The Environment

 

Charlie says: It is my conviction, shared by all members of SOS, that humanity is moving towards environmental catastrophe.

 

"Enjoy present pleasures in such a way as not to injure future ones."
-- Seneca (5 B.C. - 65 A.D.)

 

The Facts:

 

IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change - a conservative body)  Fourth Assessment released in 2007:

1. Warming of the climate system IS unequivocal.
2. Eleven of the past 12 years ARE among the 12 warmest years since 1850 (when instrumental recording began)
3. Most of the increase in temperature IS caused by greenhouse gases emitted by man’s activities.
4. Glaciers and snow cover HAVE decreased and sea level HAS risen as a result.
5. More intense and longer droughts over wider areas HAVE been experienced since 1970.
6. The frequency of heavy precipitation events HAS increased.

In the same report the IPCC projects:

1. Drought and flooding WILL likely increase
2. Water stored in glaciers WILL decline, reducing water supplies to more than a billion people
3. About 20 to 30% of plant and animal species WILL be at increased risk of extinction
4. Rising sea levels WILL increase coastal erosion, flooding and wetland loss

The last time the polar regions were significantly warmer than present for an extended period (about 125,000 years ago) reductions in polar ice volume led to 4 TO 6 METERS OF SEA LEVEL RISE.

 

National Academy of Sciences, reported in 2002: “….major and widespread climate changes have occurred with startling speed”. 

 

Raupach et al 2007:

Global carbon emissions climbed 22% between 1980 and 2000.  Since 2000 the growth rate of emissions has been three times the average for 1990 to 1999.

 

WWF.  A recent WWF report lists the chnages that have taken place on a regional basis from 1961 to 2005:   

	Increase in population    1961 to 2005	Increase in Ecological Footprint per person 1961 to 2005
Africa	214%	-13%
Middle East and Central Asia	163%	-4%
Latin America and Caribbean	151%	-4%
Europe non-EU	19%	-3%
Asia Pacific	119%	45%
Europe EU	24%	52%
North America	59%	75%

A demonstration of how successful capitalism has been at making the rich richer by ransacking the planet.

 

And consumption goes on rising, while the need to protect our environment has been widely recognised for about 20 years:

(J G Speth Worldwatch, WRI, US Government) 

Item	Average annual increase since 1980s %	Year when usage will be double 2009 consumption if recent growth rates continue
Air travel	7.6	2018
Advertising spend	5.7	2022
Gross world product	4.6	2024
Paper	4.1	2026
Fish harvest	4.1	2026
Meat consumption	3.7	2028
Cars	3.0	2032
Fossil fuel use	2.0	2044
Population	1.8	2048
CO2 emissions	1.6	2053

 

If present growth rates continue many of us will live to see a doubling in air travel, advertising, paper production, fish harvesting, meat production, car manufacture, fossil fuel consumption, world population and CO2 emissions.  It it is unlikely that such a doubling will occur as the planet cannot support it.  We might ask:

Is there enough forest to expand paper production so much?

Are there enough fish left to expand fish catch so much?

Is there enough fossil fuel to expand fossil fuel use so much?

Where would we park all those cars?

And what will happen to the climate if CO2 emissions continue to rise?

 

In just 100 years we have dramatically increased our impact on the planet. Look at the facts:

 

From 1890s to the 1990s the increase factors are as follows:

 

Item	Increase Factor	Item	Increase Factor
Population	4	Water use	9
Urban population	13	Marine fish catch	35
Industrial output	40	Cattle population	4
GDP	14	Pig population	9
Energy use	13	Blue whale population	0.0025
Coal production	7	Fin whale population	0.03
Air pollution	5	Bird and mammal species	0.99
CO² emissions	17	Irrigated area	5
SO² emissions	13	Forest area	0.8
Lead emissions	8	cropland	2

[Reference John McNeill, Something New Under the Sun: An Environmental History of the Twentieth Century, Penguin Books, 2000]

 

Opinion:

 

We are raping the world and we are going to be made to pay for that crime.

 

Quotes:

 

"The roots of violence are wealth without work, pleasure without conscience, knowledge without character, commerce without morality, science without humanity, worship without sacrifice, and politics without principles."
-- Mahatma Gandhi

  

"You can always count on Americans to do the right thing—after they’ve tried everything else."
-- Winston Churchill

 

"... it is dangerous to be right when the government is wrong."
-- Voltaire

 

"The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is that  men of good will do nothing."
-- Cicero, B.C.

 

""If stupidity got us into this mess, then why can't it get us out?"
-- Will Rogers

 

"In times of change learners inherit the earth; while the learned find themselves beautifully equipped to deal with a world that no longer exists."
-- Eric Hoffer

 

"It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change."
-- Charles Darwin

  

"There are two kinds of forecasters: those who don’t know, and those who don’t know they don’t know."
-- John Kenneth Galbraith, Wall St. Journal Jan. 22, 1993

 

"All of the great leaders have had one characteristic in common: it was the willingness to confront unequivocally the major anxiety of their people in their time. This, and not much else, is the essence of leadership."
-- John Kenneth Galbraith

 

"Everybody, sooner or later, sits down to a banquet of consequences."
-- Robert Louis Stevenson

 

"I believe that man will not merely endure: he will prevail. He is immortal, not because he alone among creatures has an inexhaustible voice, but because he has a soul, a spirit capable of compassion and sacrifice and endurance."
-- William Faulkner

  

"All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident..."
-- Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860)

  

"It's difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends on him not understanding it."
-- Upton Sinclair, 1935

  

"We can’t solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them."
-- Albert Einstein

  

"There is no worse mistake in public leadership than to hold out false hopes soon to be swept away. The British people can face peril or misfortune with fortitude and buoyancy, but they bitterly resent being deceived or finding that those responsible for their affairs are themselves dwelling in a fool's paradise."
-- Winston Churchill

 

"Everything that needs to be said has already been said. But since no one was listening, everything must be said again."
-- Andre Gide

  

 

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