Ignorance, Hubris And Denial Only Responses To Rapid Climate Breakdown

[hatrack]

WOODS HOLE, Mass. -- We need leadership on climate change, and we’re not getting it. Leaders would understand the issue and help educate us. Leaders would realize the magnitude of the problem and shape a commensurate response. Where we need focus, we get distractions. Where we need courageous and decisive action, we get ignorance, arrogance and denial. And time is not on our side. Human-induced climate change should be beyond fundamental debate. The science is clear. The trends are alarming. The implications are profoundly threatening to the status quo. We are looking at a world that by mid-century will be significantly warmer and different in ways we can only guess.

John Holdren, incoming president of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and a Harvard energy expert who directs the Woods Hole Research Center, has said that the 3- to 8-degree Fahrenheit increase in global average surface temperature predicted to result from a doubling of the pre-industrial concentration of carbon dioxide may be a best-case scenario! With "business as usual," the world is headed for a quadrupling of carbon dioxide from pre-industrial levels -- which will lead to a global average temperature increase of 5 to 16 degrees Fahrenheit, and mid-continent increases two to three times higher. He calls this a "roasted world."

James Hansen, director of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies, has said that if we are not operating very differently within 10 years, this change will be irreversible. Other scientists do not give us that much time.

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How many Katrinas will it take to bankrupt the country? To finish off the insurance industry? To cause massive human dislocation? To overwhelm health and shelter providers? Two? Three? Four? Why do we think this can’t happen to us? Right now, we humans are showing -- and our leaders exemplify -- characteristics that, in combination, are toxic. We have believed since Genesis that we are apart from nature, and that our job is to achieve dominion over the earth. We believe we are in control of the earth. What hubris! We are largely ignorant of science, and we hope that what we don’t know can’t hurt us. And we live in denial.

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http://www.metrowestdailynews.com/columnists/view.bg?articleid=124797

[spindrifter]

1. It's the exploitation mentality.

Me first! My profit! This has to stop.

[NNadir]

2. As the Cowardly Lion in the "Wizard of Oz" said...

"Ain't it the truth! Ain't it the truth!"

From the link:

The changing climate isn’t really that big a deal. Arrogance, ignorance, and denial are the fatal combination.

What we need from our leaders is the opposite. We need them to know that there is no more urgent issue than reducing greenhouse-gas emissions.

This isn’t just about a wind farm off the Massachusetts coast. This is about many such farms, everywhere we can put them. This is about nuclear power, because the risks from long-term storage of nuclear-fuel rods pales beside the harm caused right now by carbon.

Almost all of our leaders are cowardly lions.

[JohnWxy]

3. very good post, like many on this subject that have appeared on this site

Suggest you post this on Congress.org. You get a wider audience (not in terms of numbers, but interms of political persuasion). You can urge readers to send emails to Congressmen and Senators. Congress.org is set up to make that process easy.. People can use your message as the basis of their email.

IT's good to offer some concrete actions be taken. There is a lot of talk about research into technologies to help IN THE FUTURE. While this is laudable, there are things that can be done RIGHT NOW, IMMEDIATELY that will start us on the right path. THis is not only a Global Warming issue (which rally takes precedent over all others) but also a national security and economic security issue. Reducing use of fossil fuel (mostly imported) will strengthen our economy and we will need that to cope with the coming enormous impacts of climate change.

Improved efficiency of automobiles, and all electrical appliances, improved insulation standards in all new housing are a couple. Aggressive development of wind power, which is the cheapest form of energy we have today, is another. Also, we currently have a renewable fuel that can replace up to 30% of the oil we are now consuming. Ethanol is a fuel that is practical right now that produces less green house gases than gasoline and will strengthen our economy as it enables us to reduce our imports of oil.

[4dsc]

5. Say what??

You claimed:Reducing use of fossil fuel (mostly imported) will strengthen our economy and we will need that to cope with the coming enormous impacts of climate change.

If the US was to reduce its fossil fuel use, it would cease to expand its economy. For the US to reduce its fossil fuel use would mean agriculture would grow less food for the world..

And ethanol is not the answer to replacing oil!!

we currently have a renewable fuel that can replace up to 30% of the oil we are now consuming

WHERE??

[TreasonousBastard]

4. Leadership is certainly needed, but...

then what?

Not only must every nation be in on the reduction of greenhouse gases and whatnot, but we must personally be, too. Perhaps an impossible dream.

China and India have shown no interest whatsoever in environmental concerns other than immediate crises. Mexico, Brazil, Indonesia... Anybody out there even pretend to care?

And then, there's us. How many of us who talk about global warming have made a serious sacrifice to reduce thier carbon load? Buying a Prius and putting in little flourescent lights sounds nice, but these aren't the changes in lifestyle needed. You still got a car, and you still got too many lights plugged into the wall.

Bicycles, more bus and train service, taking a shuttle to the mall instead of driving, moving all the relatives closer together rather than driving or flying, refusing energy intensive products or services... Ganging up on the NIMBYs on Long Island and Martha's Vineyard who don't want the windmills messing with their viwew of the ocean.

Just how many people are going to get rid of their cars entirely?

Or accept more nuclear power?

Major lifestyle changes are in order to get any significant reduction in environmental effects of all sorts, and it won't be cheap.

If the Gulf Stream changes course and plunges us into a deep freeze, or if a huge chunk of Antarctic ice drops into the ocean raising it by 5 or 6 feet, then we'll notice and we'll have to change something. Until then, though, any call to change things will be met by hoots and derision by those of us who just refuse to change our comfortable lifestyles.

[megatherium]

6. Hurricane season resumes in 11 weeks.

But the big threat I believe is drought: We will not be able to grow the amount of food we have been growing (in North America).

I gather our agriculture in the high plains makes heavy use of paleowater. How rapidly is that being depleted?