At end of fifth warmest year since record-keeping, Bali climate conference approaches conclusion

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Posted on December 14, 2007
Filed Under Global warming/Climate change, Deep ecology, Greenhouse gas emissions, Ecological hope, Earth spirituality

Fostering Ecological Hope
Today from Margaret Swedish:

You can’t say that the United Nations-sponsored climate conference in Bali isn’t surrounded by data and evidence emphasizing the urgency of its agenda.

As the talks approach their close, just-released data indicates that 2007 will turn out to be the fifth warmest globally since record-keeping began.

The report comes from our own NOAA National Climatic Data Center. Said the center’s Jay Lawrimore:

Within the last 30 years, the rate of warming is about three times greater than the rate of warming since 1900. The annual temperatures continue to be either near-record or at record levels year in and year out.

Get that? “The annual temperatures continue to be either near-record or at record levels year in and year out.”

But over in Bali, the US doesn’t think the world needs drastic action. I guess the Bush family and all those oil and gas industry people figure they’ll just keep cranking up the a.c. as the planet heats up. No problem.

Globally, seven of the eight warmest years on record have occurred since 2001, and the 10 warmest years have all occurred since 1997, said the report.

Hmmmm. Seems to be a trend here.

And while the US stalls over there in Bali, we must be reminded over and over again that the amount of heating already in the system will ensure that we continue to heat up through the rest of the century, even if we stopped emitting greenhouse gases today. If we don’t stop now, we are talking about disasters into the next century unlike anything humans have ever encountered.

Which is why there is such dismay around the world over the stand of the US government in the person of George Bush and his fossil fuel industry cronies.

Just read this morning that the Senate pared down the energy bill. They left the fuel mileage standards in place, but took out the taxes on the oil and gas industry and the requirement that power companies get 15% of their fuel from renewables. They also took out increased subsidies for development of renewables like wind and solar.

Dick, George, and Condie don’t want their corporate pals to be taxed to help finance our switch from carbon dioxide-emitting energy sources to something gentler for the planet.

This week I have written some about the moral weight that our federal government bears in this scenario of planetary doom and disaster for our children and their children’s children. Sometimes the hubris of these people can still make me catch my breath. Here is the US in Bali, shaming us all with the stonewalling and resistance to doinig what is right. Here is the world desperate to chart a path towards quick and drastic reduction of carbon dioxide emissions. Here is the US saying it will be held to no mandatory standard, and certainly not in the international arena.

And then, when challenged on the lack of leadership from the biggest carbon-emitting country in the world (per capita), our own James Connaughton, chair of the White House Council on Environmental Quality (another one of those regrettable oxymorons) says this:

We will lead. The US will lead. But leadership also requires that others fall into line and follow.

Say what!?!?!?! Leading is not the same as hubristic, nationalist, egomaniacal claims of superiority. Goodness gracious, no wonder the world has turned on this administration. We all just hold our breath waiting and hoping that something better will replace this, perhaps a bit of humility and respect for others, in 2009.

Meanwhile, in Bali, after UN fears that the whole process might fall apart, real fear for the future seems to be kicking in and today it looks more hopeful that some agreement to move forward will come out of the conference. Here is today’s Wash. Post article, a good overview of where things stand at the moment. Folks there are now working overtime to hash out some agreement before everyone goes home.

In closing for today, let’s give the last word to a Canadian climate scientist responding to the NOAA report, shall we?

When you see these numbers, it’s screaming out at you, ‘This is global warming,”‘ said climate scientist Andrew Weaver of the University of Victoria in Canada. “It’s the beginning and it’s unequivocal.”

Got that, George?


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Comments

One Response to “At end of fifth warmest year since record-keeping, Bali climate conference approaches conclusion”

  1. Steven Earl Salmony on December 15th, 2007 9:24 am

    We are losing the exquisite value of one of God’s gifts to humanity: good science.

    Is it possible that the standard for determining what is real and true in a culture is this: whatsoever is widely shared, consensually validated and judged to be ecomonically expedient, politically convenient, socially agreeable and religiously tolerated is true and real?

    At least to me, it seems that good science is being ignored and silence allowed to prevail when reasonable and sensible evidence comes into conflict with what culture prescribes as real and true. Perhaps science does present culture with evidence of inconvenient truths.

    Steven Earl Salmony, Ph.D., M.P.A.
    AWAREness Campaign on The Human Population, established 2001

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