Any Global Warming Program Starts Locally or Does It?

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As we get older it becomes common to reflect on our life and the success and failures of our existence. For most, our successes far out-way our failures and we can sit back and ponder on what our children and grandchildren’s life and world will be like for we have had a hand in developing their future. Questions such as, will they have as a rewarding and satisfying life as we have had? Will they enjoy a world of peace? A world full of resources? A career full of self satisfaction? And a world removed from most modern day health hazards, and complications?

For most individuals these are just wishes, and they believe that such hopes are acts of faith or out of their control, or for someone else to do. For some years now, scientist from around the globe have been preaching to governments at all levels of the potential hazards of global warming to planet earth and humanity itself. At first only a few were listening, and even then those were from either the scientific/research world, or the global corporations whose revenues depend heavily on cheap energy sources and foresaw the problem such research would have, if released to the general public on their corporate bottom lines.

A stalwart champion for big international corporations was Past USA President George Bush who knew if action was taken to reduce emissions, that United States and Canada’s oil corporations would greatly be affected and so as President he collected his International friends and mutually they commenced a campaign predicted that thousands of jobs would be lost should such a program be implemented. And then suddenly a course of action you’ll recall was advanced to go to war especially with those countries that have a treasury of oil or defend those that have close ties with the USA corporate elite because of their oil reserves.

After all is said and done, we are now at a World historical cross roads, and it will take National Leaders from the G20 to help the people all the while providing guidance and good stewardship to the worlds developing countries. Making decisions which will affect our Planet’s climate and thus directly affect the next generation (our grandchildren) who will have to live with those decisions certainly will not be easy, however, history has shown time and again that one generation after another have made decisions to protect the future of their offspring’s.

Each individual presently living on this Planet we call Earth is at risk of setting the path of this planet’s plight. Here are some scenarios based on research and cold facts as reported in the Journal, Science authored by seventeen marine scientists from seven different countries on the threat that global warming poses on the world’s corals and as such our planet: “burning coal, oil and gas adds carbon dioxide – a heat-absorbing greenhouse gas – to the atmosphere. Oceans absorb this gas, turning them more acidic. That interferes with the ability of coral, living organisms, to calcify their skeletons, and the coral begins to die.”

Coral reefs act as hatcheries and nurseries for ocean fish. These coral fisheries in Asia feed an estimated one billion people. That relates to an economic value of over $30 billion dollars annually. One has to realize that the world’s largest reef system is the Great Barrier Reef, which stretches over 1,600 miles off the coast of Australia. More than 60% of the USA’s coral reefs are found off the coast of the Hawaiian Islands. The report goes on to state that “we have created conditions on Earth unlike anything most species alive today have experienced in their evolutionary history”. Professor Robert Steneck provides these three possible scenarios: • Best sCase: Carbon dioxide emissions are stabilized at today’s levels of 380 ppm. Coral reef’s survival mostly intact. • Midrange Case: Carbon dioxide levels rise to 450-500ppm, and the sea temperature goes up 3.6 degrees. Heat –tolerant forms of coral take over and reefs become much less diverse, with a decline in fish and other sea life. • Worse Case: Carbon dioxide levels rise above 500 ppm and the sea temperature increases more than 5.4 degrees. The reef’s crumble, and half of the sea life disappears.” In the words of professor Ken Calderia of global ecology at the Carnegies In Stanford, California, warming is a much easier problem to handle than, say Hitler was. We came into World War 11 with biplanes and came out of it with jet planes and integrated circuits. If our society actually perceived this as a threat, we could fairly easily mobilize and respond to it.” Our seas are absorbing 22 tons of carbon dioxide a day since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution causing some scientist to fear that the change may be irreversible for our seas presently are 30% more acidic than they ever have been. Adding insult to injury the World’s leading oceanographers agree that the most vulnerable ocean to acidification is the North Pacific.

Here’s why you and I should be getting on the band wagon with our Federal, Provincial and local politicians: “as the oceans deepest waters circulate around the globe, they eventually arrive in the North Pacific, where they rise near the surface before plunging deep again to continue their global journey. When the water arrives in the North Pacific , it’s already acidic from the carbon produced by decaying organic material

during its 1,000-year journey from the North Atlantic through the Indian Ocean and across the Pacific…the older water is in the Pacific the newer water is in the Atlantic…as such there’s 10% more carbon dioxide in the Pacific than in the Atlantic. At present, corrosive water 600 to 700 feet deep is off the continental shelf of Washington, Oregon and Alaska. So now it’s here, butting up against the North American coast, and it’s going to have an affect on our fisheries.”

