This post was co-authored by Benjamin Todd Jealous, president and CEO of NAACP and Reverend Richard Cizik, president of New Evangelical Partnership for the Common Good
While TV pundits and politicians continue to debate the existence of climate change, the impacts of the crisis continue to worsen, threatening the lives and livelihoods of poor and vulnerable people across the world. As representatives from over 190 countries meet in Cancún this week to determine how to address the climate crisis, the US has the opportunity to step up its leadership and shore up its plans to help.
Constituents and staff of the NAACP will be in Cancún to ensure that the experiences and risks faced by marginalized communities in the US are considered in the deliberations, while also identifying common interests with developing nations who share a need to halt the progression of climate change and address the impacts. Additionally, many different religious communities, evangelicals included, such as the New Evangelical Partnership for the Common Good, are in Cancún to draw attention to the plight of the poor and marginalized who are being impacted negatively by climate change.
If sea levels continue to rise, the Maldives could be the first nation to disappear entirely; their country sits just 4.9 feet above sea level and rising waters could threaten their very existence. Across Africa, changing weather patterns and erratic rainfall are making farming more and more difficult, contributing to food crisis and famines in country after country. Communities in the United States are not spared of these impacts including increasing food prices and affecting availability of nutritious foods in the US where African American communities and other communities of color already disproportionately experience elevated hunger rates.
At a climate summit in Copenhagen one year ago, developed countries, including the US, pledged to deliver $100 billion per year by 2020 to help poor countries transition to clean energy economies and adapt to the impacts of climate change. This money would be used by at-risk nations to build storm-resistant homes, hospitals and flood shelters and helping farmers grow and store food in the face of extreme weather and rising tides.
The US commitment to funding for adaptation has been undermined by Congress' failure to pass comprehensive climate legislation. Even with these massive obstacles before us, we must continue to work with President Obama's administration and supportive leaders in the House and Senate to develop and implement creative ways to meet meet and exceed the US's stated commitment with new option including public finance.
While new funding is critically important, so, too, is the mechanism to deliver these funds. In Cancún, the US should also support the establishment of an independent global climate fund that will ensure transparency and accountability and allow at-risk communities direct access to funding and participation in decision-making at all levels of the funding process.
The outcomes in Cancun are of critical concern to the faith and civil rights communities -- those who serve traditionally marginalized groups and people. Bad environmental decisions will result in lost cultures and devastated livelihoods particularly among those who have done least to create the crisis, at home and abroad. Support and leadership from the US is urgently needed in Cancún and beyond.
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All the climate models are being proven correct with flooding droughts heatwaves and snowfall records being set every year
Hottest year on record hottest decade and so on 1-2 degrees rise in temperature is not negligable its a problem
Consistant weather patterns are what allow crop yields and natural life to know whats going on and we now have lost the consistancy
That compounded by massive population growth is a huge problem
Laugh all you want this stuff is for real
2) When will African countries be able to sustain themselves ?
A Chinese member said that multi-billion dollar Western developed-nation payments would be the key to success of the Cancun meeting. And, co-chairman of the IPCC's third working group, Ottmar Edenhofer, has stated, "One must say clearly that we redistribute de facto the world's wealth by climate policy.... One has to free oneself from the illusion that international climate policy is environmental policy."
The IPCC meeting in Cancun is not expected to accomplish much more than to subtly shift the operative regulatory language from “climate change” to “global biodiversity,” and attempt to shakedown developed countries for billions in order to fund underdeveloped countries under the guise of environmental and social justice. Karl Marx would be most proud.
It is clear that socialist ideologies and cultish environmentalism have replaced prudent science and economics in U.N. climate policy. Militant environmentalism and green-obsessed bureaucrats have become an “axis of antagonism” that we can no longer afford.
the rate has been steady long before prosperous economies! Pray this does not stop/reverse in our lifetimes or we really will have something to worry about!
In 2007, IPCC notes “Global average sea level rose at an average rate of 1.8 [1.3 to 2.3] mm per year over 1961 to 2003
(IPCC) concluded that “No significant acceleration in the rate of sea level rise during the 20th century has been detected
Actually this is IPCC speak for 'absolutely no acceleration'- they have a way with words...
The only practical debates in Cancun are about where to get lunch, since many know this is likely the last free vacation they are going to get from this gig!
What to do about it? There is a conference coming in New York to discuss the issues of 'vanishing nations'. It might be too late for some of these small countries. It is important to have a serious debate and get some ideas on the table.
Think about it.
OR: We could throw Republicans out of Congress, since they say no to anything that won't ensure their masters regaining power over the universe and all the "little people" they love to crush in their free time. And get to work saving the planet--and thus our children's future.
