Global Warming: Fact-Sheet/What To Do?

Myron (Mike) Stagman, PhD
Concerned Citizens Information Network
www.ccin.info  [environmental website: information on Drastic
Climate Change, Genetic Engineering, and the Destruction of Nature
which Climate Change and Genetic Engineering are promising to
accomplish]
www.MyronStagman.com

Global Warming: Fact-Sheet/What To
Do?                    
 

            
 
                                      
I.
 Global Warming (Drastic Climate Change): Fact-Sheet

 
 
For the past 30 years in particular, due to heavy air pollution from
the burning of fossil fuels (oil. gas, coal),  global
temperatures have risen dramatically -- with equally damaging
effects.  A continuation of the pattern will lead -- and
swiftly -- to disastrous climate changes obvious to the most
unobservant.
 
Heat-trapping gases ("greenhouse" gases) are the poisonous causes,
produced especially by carbon dioxide emissions poured out from
airplanes, automobile tailpipes,  power plants, industrial
smokestacks.
 
Global Warming has already brought about the breaking up of arctic ice
shelves and the retreat of mountain glaciers.  It has brought
about changes in winds and currents in both the Atlantic and Pacific
oceans.
 
These in turn cause extreme weather events with countless human and
wildlife victims -- storms, floods, droughts, soaring temperatures in
some places and plunging temperatures in others.
 
["Kilmanjaro's 'Perpetual Snows' Melt Away" , International Herald
Tribune,  20 February 2001. "The ice cap atop Mount
Kilmanjaro, which for thousands of years has floated like a cool beacon
over the shimmering equatorial plain of Tanzania, is retreating at such
a pace that it will disappear in less than 15 years, according to
studies.
 
["The vanishing of the seemingly perpetual snows of Kilmanjaro that
inspired Ernest Hemingway, echoed by similar trends on ice-capped peaks
from Peru to Tibet, is one of the clearest signs that a global warming
in the last 50 years appears to have exceeded climate shifts and is at
least partly caused by gases released by human activities, a variety of
scientists say."]
 
Sahara desert conditions are insidiously invading parts of southern
Europe, while Siberia has had temperatures dipping below minus 50
degrees centigrade (minus 58 Fahrenheit).
 
Britain and parts of northern Europe have seen widespread
flooding.  In other parts of the world, shorelines have been
destroyed.
 
Environmental refugees, people who lost their livelihoods and homes due
to drastic climate change,  clamour to enter northern
countries, such as the UK.
 
[The inhabitants of the south Pacific Island of Kiribati, the Marshall
Islands, Cook Islands, and low-lying islands of Papua New Guinea "are
all preparing to evacuate their lands forever as rising sea levels
threaten their homes now.  For them, as for the families of
the many thousands of people across Europe who lost their lives in last
year's heatwave, climate change is not about the day after tomorrow, it
is about today".
[The Ecologist, July/August 2004]
 
Animals and birds have lost their natural habitats, particularly from
droughts and a loss of wetlands and estuaries.  Animal and
plant species have become extinct.
 
["North Sea birds dying as waters heat up: Scientists warn that warmer
conditions could have a catastrophic effect on east coast
ecosystem".  The Observer, 20 June 2004.  "Climate
change is ridding the North Sea of its precious stocks of plankton, the
microscopic organisms on which all life in the sea depends. 
As the very building blocks of the food chain disappear, fish and the
birds that feed on them, such as the puffin and guillemot, are starving
to death in what has been their natural home for thousands of years."]
 
Malarial mosquitoes have extended their range, and events like this
cause side-effects such as increases in the use of toxic pesticides.
 
Money:  A report in early June 2004 by the Association of
British Insurers deals with financial losses in their industry, past
and projected, from climate change.  "The financial losses
caused by natural catastrophes have increased seven-fold within the
last 40 years."

Losses will continue to escalate.  "A major coastal flood
affecting London costing £40 billion in insurance claims
alone" will occur before 2050. "The ABI report is distressing reading
for anyone tempted to see global warming as meaning longer
summers.  It will also mean heat stress, skin cancer, food
poisoning, exotic diseases such as malaria, and drought."  
(Guardian editorial, 11 June 2004)
 

"Collateral damage" --  Fossil fuels cause other damage
occasioned by giant businesses and the governments they influence --
wars (e.g. in Afghanistan and Iraq),  oil spills 
(e.g. the Exxon Valdez catastrophe in Alaska;  the 200,000
gallons dumped near the pristine Galapagos islands off of Chile),
European spills such as the fairly recent Spanish disaster; 
Cancer, derived in significant part from air pollution.
 
