Imagine a ship that is sinking and needs all the available power to run the pumps to drain out the rising waters.
The first class passengers refuse to cooperate because they feel hot and want to use the air-conditioner and
other electrical appliances. The second-class passengers spend all their time trying to be upgraded to first-class status.
The boat sinks and the passengers all drown. That is where the present approach to climate change is leading.
If we continue to hide in denial and avoid taking action, I and my generation will be forced to grow up in a world where hurricanes as big as Katrina are normal,
people die every year because of heat waves, droughts, and floods, and entire species of animals we’ve come to know disappear right before our eyes.
It’s going to take more than changing light bulbs and buying hybrid cars. I believe it will take nothing less than a revolution… a revolution in our entire culture
and way of thinking, so that we value nature and the future of my generation with every action we take.
It has become obvious to me that my generation has over exploited our wonderful world – and it’s younger people who will pay the price.
Like many people my age, I’ve benefited from a long period of constant economic and population growth – we are addicted to it.
But sooner or later this consumption growth will have an end.
We appear to be already bumping against the limits of what our planet can sustain and the evidence is everywhere to see.
Climate Change: the final chance. These are the voyages of the starship Earth.
Its four-year mission: to explore strange new energy sources, to seek out new hope and new economic systems,
to boldly go where no denier has gone before!
The changing global climate will pose profound strategic challenges to the United States in coming decades,
raising the prospect of military intervention to deal with the effects of violent storms,
drought, mass migration and pandemics, military and intelligence analysts say.
The climate is nearing tipping points. ...
The greatest danger hanging over our children and grandchildren is initiation of changes
that will be irreversible on any time scale that humans can imagine.
By the end of the third decade of this century, all of American life — politics, international relations, our homes, our jobs, our industries,
the kind of cars we drive — will be forever transformed by the climate and energy challenge.
What’s happening with the planet’s climate right now needs to be a wake-up call to all of us,
meaning all heads of state, all heads of social organizations, in order to take a more energetic approach to countering the global changes
to the climate.”
If the environment is not addressed, we implicate our survival on the planet.
Equally, mass migration will place tremendous strains on our resources and cities.
Junkies find veins in their toes when the veins in their arms collapse. Developing tars sands is the equivalent.
The buy baby buy, waste baby waste, new baby new, more baby more mantras
must cease to be attractive,
or we are doomed as a species (along with most others).
System Change not Climate Change!
Extreme weather events continue to grow more frequent and intense in rich and poor countries alike,
not only devastating lives, but also infrastructure, institutions, and budgets –
an unholy brew which can create dangerous security vacuums.
Perhaps we cannot raise the winds. But each of us can put up the sail, so that when the wind comes we can catch it.
You cannot protect the environment unless you empower people, you inform them,
and you help them understand that these resources are their own, that they must protect them.
You can make a lot of speeches, but the real thing is when you dig a hole, plant a tree, give it water, and make it survive.
That's what makes the difference.
Every person who has ever achieved anything has been knocked down many times.
But all of them picked themselves up and kept going, and that is what I have always tried to do.
Even if we stabilize the concentrations in the atmosphere and stop emitting greenhouse gases into the atmosphere,
we can see that the rise in sea level will continue to accelerate for several centuries because of the sea and ice caps
long reaction time.
The door to 2 °C is closing.
Delaying action is a false economy: for every $1 of investment in cleaner technology that is avoided in the power sector before 2020,
an additional $4.30 would need to be spent after 2020 to compensate for the increased emissions.
Global warming is a deadly threat precisely because it fails to trip the brain's alarm, leaving us soundly asleep in a burning bed...
What happens in the Arctic does not stay in the Arctic.