Ok you say, so what? Well hears so what, “it harms the fisheries by eating away at the shells of crabs, oysters, clams, and newly microscopic organism know as krill and preropods. This in-turn kills the major food sources for juvenile salmon, herring, Pollock, cod, mackerel just to name a few.” Now you’ll recall your grade four or five science teacher telling you when you kill off the lower end of the food chain, this leads to a negative affects higher up the food chain latter, bigger animals until it gets to you. So now you say, its not my problem that will not happen for say another 150 years. Well, again if your thinking that way, your not right, but then again your comprehension on this topic has been brain washed by self serving big company adds to have you believe otherwise along with our governments’ inability to loss big corporations cash donations should they legalize means to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The reality is that today the erosion is so severe along the cost line, that the San Francisco Environmental group, known as the Centre for Biodiversity, has asked 10 states, Washington, Oregon, California, Alaska, Hawaii, Florida, New York, New Jersey, Main and Delaware to declare their coastal waters “Impaired” under the USA Clean Water Act. The experts do not believe the politicians of those states will comply, for as Nobel winner Al Gore has pointed out at the Bali, Indonesia summit of the UN conference on emissions, “my own country, the United States is principally responsible for obstructing progress in reaching a world emission cap… which would lean itself to slowing the ecological problems mentioned above.” Remember at the most recent summit on Global Warming in Copenhagen, Canada lead the antagonistic resistance charge for the status quo, based on an outdated argument that “significantly reducing greenhouse gas emissions will cost too much: that protecting the environment means sacrificing the economy”; (sounds like George W. doesn’t it?) in other words no change on my watch that will affect my friends in the corporate world … let the third world countries go to hell as long as we protect our friends economic wealth and power base.

This Russian roulette with our children’s future has other large players like China, Japan, and Germany to name but a few. The other half of the Nobel Prize winner along with Al Gore was Mr. Rajendra Pachauri who has been making predictions that like others before him said, “we can expect more flooding of low-lying countries, disruptions to food supply, spread of diseases and the loss of biodiversity.”

If the Canadian summer of 2009 wasn’t enough to get you thinking about the affects of Global environment changes, and you’ve bought into the corporate paid individuals postulating their argument that this is just another evolutionary development, which

happens so often in the history of our planet, and not to worry for what once was will be again. If so, may I add just another clue to the potentiality of what these global weather

changes have in store for us. In August of 2008, in the small town of Castigione Di Cervia, Italy, one person after another fell ill and no doctor could figure out what was causing these people to get so sick. Sick is not truly the correct way to explain just how malade they were. Mr. Antonio Ciano a 62 year old retiree was so sick he believed he was “gong to die”, it was that dramatic. In her report Ms. Elisabeth Rosenthal of the New York times wrote, “people blamed pollution in the river. They denounced the government and then blamed recent immigrants from tropical Africa for bringing the pestilence… oddly the villagers were both right and wrong. After a month of investigation, Italian public health officials discovered that the cause came from a tropical disease, chikungunya, a relative of dengue fever normally found in the Indian Ocean region, and not Africa. This disease was being spread by the Tiger mosquitoes, which can thrive in a warming Europe.

Ms. Rosenthal further stated “aided by global warming and globalization, Castigilione Di Cerva has the dubious distinction of playing host to the first outbreak in modern Europe of a disease that had previously been seen in the tropics.” To an inquiring mind, the question ‘is this a one time occurrence, for that part of Italy has a winter and as such how could mosquitoes eggs survive?’ Well, remembering Maslow’s theory of evolution to the degree that these mosquitoes will or have evolved and the warmer weather not yet fully tropical, has aided and abetted that process and more diseases from Tropical countries can be expected in northern countries. I ask you, is it not time for every citizen no matter the geographic boundaries or political affiliation, no matter at what government level, be it municipal, provincial or federal, to demand that a global greenhouse emission agreement be reached, and in so doing that economic restraints be imposed on those countries which refuse to comply? Even on the good old USA and China, and why can’t Canada take the lead? If we, this generation of Canadians, at this point in history, do nothing, then I ask each reader, who will protect our grandchildren and great grandchildren? If not now, then when does the protection of our planet, our world as we know it start? Governments are the people; we the people have the power. Collectively stating and restating our collective wants to our elected officials will insure change, but first we must individually take that first step and get involved. We must let our elected officials know we want change now, not in twenty years, but now for the hour glass is running out for our children’s children. Let’s start locally and move-up the latter of government authorities and levels, one politician at a time.

Organizations: Carnegies, Centre for Biodiversity, UN

Geographic location: California, United States, Canada North Pacific Asia Great Barrier Reef Indian Ocean Australia Atlantic Hawaiian Islands Washington, Oregon Alaska Stanford Florida, New York China North Atlantic Italy Africa Europe San Francisco Hawaii New Jersey Indonesia Copenhagen Japan Germany Castigione Di Cervia

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