Global Warming

President Obama

The bottom line is this: given our energy needs, in order to sustain economic growth, produce jobs and keep our businesses competitive, we’re going to need to harness traditional sources of fuel. So today we're announcing the expansion of offshore oil and gas exploration

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Gulf: 5 times what they originally claimed

Chevron Vs. Filmmaker

From Editorial: AB 32 foes are slick – and predictable

"Looking for hot air about global warming?

You don't have to look very far.

You can find it in columns by George Will and other pundits who dismiss the preponderance of scientific literature that global climate change is happening, and that human activities are contributing to it.

You can find it in the propaganda of front groups funded by fossil fuel industries that have a financial stake in maintaining their ability to dump greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, unrestricted.

You can see it here in California, where certain politicians and trade organizations – ever eager to find a scapegoat for the state's economic woes – are trying to suspend a landmark environmental law that hasn't even been implemented yet."

From Playing Russian Roulette with Climate Change by Mikhail Gorbachev and Alexander Likhotal

"...Sensible risk management today dictates that atmospheric carbon should be stabilized at 350 parts per million of CO2 equivalent, not the current pathway of 450-500ppm CO2e. This requires emission reductions of 45-50% in industrialized countries by 2020, and almost complete de-carbonization by 2050, not the levels of 15-25% by 2020 and 60-80% by 2050 that are now on the table. Major developing countries must also commit to nationally appropriate mitigation actions. But the rich must move first. Their inaction over the last 20 years does not give them the right to point fingers."

Let’s start with a few facts.
1. Human Activities Are Changing The Atmosphere.
2. The Increasing CO2 Concentration Is Warming the Planet.

First of all what would a successful agreement look like? The goals were to set legally binding limits on greenhouse gases. That failed to happen! The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) has the objective of stabilizing greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere at a level that would prevent dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system.

What is dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system? Already over 150,000 people die a year from climate change and 80% of them are 5 years old or younger. Most of the glaciers will disappear this century. The ice sheets on the earth’s poles are shrinking. Climate change will result in more droughts, flooding and extreme weather for Sacramento and many other locations. These conclusions have been established by World Health Organization and Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

Any successful international agreement requires months or years of negotiations to find common ground among the parties ahead of time. That didn’t happen. What did happen was the fossil-fuels industries' lobbyists effectively blocked any meaningful agreement.

Here are my favorite quotes from the 12/27/09 Sacramento Bee.

"California has the opportunity to be a leader in the green revolution – by showing how to make buildings more energy efficient, designing more efficient transmission lines, developing a better battery, reducing the cost of solar power, being a pioneer in technologies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and a hundred other possibilities."

- Stephen Levy is director of the Center for Continuing Study of the California Economy in Palo Alto.
- Special to The Bee, Published Sunday, Dec. 27, 2009
- http://www.sacbee.com/198/story/2420552.html

The following editorial was published Dec. 7, 2009 by 56 newspapers around the world in 20 languages including Chinese, Arabic and Russian. The text was drafted by a Guardian team during more than a month of consultations with editors from more than 20 of the papers involved. Like The Guardian most of the newspapers have taken the unusual step of featuring the editorial on their front page.

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