Climate change guilty of doing too little

The past decade was America‘s hottest on record. They are seeing more droughts, floods, and wildfires than ever before and these days low temperatures have many blocked.  Though still lots of Americans are not convinced they too should try to reduce waste, pollution and should use less of the earth’s resources just like there is plenty-fold.

A vast array of physical and biological systems across the Earth are being affected by human-induced global warming (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Good to see a president who dares to call onto the citizens and to warn them that they may not stay blind, because

Climate change is happening, and the effects are visible all around us.

But a lot of people still have questions about climate change:

what it means, how bad it really is, and what we can do to fight it.

Still too many do not want to see what is going on in nature. They prefer to put their head in the sand. How climate change will impact on the world, and what must be done to avert a catastrophic four-degree rise in global temperature, many governments only offer obfuscation and excuses.

Denial: Australians burying their heads in the sands of Bondi Beach to send a message to Prime Minister Tony Abbott about the dangers of climate change.

To be fully committed in the fight against climate change, we all have to understand why it’s such a serious issue.

We may see or hear that there are state organisations like Fish and Wildlife Service officials who try to get a good federal protection and present listings and have distributed guidelines on how to best log forests without harming bats for example. These recommendations suggest restricted logging from April through October, which led to push-back from the forest industry. That timber industry in the whole of America keeps cutting trees like nothing and each day football fields of green lounges disappear. where is the state control and why can not they catch the limber thieves?

The “burning embers” diagram above was produced by the IPCC in 2001. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

In the meantime lots of people do heat their houses like saunas in Winter and cool it like freezers in Summer, whilst the factories fill the air with fumes of all sorts.

Unless global emissions peak and decline in short order, the world will pass a point where global warming can be limited to two degrees.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s recent report calculated the remaining amount of carbon dioxide humans can emit and still have a likely chance of limiting global warming to less than two degrees. It comes to about another 1,000 gigatonnes of carbon dioxide.

In 2012, global emissions of greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide and methane were around 54 gigatonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent. To meet that “carbon budget”, UNEP calculates global emissions must be no higher than 44 gigatonnes in 2020, and 42 gigatonnes in 2030.

But current climate targets don’t stick within these limits. World leaders are currently committed to targets that imply global emissions will be 52 to 54 gigatonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent in 2020, and 56 to 59 gigatonnes in 2030. UNEP says that leaves an “emissions gap” between where we’re headed and where we need to be.

In the West of Europe many people and governments are realizing the gravity of this problem, and are already taking action on the issue. In the wake of the historic joint climate announcement by the U.S. and China at the beginning of this month, the importance of American leadership in the fight against climate change cannot be understated.

Lots of Americans live in imaginary Pollyanna Land in the United States, much like the rest of the so-called developed world.

We’re the biggest, the best, the brightest, the strongest, the most noble. We’re a shining city on a hill, a beacon of justice and morality, righting wrongs, fighting evil everywhere, and guiding the world to the promised land of unlimited growth, wealth, and opportunity.  {Battling Environmental Depression: Learning How to Die in the Anthropocene}

Fortunately, a majority of Americans believe that climate change is real, but there’s still a lot of confusion and misinformation out there.
That’s why it’s critical that every opportunity is taken to set the record straight, and to make sure that everyone’s as informed and knowledgeable about it as possible.

Energy efficiency improvements could prevent 22 to 24 gigatonnes of carbon dioxide emissions between 2015 and 2030, UNEP estimates, with new energy efficiency policies reducing energy demand by about five to seven per cent.

The Great Barrier Reef lies off the coast of Queensland (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Perhaps the world wants to wait to much for what North America is doing, though the American president last week called on Australia’s youth to rise up and demand more action to combat climate change, remarking that

“incredible natural glory of the Great Barrier Reef is threatened”.

The future of the Reef is an international issue therefore the world could see the US President, Barack Obama, talking about his desire for his grandchildren’s generation to still be able to enjoy the Reef in the way that we’re able to today. Knowing how to plan and manage the best outcomes for it is of the upmost importance.

On Sunday, Premier Campbell Newman said he was not about to “criticise our guest” but added that Mr Obama had relied on misinformation and he would tell US officials about what was “actually going on with the reef”.

In response the Australian Minister for Foreign Affairs Julie Bishop replied the Reef was

“not under threat from climate change because its biggest threat is the nutrient runoffs agricultural land, the second biggest threat is natural disasters, but this has been for 200 years”

Until now Prime Minister Tony Abbott has tried to limit the extent of discussion of climate change, but he has revealed he raised the issue during a bilateral meeting with French President François Hollande.

After years of arguing that Australia should only move faster once major polluters also moved, like so many other countries think, he has now described climate change as

“an important subject”

and one

“the world needs to tackle as a whole”.

The declaration followed one-on-one talks with his French counterpart, President Francois Hollande, in Canberra ranging across trade, security and the need for binding emissions targets. But he said individual country commitments to reduce carbon pollution must not come at the expense of jobs and growth or they will inevitably fail.

The apparent shift from climate change resister to global action advocate came as he added the giant European Union to his priority list for a free trade agreement and called for greater intelligence sharing with the French on counter-terrorism, and the difficult issue of foreign fighters travelling to and from Iraq and Syria.

Mr Abbott said Australia and France were working side by side to defeat the Islamic State organisation in Iraq but pointedly added that “we’ve got more to do particularly when it comes to intelligence-sharing on the question of foreign fighters”.

“Climate change is an important subject. It is a subject that the world needs to tackle as a whole. Yes, each country has to do its bit to tackle the emissions problem. We are all doing what we can, Australia as well, and we need a strong and effective agreement from Paris next year.”

Mr Abbott said on Wednesday.

Obama rallied the world’s leaders and tried to organize action to slow carbon emissions and climate change. He announced a $3 billion contribution to the Green Climate Fund. The GCF helps developing countries curb carbon emissions and deal with the effects of climate change such as heat waves, mudslides and rising sea levels. Japan also announced a $1.5 million contribution during the G20 Summit. On November 20, at a meeting in Berlin, many other wealthy nations pledged money to the fund.

Continuing his efforts to portray climate change as a global problem in need of a global solution, Obama spoke to an audience at the University of Queensland about environmental responsibility. The crowd applauded every time Obama mentioned climate change. He asserted that the Asia-Pacific region had more at stake from extreme weather and rising oceans than any other part of the world. {Obama Champions the Great Barrier Reef Despite Resistance}

For the North Americans Dr. John P. Holdren, Director, Office of Science and Technology Policy is willing to do everything he can to help.

Ask Dr. John P. Holdren anything you want to know about climate change, and forward this to anyone you know who has questions, too.

Mean surface temperature change for 1999–2008 relative to the average temperatures from 1940 to 1980 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

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Please do find:

1. What have we done to the planet?
2. The importance of improved energy efficiency to meet climate objectives
3. What if the climate change problem were instead treated as a moral issue
4. Battling Environmental Depression: Learning How to Die in the Anthropocene
5. Learning How to Die in the Anthropocene
6. Headlines by picking time scale
7. Ecobuild 2015
8. Harvard students sue for fossil fuel divestment
9. Rising Seas Threaten Jokowi’s Maritime Plan
10. Student Activism is a Catalyst for Change
11. Fisheries data & statistics expert position at IMARES, The Netherlands
12. Push for fossil fuel divestment gains momentum
13. It took only two days for Abbott’s ‘conversion’ to climate change to be exposed
14. Come on man, get on with it
15. Abbott finds his French Connection on emission controls (Video)
16. Buffalo’s 2014 November Snowstorm

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