On the latter point, it is worth quoting the U.S. National Institutes
of Health publication,  Cancer -- Rates and Risks (4th
edition):   "Air Pollution.  Pollutants in
the urban air have long been suspect as causes of lung cancer. . . . Of
special concern are products from the combustion of fossil fuels found
principally in motor vehicle exhausts (especially diesel engines),
residential and commercial space heating, oil and coal-fired power
plants, and industrial emissions."
 
The overall economic losses stretch into the trillions of dollars --
already.  According to the New Scientist  (1 May
2004),  Australia alone, due to extraordinary drought
conditions in recent years, has experienced US$5 billion in lost
production.  
[Estimates of economic losses do not include financial losses from the
Iraq War, fought primarily over oil, that has cost to this
date  (spring 2004) about 100 billion dollars, with another
half-trillion dollars estimated to go for the rebuilding of the
country.  Fossil fuels must be replaced.]
 
 
Global Warming threatens
  -- to get much, much worse.
 
  -- to drive one million species of animals and plants to
extinction within a few decades.
 
  "A quarter of known land animals and plants, more than a
million species, will eventually die out because of the global warming
that will take place over the next 50 years, the most important study
of its kind has concluded.
   "International scientists from eight countries
have warned that, based even on the most conservative estimates, rising
temperatures will trigger a global mass extinction of unprecedented
proportions."
[The Independent, 8 January 2004, "Revealed: how global warming will
cause extinction of a million species", by Steve Connor, Science Editor]
 
   [Example.   Europe -- "Many
birds are threatened by climate change due to the loss of climatically
suitable habitats.  The red kite could lose up to 86 per cent
of its range as a result of warmer temperatures -- an additional
pressure following centuries of persecution." (Independent)]
 
   [Example.  South Africa -- "The Cape
Floristic Region is one of the six richest plant regions in the
world.  The toffee-apple conebrush is found in just a few
localities and it is predicted that  all of them will become
climatically unsuitable by 2050 --   a major dieback
of the plant has already occurred following extensive droughts.
(Independent)]
 
Global Warming threatens
 
  --  to create 20 million environmental refugees per
year.  By 2050, the total may reach 150 million displaced
persons.
 
  --  According to a secret U.S. Pentagon report,
suppressed for 4 months by President Bush (prompted by the Giant Oil
Lobby), the passage of a mere 20 years may see the deaths of millions
of people from wars and natural disasters, mega-droughts, famine, a
rise in sea levels inundating large areas,  water and energy
shortages, violent storms, and a multitude of internal conflicts caused
by these events.
 
Within 15 years time, it is predicted, Europe will become much
colder.  Britain will likely fare worse than other European
countries.
[The Guardian, 22 April 2004.  "Global warming floods threaten
4m in UK".  During the next 50 years, "up to 4 million Britons
[are] facing the prospect of their homes being inundated, according to
a report to be published today by the government."]
 
The Pentagon report concluded that Climate Change "should be elevated
beyond a scientific debate to a U.S. national security
concern."   (See The Observer,  22 February
2004.)
                  
 
- - - - - - - - - -  

                                 
II.             
 

 What Can We Do About Global Warming?
 
[Repeat:  It threatens to drive one million species of animals
and plants to extinction within a few decades;
             
to create 20 million environmental refugees per year]
 
Obviously, we must drastically reduce greenhouse, carbon gas
emissions.  We can achieve this imperative goal via

(a) energy conservation in transport, industry, at home,  and (

b) furthering green (clean and renewable) energy technologies while
limiting and phasing out polluting energy sources.  

Therefore,
 
I.  Polluters and Polluting Agents to Target:
 
  a.  Fossil-Fuel Lobbies --  oil &
gas, coal, automobile and aviation industries.
 
  b.  Put an end to the £50 billion ($75
billion) a year spent by the rich countries to subsidize fossil fuel
industries.  Divert money from the radioactivity-polluting,
inefficient nuclear power industry.  
 
  c.  Make the Polluters pay for the damage they do
-- via legislation, compensation claims in courts of law.  Let
taxation become an awfully heavy burden for the fossil fuel, automobile
and aviation industries.
 
  d. The United States, with 4% of the world's population,
accounts for 25% of the world's greenhouse-gas pollution. 
Americans indulge in fuel-inefficient vehicles like SUVs and pickup
trucks.
The Bush Government, moreover, renounced the Kyoto Accord on cutting
global carbon emissions after the Clinton Administration had signed the
international treaty.
     The Bush (Harken Energy oil
corporation)--Cheney (Halliburton Energy oilfields
corporation)-Condeleeza Rice (former director at Chevron Oil)-- etc. --
administration is an Oil-Lobby government.
 
  e.  The rich, developed countries cause 80% of the
problem.  (The UK's share is
3%).      
 
  f.  Cut down on the sale and use of
automobiles.  Among other things, curtail usage by prohibiting
car travel to certain areas on certain days (as in Athens, Greece).
 