The response has to be systemic, and on a global scale. Otherwise, it's just plugging the dam.
This article mentions 'marginalized communities' in the US. Did they go out of their way to marginalize themselves? Do we have foreigners in our midst, who have decided to take it upon themselves to try and recolonize the United States, or part of it? But, that's a subject for another 'blog.
Meanwhile, back to climate, the ostensible issue of concern and reason for the writer authoring the blog to begin with. For one, it's sheer hubris to think that people have any control over the ocean's level. If you live on an island, and the ocean level rises, you'd be best advised to build a boat and emigrate somewhere else, or consult with engineers to build dwellings that will rise above the ocean's level and be secured to the bedrock. I'd go with option A), because there's still plenty of dry land. On the other hand, if you built a really GOOD boat, you might never stop on dry land again.
Now, on to irrigation and irregular weather patterns and so forth, and so on in Africa. If you look on the map, there's ocean surrounding Africa, matter of fact, since they dug the Suez canal, you can sail completely around the African continent, now, land bridge to Asia replace with a shipping easement. And, the same level of engineering skill that was capable of doing that, decades ago, should also be sufficient to the task of building massive desalinization plants capable of piping necessary fresh water back inland across the African continent to help develop agriculture to support the needs of the inhabitants of that continent. It's a massive engineering undertaking, but nothing all that radical, the Romans were pushing large quantities back and forth across the country 'back in the day' when it was still cool to run around in a leather skirt and sandals. Those days are gone, thankfully, but the human need and interest in having a ready supply of fresh water remains, and this is a challenge that the people on that continent are going to have to face.
Now, are they up to the challenge? Is the scientific and engineering expertise at-hand to start building the canals and de-sal plants needed to do this job? Time will tell. How about the money, and necessary international cooperation, not just in Africa, but in countries that might end up helping to foot the bill?
As for raising sea levels, it doesn´t take much. Pump CO2 or methane into the atmosphere and the sun will do the rest. As for your grand schem for Africa, that is hubris!
09 December 2010 by Michael Marshall
Journal reference: Nature, DOI: 10.1038/nature09618
Greenland's ice sheets are shrinking already as the climate warms, and some glaciologists fear that they could accelerate their own destruction. If they all melted, they would raise global sea levels by 6.5 metres – though even in a world 8 °C warmer than now this might take 1000 years.
The feared self-destruct device is water. As a glacier melts, water runs down to its base. In theory, this lubrication should accelerate the glacier's slide downhill and melt it sooner.
But this positive feedback is "limited", says Christian Schoof of the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada, who has built a new model of glaciers that simulates how they respond to meltwater. He says glaciers can get rid of excess water because of the way their internal structure changes.
Schoof's model could help explain what is happening to Greenland's glaciers, says glaciologist Roderik van de Wal of Utrecht University in the Netherlands, who has found no sign of the feared feedback effect. "The melt has been increasing but glacier velocities have not," he says.
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn19842-greenlands-ice-has-secret-weapon-against-melting.html
This climate change meeting is discussing a 7 degree F increase in temperature being catastrophic globally while we as science professionals are documenting building development 132 degrees F on a 10 degree F day with zero emissions produced. In the summer there are massive emissions created and energy waste except the solar radiated buildings are closer to boiling temperature with UV exposure. Canada is spending billions on capturing carbon, it will not solve the problem(at all) it will react to symptoms while the atmosphere cooks.
Los Angeles spends over 100 million dollars a year for energy costs related to urban heat islands, paint and shade would eliminate the A/C need eliminating emissions within codes now.
Why did Europe whitewash their buildings? They did it to reflect solar radiation where it is harmless. Here is a link to radiated buildings in the infrared spectrum, we couldn't see it before. http://www.thermoguy.com/urbanheat.html
Canada is supposed to report this in Cancun but they won't because it is politics first.
Insofar as all the heat stuff goes, we still live on the eggshell of a molten nickel-iron rock 'egg', where temperatures are in the thousands of degrees. It's still plenty warm down there, and you could cut all the vent holes you wanted, and the center of this planet would still be about the same temperature a million years from now, because the pressure helps cause the temperature. Additionally, our 'egg' rotates constantly, and is thus regularly bathed in the warming rays of the sun, which is super-hot, fusion temperatures, and will also be largely unchanged a million years from now, maybe losing some of its' power, but not all that much. And here you have 6.8 billion people, humans, each radiating something between 250 and 400BTU/hr, that can barely avoid stepping in their own waste, complaining about the heat. I say the real crisis of our times won't be the Maldives eroding away, it'll be people running out of food. And, that's what this article's about, how to keep people from starving, by providing enough fresh water to countries that need basic agriculture to support themselves.