countries.
[The Guardian, 22
April 2004. "Global warming floods threaten 4m in
UK". During the
next 50 years, "up to 4 million Britons [are] facing the prospect of
their homes being inundated, according to a report to be published
today by the government."]
The
Pentagon report concluded that Climate Change "should be elevated
beyond a scientific debate to a U.S. national security
concern." (See
The Observer, 22 February 2004.)
-
- - - - - - - - -
II.
What Can We Do About Global
Warming?
[Repeat: It
threatens to drive one million species of animals and plants
to extinction within a few decades;
to
create 20 million environmental refugees per year]
Obviously,
we must drastically reduce greenhouse, carbon gas
emissions. We can achieve this imperative goal via
(a) energy
conservation
in transport, industry, at home, and (most importantly,
because
conservation is stopgap at best -- and thinking of China and India,
it's not even that):
b) furthering
green (clean and renewable) energy technologies while limiting and phasing out
polluting energy sources.
Therefore,
I.
Polluters
and Polluting Agents to Target:
a. Fossil-Fuel Lobbies -- oil & gas, coal,
automobile and aviation industries.
b.
Put an end to the £50 billion ($75 billion) a year spent by
the rich
countries to subsidize fossil fuel industries.
Divert money from the
radioactivity-polluting, inefficient nuclear power
industry.
c. Make the Polluters pay for
the damage they do -- via legislation, compensation claims in courts of
law. Let taxation become an awfully heavy burden for
the fossil fuel,
automobile and aviation industries.
d.
The United States, with 4% of the world's population, accounts for 25%
of the world's greenhouse-gas pollution. Americans
indulge in
fuel-inefficient vehicles like SUVs and pickup
trucks.
The
Bush Government, moreover, renounced the Kyoto Accord on cutting global
carbon emissions after the Clinton Administration had signed the
international treaty.
The Bush (Harken Energy oil corporation)--Cheney (Halliburton Energy
oilfields corporation)-Condeleeza Rice (former director at Chevron
Oil)-- etc. -- administration is an Oil-Lobby government.
e.
The rich, developed countries cause 80% of the problem. (The
UK's share is
3%).
f.
Cut down on the sale and use of automobiles. Among other
things,
curtail usage by prohibiting car travel to certain areas on certain
days (as in Athens, Greece).
II. Positive Measures
a. Public transport -- promote
publicly-owned, public transport, and subsidised so economical
fares encourage its use.
b. Stop building roads and new airports.
Put the money into public
transport, into railways, buses, cycleways and walkways. And
bring
back ship travel at non-luxury prices.
c. Encourage bicycling, walking (and
jogging). Become healthier while the planet becomes so.
d. We
should become more economical in the use of electricity around the
house and in offices, such as turning off lights, TV
sets, computers;
such as not using air-conditioning unless you really need it (a
characteristically American failing).
e. Recyclie plastic (which is an oil-based
material); phase out plastic containers.
f. Use biodegradable packaging.
g.. For use against carbon dioxide, there is a
micro-organism called
'cyanobacteria' (green slime) that can consume carbon
dioxide. The
main problem is to apply cyanobacteria to an operational power plant.
(One of the problems with the application process has already been
solved by an undergradiuate student at Ohio University. The problem
involved providing light in a smokestack.)
Research and develop things like this -- but without
allowing patents.
III.
Save our forests, which act as 'carbon
sinks'. But absolutely do
not genetically engineer trees, and eliminate
those GM trees already misbegotten.
IV.
Develop clean, renewable energy sources: These
include solar energy, geothermal, tidal, biomass, combined heat and
power schemes (CHP), hydrogen technology, and bio-diesel.
[NOT wind
power -- extremely inefficient and destructive of Nature and scenic
beauty; or, of course, nuclear power, for obvious reasons]
Flower
Power -- (New Scientist, 1
May 2004, by Philip Hunter) The
mystery of how plants derive energy from sunlight by splitting water
molecules is solved at last. Now the challenge is to do the
same in
the lab. The reward is . . . unlimited energy.
"
Photosynthesis is the most successful solar converting mechanism on
Earth. And when Nature has invented such a successful system,
it would
be foolish to ignore it as a potential source of renewable energy, says
Stenbjorn Styring, professor of biochemistry at Lund University in
Sweden. Artifical photosynthesis would make it possible to
harness
sunlight to produce limitless quantities of hydrogen or other
energy-rich fuels from water, cleanly and cheaply."
Let us use Flower Power as a clue to other clean, cheap and
splendid energy sources.
Warning:
NO PATENTS should be permitted on any invention in this
field. All inventions belong in the public
domain.
Patents,
which confer monopoly rights, are customarily used by
corporations to
stop research and competition, sew up markets, and set artificially
high prices. 2/3 of patented products are
never produced.
The
last thing on earth oil & gas corporations want is clean, cheap
energy. One way or another they or their allies will get
their hands
on patented energy processes, and that's the last we will ever see of
them.
NO
PATENTS allowed. If someone makes a valuable
invention, then pay him
or her or them handsomely, and make the invention
available to all of us.
NO
PATENTS allowed. Use public-funded
research, and encourage private (but not large corporate)
research, and allow NO PATENTS.
Patents
are the most abused and abusive section of law. Well over 90%
of
extant patents should be foreclosed. Patent law should be
redefined
and very strictly limited. (Of course, no patents should
ever have been allowed on life-forms, an evil of unimaginable
proportions.)
In
case the point has not been sufficiently stressed, NO
PATENTS ALLOWED in the development of clean,
renewable energy sources.
Note: The technological part
of developing clean, cheap energy sources is rather easy.
The problem is political, overcoming
powerful vested economic interests and their
political executors. The
problem is political
!!
BIG QUESTION: JUST
HOW shall we accomplish the above given the
Corporation-Government-corporate
Mass Media axis
which has insisted that Global Warming and the destruction of Planet
Earth are necessary for Them to satisfy their pathological lust for
Money and Power?
Answer: Grassroots
Public Information Campaigns to educate & politically activate
the
General Public, university/college students in particular.
Don't think the
General Public MUST KNOW BY NOW about Global Warming and its
apolcalyptic dangers -- they don't. And those
that do have little if any idea what to do about it.
So they must become educated on the subject -- with essential
information (only this is necessary) -- and
informed/motivated about What To Do.
This
would , by the way, help create an informed, sparetime
activist
Citizenry which increasingly takes over the vital political system that
is rightfully and legally theirs.