Spirituality and Ecological Hope

Today from Margaret Swedish:

Well, they keep doing studies, and the studies keep saying the same thing — global warming is real, the earth is heating up, and human activity is a leading cause.

A couple of days ago, the media reported that yet another study, this one commissioned by Mr. Bush himself, found that there is "clear evidence of human influences on the climate system."  The only uncertainty seems to be around predicting exactly what the local impacts will be and how warm it will get.

As the New York Times reported, this study removes one of the rationales for the Bush administration's go-slow approach to the reality of climate change.  "The study said that the only factor that could explain the measured warming of the Earth's average temperature over the past 50 years was the buildup of heat-trapping gases, which are mainly emitted by burning coal and oil," wrote Andrew Revkin, the Times' leading reporter on climate change.

Now perhaps the most humorous, or cynical, part of this is that the White House is saying that this report shows how well its program of study-rather-than-action is working.  Even better, this is just the first of 21 "assessments" planned by the Bush Administration's Climate Change Science Program.  The government will continue to study the situation, perhaps literally, to death.

Studies and studies and studies, all showing how dire the situation, all telling us the time to act is now.  While the government studies, and the news stories about the studies appear deep inside the pages of the newspapers, we continue to add the carbon emissions that will only make current predictions of warming obsolete.

Folks, anyone who tells you that we can wait to change how we live is deceiving you.  And when you are told that mandatory cuts in emissions will be bad for the economy, just imagine the future of emerging deserts, floods, coastal cities under water, hundreds of millions of environmental refugees, fresh water shortages, etc., etc., and then tell me which reality is worse for the economy.

The oil, gas, and coal industries are trying to tell you it won't come to that, but even studies commissioned by this energy-industry-led government are arriving at the same conclusion.

Get involved!  And be willing to alter your lifestyle.  The people will have to lead in this.  And the next elections will be critical to getting a group of legislators, and ultimately an executive branch, willing to make the hard decisions in this regard.  Without that, the US will help lead the world not to democracy and freedom, but to its doom.