On the 40th anniversary of Earth Day, at a time when our country's attention will be focused on what we need to do to protect our planet, I am honored to be in our nation's Capital to testify before Congress on an emerging environmental threat. I will be testifying before the Subcommittee on Oceans, Atmosphere, Fisheries, and Coast Guard of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee on the topic of ocean acidification.
Scientists have known for decades that when carbon dioxide mixes with ocean water it creates an acid; this is textbook chemistry. But only recently did they begin to realize what this growing quantity of acid would mean for ocean life. This new understanding has some of the world's leading ocean scientists deeply concerned.
What they say is this: the oceans are 30 percent more acidic today than they were during pre-industrial times and, if we continue burning fossil fuels as we are now, we will double the ocean's acidity by the end of the century. Scientists fear many organisms may not survive so radical a shift in chemistry. And some of those organisms form the foundation of ocean food webs. If they perish, what happens to the tens of thousands of species further up the chain? What happens to our shellfish -- our oysters, clams, mussels -- that appear particularly vulnerable to ocean acidification?
I first had the opportunity to address this issue in the Senate last fall, when I screened a short documentary I narrated on this phenomenon called Acid Test, made by my friends at the Natural Resources Defense Council. And after my Senate testimony this Earth Day, I am thrilled to show it to our nation's policymakers once again -- this time for a group in the House of Representatives.
Like that other film I was in this year, Acid Test has had an amazing run of its own. It aired on the Discovery Channel, has been shown in film festivals nationwide, and was selected by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association to run in kiosks in major aquariums and museums across the country. If you haven't seen it yet, catch it online here.
More and more people -- at home and in the halls of Congress -- are learning about ocean acidification and what we can do to stop it. Thankfully, we have solutions that will not only fight ocean acidification, but climate change at the same time.
Our policymakers have the power to add to the legacy of Earth Day by taking action that will protect people and the planet. Along with millions of other Americans, I will be urging them to put aside their differences and begin America's transition to a clean energy economy that will increase our energy efficiency and invest in renewable power, while cutting carbon pollution. By passing strong clean energy and climate legislation, Congress has the power to move us toward clean energy, tackle climate change and protect our seas from acidification.
I hope you will join me in calling on our leaders in the Senate to act.
I think the time has come to activate strong political resistance to the kind of policies, political doubletalk, news media distractions and corporatist charades that have intentionally obscured this issue, attempted to diminish its importance and/or reassure us that it is no big deal at all. Well it IS a big deal.
I think more and more folks, thanks to the good efforts of people like Weaver, are catching on to the fact that the issue is far more serious than it is made out to be in the "news" media.
Regarding Avatar as a cultural phenomenon, there is no doubt that it has tapped a raw nerve of indignation and outrage among people, besides being a wonderful movie and story.
Perhaps the time has come to heed its message and to tell our legislators that....
"THEY HAVE SENT US A MESSAGE THAT THEY CAN TAKE WHATEVER THEY WANT...."
"NOW WE WILL SEND THEM A MESSAGE.... THAT THIS IS OUR LAND!"
And it is.
This is of enormous interest to us at the mi2g Intelligence Unit in London.
Best wishes
DK
Something (fossil fuel industry?) must be behind the blackout. There was a spectacular display of a working wind mill AND solar power, working in tandem. Cool, we thought. Turns out that every question we asked of the guy in charge of the display about the practical applicability of the device to say, households, were met with denials -- "doesn't work in the Northeast of the U.S.", "Germany loses money on its solar program", "not sure how to price our device for ... households" WTF??!!??
Every answer wrong to those of us paying attention.
The business card of the "salesman" implies connection to a U.S. military outfit, and casual talk links him to T Boo Pickins. Hmmm ... why bother to show up on Earth Day ON THE MALL to denigrate the very cool thing you are demonstrating???
["Green Trail Energy, Inc."]
Speeches, concert-- (Sting, John Legend and more), exhibits, crowds ... and NO COVERAGE on the national news media)
Tea Party shows up any time with 200 and they get NATIONAL NEWS COVERAGE ad nauseam, and we get ... zilch!
to be continued
When JFK was assassinated there were a whopping 2.7 billion of us on earth, compared to about 600 million at the time of Columbus. Now there are 7 billion of us and expanding rapidly, in numbers of waist size, including me.
Can it stop. Fat chance.
It's just Easter Island on a planetary scale - populations of human beings too stupid to figure out they're destroying their environment until the damage is done and irreversible.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Pacific_Garbage_Patch
I believe sulfur dioxide is the cause of most of the ocean's acidity, not carbon dioxide.
Coal-burning plants are the main source of both dioxides, sulfur and carbon.
Getting rid of them is the best solution, but in the meantime scrubbers can be installed that would help remove sulfur dioxide. That was done in our Midwest coal-burning plants and it helped a lot; our rivers and ponds are now less acid. I suspect coal plants in countries like China do not have scrubbers; adding them could help.
What then must we do?
"Only when the last tree has died and the last river been poisoned and the last fish been caught will we realize we cannot eat money" -- Cree Indian Teaching
It seems to me that the solution - at least partially - lies in less economic activity and not more. It really is about the message that growth is not sustainable over time, even if it's done with green energy, you will run into a wall at some point.
However, growth drives profits, so there is nothing going to fundamentally change until you change the economic system you are using.