The higher one's income, the more CO2 one emits, and it is possible to establish a correlation between income level and emission level. Hervé Kempf, Le Monde, 7-16-09
Switching to a vegan diet would have a bigger impact than trading in your gas guzzler for a Prius Ezra Klein, Washington Post, 7-29-09
Climate Crisis Update: New Studies Highlight Meat-Eating & the Life Styles of the Rich & Famous as Serious Issues
By Richard Power
The political resistance to meaningful healthcare reform is national self-mutilation. But the political resistance to meaningful climate change legislation is even worse, it is national suicide.
Of course, what else should we expect from a country awash in sun and wind that chooses instead to blow-up its mountain tops to dig out the last dregs of coal, and then suck its tar sands dry of their last drops of oil.
This is madness.
Yes, it is time to become more confrontational. The sands in the hourglass are running out.
Here are two provocative pieces to ponder.
Recently, in Le Monde, Hervé Kempf offered a bold suggestion of taking on the carbon footprints on individuals rather than that of countries:
To prevent a full-scale climate crisis, we must limit greenhouse gas emissions so as not to exceed 30 billion tons of CO2 (carbon dioxide) in 2030. Rather than reasoning as usual in terms of each country's emissions, Chakravarty and his team tackle the question in terms of emissions per person. They study income distribution within the different countries and then at a global level. The higher one's income, the more CO2 one emits, and it is possible to establish a correlation between income level and emission level. Knowing that we are supposed to be 8.1 billion humans in 2030, calculations lead to settling on 10.8 tons per person as the maximum ceiling that would allow humanity to remain within the 30 billion ton limit. Below that ceiling a significant inequality of incomes/emissions subsists (from 1 to 10 tons per inhabitant), but that is evened out. "All emissions that exceed that level must be eliminated" an action that involves about a billion emitters. Herve Kemp, Le Monde, 7-16-09
And in the Washington Post, Ezra Klein took a courageous stand on meat-eating and its impact on the Climate Crisis:
Two researchers at the University of Chicago estimated that switching to a vegan diet would have a bigger impact than trading in your gas guzzler for a Prius (PDF). A study out of Carnegie Mellon University found that the average American would do less for the planet by switching to a totally local diet than by going vegetarian one day a week. That prompted Rajendra Pachauri, the head of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, to recommend that people give up meat one day a week to take pressure off the atmosphere. The response was quick and vicious. "How convenient for him," was the inexplicable reply from a columnist at the Pittsburgh Tribune Review. "He's a vegetarian." Ezra Klein, Washington Post, 7-29-09
If you have not already joined the Alliance for Climate Protection, Al Gore and I urge you to do so. Click here.
I also urge you to participate in some way in the International Day of Climate Action on 10-24-09. Go to 350.org for more information.
For the Words of Power Climate Crisis Updates Archive, click here.
Richard Power's Left-Handed Security: Overcoming Fear, Greed & Ignorance in This Era of Global Crisis is available now! Click here for more information.
Global Warming, Energy Security, Environmental Security, Alternate Energy, Sustainability, Green Power, Renewable Resources, Climate Change, Al Gore,350, An Inconvenient Truth, Richard Power, Words of Power
