Millions Threatened by Climate Change

While a few skeptics, including conservative media, continue to deny global warming as cooked-up liberal science, most educated and rational people are increasingly concerned about the steps being taken to halt climate change.

With the US government refusing to take any action, people have cause for concern.

In their second report, soon to be released, the IPCC will warn that hundreds of millions of people will face water shortages in less than 20 years. Half of Europe’s plant species will be vulnerable or extinct by 2050. And by 2080, 100 million people could be flooded by rising seas each year, and a further 200-600 million could be hungry because of the effects of global warming.

The news is not good. An already vast amount of Arctic ice is melting leading to warmer oceans around the world. The high concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere, the highest in 650,000 years, has made oceans more acidic. These changes are altering weather patterns and making oceans an inhospitable environment for many fish species we rely on as a food source.

Despite the hard science and the harmful effects of global warming already showing up, the US is on track to increase its greenhouse has emissions 19% by 2020. An internal draft coordinated by the White House Council on Environmental Quality projected that the current administrations climate policy would result in the emission of 9.2 billion tons of green house gases in 2020, an increase of nearly one-fifth of 2000 levels.

Many scientists have warned that the shape of human history will be defined by the actions we take in the next 10 years to limit green house gases. Most recently the board of the American Association for the Advancement of Science issued a statement calling for “rapidly reducing greenhouse gas emissions,” warning that any delay “will increase environmental and societal consequences as well as the costs.”

As the American public mobilizes to end the Iraq war, we must also focus our attention on combating climate change. The Iraq war is part of a foreign policy strategy to insure ready access to oil and other resources. The US currently uses more resources and contributes more greenhouse emissions than any other nation.

Our country needs a mass mobilization, not only to end the war, but also to turn government priorities on their head. It is traditional for a society’s principles to evolve quicker than those of its government. That fact is the historical foundation for all social movements.

Our country needs radical change and it needs it now. We do not have the luxury of time. Acting to limit climate change now could prevent future wars because in a few decades time war will not be fought for oil, it will be fought for water.

The science is very clear. We must act now. Which means everyone needs to think 10-20 years ahead to what will happen if we don’t start reducing greenhouse gases. The issue is far too important to leave it to corporations and governments to solve. We must respond like the lives of hundreds of millions of people depend on our actions, because they very likely do.

-Jeffrey Free Luers

Write to: Jeff Luers, #13797671, Oregon State Prison, 2605 State Street, Salem, Oregon 97310

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