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7 de Abril, 2007
The Great Unprotected Planet
Categorized under Planeta | Tags: Environment
WE'LL ENACT STRICT LAWS and lists to protect endangered bugs and animals even though species aren't known to last forever. Yet we'll—and when I say "we" I mean human beings—"soften" or deny or strongarm truth about the harm we are doing our world. Even when our very existence is endangered, we won't put the planet on the list. Why? Because it would cut into someone's lavish lifestyle or ability to make as much product or profit. So we resist it, even as fact after fact after disastrous effect builds up.
Saturday 07 April 2007, Brussels - From the poles to the tropics, the earth's climate and ecosystems are already being shaped by the atmospheric buildup of greenhouse gases and face inevitable, possibly profound, alteration, the world's leading scientific panel on climate change said Friday. ...
The report said that given the current buildup of carbon dioxide and other long-lived greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, temperatures and seas would inevitably rise for decades. The worst effects would be felt in regions that are mainly poor and already facing dangers from existing climate and coastal hazards.
'It's the poorest of the poor in the world, and this includes poor people even in prosperous societies, who are going to be the worst hit," said Rajendra K. Pachauri, the chairman of the panel. 'People who are poor are least-equipped to be able to adapt to the impacts of climate change, and therefore in some sense this does become a global responsibility in my view.'
I wonder if Katrina's destruction inside the "prosperous" USA was, on a small scale, what the world will look like before long, and more than once. Areas of poor people being decimated on live TV while the rest enjoy their television reception. You wouldn't think so, but you wouldn't think we'd be resisting all the facts about global warming, either. And you wouldn't have imagined Katrina happening in this country before it did. It was unthinkable. Like two planes crashing into the WTC and one into the Pentagon without triggering our air defenses.
Either way, let's imagine it now, so nobody can claim later that "nobody could have imagined this."
THE PLANET is clearly on its way to becoming uninhabitable or inhospitable to us in many ways and regions and all"90%" due to our own doing. Here, the Western paradigm of thought tells us to run around building seawalls and stopgaps and levees and such. Smacking down the symptoms. Which is fine...if you're also going at the root, and fast. I saw "Western paradigm," but even the East—China—is involved in denial in this case. I suppose East/West philosophies can meld when the dollar is threatened.
Like endangered animals, our very home (and to us she is a universe) should be protected. If law means anything at all, then it should be applied immediately to save our Mother Earth. No "softening" of the science to spare certain sectors of commerce, no catering to political interests, no redacting, NO LYING. If it cannot, what good is law at all? With this latest report, we have enough evidence (and of course we always have our patron saint, Sir Good Earth Gore spreading the word) to demand that politicians listen to the science, the truth, this time. As endangered animals are protected, it ought no longer be a luxury to "support the science" anymore. Our politicians cannot, clearly, be trusted to know what's in our best interest. The law ought to compel them. But perhaps that is both circular and silly. Because isn't the law decided by the dollar?
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Comentarios (2)
vertalio dijo:
Yes, yes. I'm with Sr. Lovelock on this, in thinking the tipping point is past now: Arctic ice is on the way out, along with the Great Conveyor (aka the Gulf Stream), and so vigorous and permanent (well, geologically) change is nigh. Say hello to inundation, New York and Barcelona and Rio and Hong Kong; say hello, overpopulated world, to starvation and disease.
Cookbooks will henceforth include cannibal favorites.
I spend my free moments planting trees and shrubs that may bear food and shelter when I'm gone.
Chilitepins included.
Palabras por vertalio spat forth on el 7 de Abril, 2007 at 05:43 PM
Rafael dijo:
Of course you know this is avast conspiracy to cripple American economic power, you know because the worse thing that can happen to American workers and industries is to cut down on carbon emissions or people choosing to switch light bulbs or recycling their garbage (all of which are great moneymakers by the way). Never mind the billions spend in graph and corruption, on negative sum military projects and wars for temporary gain. No, all the things you can cram into a myopic/Cyclopean view of corporate elites is good, everything else...not so much.
Palabras por Rafael spat forth on el 7 de Abril, 2007 at 06:42 PM