 II.  Positive Measures
 
  a.  Public transport -- promote publicly-owned,
public transport, and subsidised so economical fares encourage its use.
 
  b.  Stop building roads and new airports. 
Put the money into public transport, into railways, buses, cycleways
and walkways.  And bring back ship travel at non-luxury prices.
 
  c.  Encourage bicycling, walking (and
jogging).  Become healthier while the planet becomes so.
 
 d.  We should become more economical in the use of
electricity around the house and in offices, such as turning off
lights, TV sets, computers; such as not using air-conditioning unless
you really need it (a characteristically American failing).
 
  e.  Recyclie plastic (which is an oil-based
material);  phase out plastic containers.
 
  f.   Use biodegradable packaging.
 
  g..   For use against carbon dioxide,
there is a micro-organism called 'cyanobacteria' (green slime) that can
consume carbon dioxide.  The main problem is to apply
cyanobacteria to an operational power plant. (One of the problems with
the application process has already been solved by an undergradiuate
student at Ohio University. The problem involved providing light in a
smokestack.)
    Research and develop things like this --
but without allowing patents.
 
 III.   Save our forests, which act as
'carbon sinks'.   But absolutely do not genetically
engineer trees, and eliminate those GM trees already misbegotten.
 
 IV.  Develop clean, renewable energy
sources:  These include solar energy, geothermal, tidal,
biomass, combined heat and power schemes (CHP),  hydrogen
technology, and bio-diesel.
 
Flower Power -- (New Scientist, 1 May 2004, by Philip Hunter) 
The mystery of how plants derive energy from sunlight by splitting
water molecules is solved at last.  Now the challenge is to do
the same in the lab.  The reward is . . . unlimited energy.
 
" Photosynthesis is the most successful solar converting mechanism on
Earth.  And when Nature has invented such a successful system,
it would be foolish to ignore it as a potential source of renewable
energy, says Stenbjorn Styring, professor of biochemistry at Lund
University in Sweden.  Artifical photosynthesis would make it
possible to harness sunlight to produce limitless quantities of
hydrogen or other energy-rich fuels from water, cleanly and cheaply."
 
   Let us use Flower Power as a clue to other clean,
cheap and splendid energy sources.
 
 
Warning:  NO PATENTS should be permitted on any invention in
this field.  All inventions belong in the public domain.
 

Patents, which confer monopoly rights, are customarily used by
corporations to stop research and competition, sew up markets, and set
artificially high prices.  2/3 of patented products are never
produced.

The last thing on earth oil & gas corporations want is clean,
cheap energy.  One way or another they or their allies will
get their hands on patented energy processes, and that's the last we
will ever see of them.
 
NO PATENTS allowed.  If someone makes a valuable invention,
then pay him or her or them handsomely, and make the invention
available to all of us.
 
NO PATENTS allowed.  Use public-funded research, and encourage
private (but not large corporate) research, and allow NO PATENTS.
 
Patents are the most abused and abusive section of law.  Well
over 90% of extant patents should be foreclosed.  Patent law
should be redefined and very strictly limited. (Of course, no patents
should ever have been allowed on life-forms, an evil of unimaginable
proportions.)
 
In case the point has not been sufficiently stressed, NO PATENTS
ALLOWED in the development of clean, renewable energy sources.
 
  Note: The technological part of developing clean, cheap
energy sources is rather easy.  The problem is political,
overcoming powerful vested economic interests and their political
executors.  The problem is political !!

BIG QUESTION:  JUST HOW shall we accomplish the above given
the Corporation-Government-corporate Mass Media axis which has insisted
that Global Warming and the destruction of Planet Earth are necessary
for Them to satisfy their pathological lust for Money and Power?

Answer:   Grassroots Public Information Campaigns to
educate & politically activate the General Public,
university/college students in particular.

Don't think the General Public MUST  KNOW BY NOW about Global
Warming and its apolcalyptic dangers -- they don't.  And those
that do have little if any idea what to do about it.
So they must become educated on the subject -- with essential
information (only this is necessary) -- and 
informed/motivated about What To Do.

This would , by the way,  help create an informed, sparetime
activist Citizenry which increasingly takes over the vital political
system that is rightfully and legally theirs.