Breaking News - Humans Responsible for Global Warming!

A UN panel has announced that it agrees (with > 90% certainty) with what Al Gore has been telling us for 30 years - humans are responsible for Global Warming. This report also discusses some of the catastrophic results over the next 100 years from Global Warming, should we fail to stop or reverse the process.

The Kyoto Protocol has proven ineffectual thus far. The Protocol is toothless without US involvement anyway, however the Bush Administration pulled out in 2001 because capping emissions would hurt corporate profits. (This is becoming a recurring theme in the Joe's Family of Blogs.) Bush also offered the following lame reason - developing nations should also be included in the Protocol.

Well, ain't that some damn fine leadership?

But that's six-year old news. Today's announcement from the UN should end the debate over how much influence humans have had over the rising temperatures of the planet. The planet is warming and, unless we want to see Wall Street executives arriving to work via gondola, action must be taken.

"Faced with this emergency, now is not the time for half measures.
It is the time for a revolution, in the true sense of the term," French President
Jacques Chirac said. "We are in truth on the historical doorstep of the
irreversible."

The time has come for true leadership on the issue. Plans for unachievable ethanol use is not an answer. Market based emissions caps are not an answer. The US and the rest of the world's industrial nations need to establish comprehensive measures that regulate everything from automobile to manufacturing to power plant emissions. We all also need to find ways to mitigate the carbon that we do continue to emit, sequestering the pollutants via reforestation efforts for example.

The power companies and auto manufacturers and the rest of corporate America are just going to need to live with the changes that must be made, regardless of what happens to share prices. (Much of the value of corporate shares is currently residing in our polluted air, land and waters. The cost of this cleanup must be borne by the corporations, and ultimately by you, as your investments decline in value and costs are passed on to the consumer - but that's a topic for another day!)

We as individuals must also radically change some of the daily choices that we make. We can choose to buy our electricity from sustainable sources, or buy carbon offsets for the electricity that we use. We can buy more energy efficient appliances and automobiles and lightbulbs. We can reduce, reuse, recycle. We can carpool or bike to work or telecommute. We can drink tap water rather than water or soda transported by trucks. Likewise, we can grow some of our own food and buy much of the rest from local sources, eliminating the need to truck lettuce across the country (and supporting your local economy). And many more things that we can do that are too numerous to mention on my lunch hour.

The time has come for leadership, and for us all to do our part to stop Global Warming.