HomeMy WebLinkAboutHuron Expositor, 2009-10-21, Page 5Opinion
The Huron Expositor • October 21, 2009 Page 4
MiERICIMID
Governments need wake-up call before Copenhagen conference
To the Editor,
The most important number in the
world right now is 350.
Every year since 1992 the United
Nations has hosted a conference for
world leaders to discuss what they
are going to do about the global
threat of climate change. This De-
cember that meeting will be held in
Copenhagen, Denmark.
Delegates, non-governmental orga-
nizations,.and businesses from every
nation will meet to finalize a new
global climate change agreement.
There are many who say that this
will be the most important meeting
since World War II. Environmental
activists the world overare respond-
ing in advance of this critical meet-
ing. They want to give their govern-
ments a wake-up call on Oct. 24 in a
350 Global Day of Action.
Why are they focussing on the
number 350?
Well, 350 represents the level of
carbon dioxide emissions in parts
per million that are acceptable for
life on this planet. James Hansen,
of NASA, the first scientist to warn
about global Warming more than two
decades ago,' wrote recently, : "If hu-
manity wishes to preserve a planet
similar to that on which civilization
developed and to which life on Earth
is adapted, paleoclimate evidence.
and ongoing climate change suggest
that CO2 will need to be reduced
from its current 385 ppm to at most
350 ppm."
Now that level is running at 387
parts per million and rising at a rate
of two parts per million each year.
Currently we are pushing the 390
target on this planet. This is higher
than any time in earth's recorded
history – and we're already begin-
ning to see disastrous impacts on
people and places all over the world.
Glaciers everywhere ., are melting
and disappearing fast—and they are
a source of drinking water for hun-
dreds of millions of people. Mosqui-
toes, who like a warmer world, are
spreading into lots of new places,
and bringing malaria, denguefever
and West Nile virus with them.
Incresing drought makes food
harder to grow in many places. Ris-
ing sea levels, predicted to go up as
much as several metres this century,
threaten to put many of the worlds
cities, island nations, and farmland
underwater:
The Arctic is sending us perhaps
the clearest message that climate
change is occurring much more
rapidlythan scientists previously
thougt.
Many scientists now believe the
Arctic will be completely ice free in
the summertime between 2011 and
2015, some 80 years ahead of what
scientists . had predicted just a few
years ago!
Tim Flannery,author of the recent
book "Now or ever; Why We Need
to Act Now to Achieve a Sustainable
Future" said last week on The Hour,
that the Copenhagen conference is
at the fulcrum of how our planet will
cope.
These environmental impacts are
combining to exacerbate conflicts and
security issues in already resource
strapped regions. The delegates at.
Copenhagen will also decide if they
can "keep us at peace or lead us to
conflict and war because of shrink-
ing food supplies, loss of arable land,
migrations of people and flooding of
coastlines."
Indeed, in a struggle for survival in
a shrinking planet, resources such
as water and land will be something
to fight over.
The folks at Copenhagen – or Ho-
penhagen, as some are calling it -
must come to an important accord..
That will be a hard task, but not
impossible. We need to stop taking
carbon out of the
ground• and put-
ting it into the
air.
Above all, that
means we need
to stop burning so
much coal—and
start using solar,
wind energy and
other renewable
energy sources.
If we do, then the
earth's soils and
forests will slowly
cycle some of that
extra carbon out
of the atmosphere,
and eventually
CO2 concentra-
tions will return
to a safe level.
By decreasing
use of other fossil
fuels, and improv-
ing agricultural
and forestry prac-
tices around the
world, scientists
believe we could
get back to 350 by
mid-century.
But the longer
we remainin the
danger zone --
above 350—the
more likely that
we will see disas-
trous and irre-
versible climate
impacts.
Hanson's data
shows that as a planet we'd need to
get off coal by 2030 in order for the
planet's forests and oceans ever to
bring atmospheric levels back down
below 350 --that's the toughest eco-
nomic and politicalchallenge the
earth has ever faced.
So are our world leaders up to the
task of m_making the decisions they
s�eed to? Will they grow up, to re -
daze that the negotiations that will
happen later this fall in Copenhagen
aren't really about what we wantto
do, or what the Chinese want to do,
or what business and oil interests
want to do. They're about what the
phy sicalworld will do. It has set its
bottom hne a at 350, and it's not likely
to budge.,
Canada, unfortunately is one of
the holdouts. Not China, not even
the U.S., but Canada. Tim Flannery
noted on The Hour this week "Fos-
sil interests in the tar sands seem to
be holding Canada hostage in this
case." •
In recent talks in Thailand, Flan-
nery remarked that "dozens of rep-
resentatives of the developing world
walked out of the meeting room
when the Canadian representative
started speaking because what they
were saying was so incompatible
with progress in this area."
So Stephen Harper and the current
government do need to receive a mes-
sage before the climate talks take
place in December in Copenhagen
that 350 is the right target to aim for
that can ensure an equitable future
safe from climate catastrophe.
Individuals can send petitions or
letters of concern to their MP, to the
Minister of the Environment and to
the . Prime Minister. There are online
vehicles for this at [ httpJ/www.350.
org ]www.350.org and on the David
Suzuki Foundation website.
Phone calls work, too. There are
also activities taking place all . over
the globe on Oct. 24 about how the
grassroots feels about the Copenha-
gen talks.
You can be part of this worldwide
movement. What are you going to do
for your future and yourlanet?
Wilhelmina Laurie
Huron Bruce NDP President
J.F. Daly second car sold
Doc Reid and his mother take a ride in 1914 in the second car sold by J.F. Daly down Sea-
forth's Main Street. Ken Coombs photo