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They look out the window and things look fine. It seems just too impossible to believe that we could all be dead in less than years. So we choose to ignore what the scientists tell us. The most unequivocal and important scientific consensus in our lifetime, and we choose to ignore it.
How smart is that? We are also too easily distracted by other seemingly more immediate issues such as terrorism, Iraq, healthcare and immigration to worry about things such as the survival of humanity. We think we can worry about that later. By the time global warming has caused mass devastation, it will be way to late to do anything about it.
The public can complain all they want Our climate is like a battleship: Today, we are like mariners in a fog heading straight for disaster. By the time we can clearly see the iceberg ahead, it will be too late to turn the battleship to avoid hitting it. This is starting to happen already in Australia. Australia is experiencing the worst drought on record with a lot of areas that haven't had decent rain for 7 years forcing them to have to import food to survive.
Australian Prime Minister John Howard doesn't believe in global warming. Howard refused to meet with Gore when Gore came to Australia and he continues to believe that destroying the jobs of coal miners would be bad for the Australian economy. So what is his plan? He tells Australians to "pray for rain. We're seeing the effect in America too. We are seeing a record-breaking drought in Georgia.
Los Angeles normally gets 15 inches of rain per year, but there has only been 3. Florida is also experiencing the worst drought in its history, with Lake Okeechobee water levels shrinking to near-record lows, and the entire watershed of the Everglades drying out fast. In other parts of the US, extreme downpours are up 24 percent , according to an independent analysis by Environment America.
The Pew Center on Global Climate Change has just issued a report Regional Impacts of climate change , four case studies including heatwaves in the midwest and wildfires in the west.
Can we be saved? Sure, we still have the time and opportunity to save ourselves. A single billionaire or a single large foundation could choose to change that outcome. But that's just not going to happen due to a combination of ignorance and fear. For example, billionaires at companies like Google aren't going to get involved in publicly supporting a candidate for President who could fix these problems because it might upset some shareholders. The Gates Foundation isn't going to get involved because they are focused on their core mission, under the mistaken assumption that someone else they have no idea who is going to have the resources necessary to counter the special interests and save humanity from global warming.
Warren Buffett could have saved the planet, but he chose to donate virtually everything to the Gates Foundation. I could go on. Unfortunately, those funds are limited to academic policy research rather than promoting change. Everyone else has a reason for inaction. So it's highly unlikely to expect any Good Samaritan with enough bucks to change things to also have a clear vision of how they can deploy their wealth to save the planet.
Wealth and vision seem to be mutually exclusive. However, if we are to be saved, a smart visionary billionaire willing to put up enough dollars to offset the special interest dollars is the most likely savior, since all the other options have much lower probabilities. We can't expect our next President to save us.
For example, all the top candidates for President are afraid of the special interests. They are not going to take a stand that might upset them because all of them want to maximize their chance of being elected. For example, why tick off the coal union and lose votes if you aren't clearly going to gain more votes than you lose? It's a simple calculation.
That is why nobody running for President other than Mike Gravel, who has no realistic chance of winning has ever talked about replacing a single existing coal plant with a clean renewable plant. We can't expect the voters to save us. Even if we could pass a national initiative , it wouldn't help. The election of President every year is a good example.
We can't even get that right because the public is too easily fooled. They focus on what the candidates say, instead of what they do. The evidence was obvious in the election, but nobody paid attention. Instead, the public chooses a candidate because they like what they say or because they think that candidate has a lot of "experience.
We don't learn seem to learn from our mistakes either. We keep repeating them and electing the wrong person for President. People support Hillary because they "like her" or she has "experience" or because "it's time for a woman President. Those are absolutely the wrong reasons to select a President. I wouldn't hire a guy for CEO of my company who hasn't clearly demonstrated the leadership skills required for the job.
We should apply the same criteria for the CEO of America, namely, a President must exhibit the leadership ability and vision to solve our toughest problems. To make that determination, you must look at how they handled past situations; their behavior, not what they "say. Her plan on global warming is silent on the most important pieces, and there are no specific greenhouse gas reduction goals. A leader who has no goals on the single most important issue that our civilization has ever faced? And sadly, she's the front runner!
Obama is just as bad since if you read his legislation, you find out that he's such a "let's meet in the middle" kind of guy that nothing gets done. You may feel good, but at the end of the day, nothing has changed. Both Obama and Clinton were laggards on supporting global warming legislation in the Senate. Of the top 3 candidates, John Edwards is by far the better candidate as pointed out in this detailed analysis of the top 3 candidates. We can't expect Congress to save us.
While there are many heroes in Congress my favorite being Senator Barbara Boxer , there are simply not enough of them to make a difference. So collectively, Congress still acts like nothing has happened: Al Gore can help save the planet, but he can't do it alone. He's doing that by raising funds for climateprotect. He's also withholding his endorsement for President until we have a candidate who is willing to take the actions required to save the planet.
Global warming is virtually impossible to solve without support from the next President, so Gore is doing exactly the right thing by withholding an endorsement and I applaud him for doing that. The Clinton Global Initiative may one day save us. In , now in its third year, there is a major emphasis shift toward climate and energy. It is now the largest subject area. Instead of a token plenary, it's all or part of every plenary. The energy and the desperation on the issue are palpable. Unfortunately, all the money and effort toward attacking global warming continues to go toward technology and public policy solutions.
Of the dozens of commitments on climate at CGI, not one of them was directed toward public awareness and education.
The mayors of large cities may save us. If all major cities follow San Jose's lead, that would be very helpful to showing others that it can be done. The media could help us save ourselves. But they'd have to go beyond the normal reporting of the news. Wouldn't it be great if when you heard the news, you'd also hear an accurate interpretation of "what this really means is Fox News seems to do this quite well; they report the conservative slant of the news.
What seems to be missing is the TV news network with the liberal slant. Maybe we'll get lucky and science will come to the rescue with a breakthrough before it is too late. For example, maybe we'll perfect a clean biofuel as superstar biologist Jay Keasling is doing, or be able to sequester CO2 emissions in a profitable way as Skyonic is doing.
This does nothing to advance the rescue plot, or to determine the root of the nationwide global? Funnily enough for a movie called How It Ends, the conclusion is utterly preposterous.
That is if they make it that far. As a Netflix premiere, the temptation to pick up that remote and watch virtually anything else will be great. That just about sums it up. Netflix Forest Whitaker Action and adventure films reviews. Order by newest oldest recommendations. Show 25 25 50 All. Threads collapsed expanded unthreaded. Loading comments… Trouble loading?