Image: An Inconvenient Truth
Hard Rain Journal 3-3-07: Climate Crisis & UN Millennium Goals Update -- The Interdependence of All Life
By Richard Power
Words of Power is dedicated to delivering both ongoing analysis of global risks and threats and an evolving vision for the future.
This vision, with its practical recommendations, is based on an understanding that security, sustainability and spirit are interdependent issues in the 21st Century.
For example, you cannot have national security or economic security without energy security; but in the 21st Century, you cannot achieve energy security without enviromental security, and you cannot achieve environmental security without acknowledging the interconnectedness (i.e., oneness) of all life.
This Climate Crisis & UN Millennium Goals Update has two elements -- one national, the other global.
On the national front, even now, a post-modern Nero still diddles in the White House while the planet burns; meanwhile, progressive and centrist forces within the US body politic are taking meaningful and aggressive action to green the great engines of economy and government:
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) has told the Chief Adminsitrative Officer of the US House of Representatives to "undertake a 'Green the Capitol' initiative to ensure that the House institutes the most up-to-date industry and government standards for green building and green operating procedures,"and to coordinate this effort with the administration of the US Senate. "This process should include recommendations for benchmarking existing conditions; setting meaningful and measurable goals; timetables for implementing various changes in operating conditions; and measures to report progress on a regular basis." Pelosi wants a preliminary report on 4-30-07 and final recommendations on 6-30-07 (The Gavel, 3-2-07)
Regional initiatives are also gaining momentum:
Five Western U.S. states have formed the latest regional pact that bypasses the Bush administration to cut emissions linked to global warming through market mechanisms, according to Oregon's governor. Oregon, California, Washington, New Mexico and Arizona have agreed to develop a regional target for reducing greenhouse emissions in six months, according a statement from Oregon Gov. Ted Kulongoski....The Western Regional Climate Action Initiative comes on the heels of an agreement in the East called the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative. (Reuters, 2-26-07)
And what about the Electoral College choke-hold of the Neo-Confederacy?
...global warming activist Laurie David and Grammy Award winning singer-song writer Sheryl Crow announced today that the StopGlobalWarming.org 'Virtual March' is hitting the road. The multi-city tour will begin on Monday, April 9th in Dallas, Texas, where the duo plan to shine a harsh CFL light on the Dallas-based TXU Corporation, which is trying to fast track 11 dirty coal burning power plants. Texas already dumps more CO2 into the atmosphere than any other state in the nation and TXU's plan would more than double that. The activist & entertainer will visit 12 cities across the Southeastern United States in a bio-diesel bus to motivate college students to become part of the movement to stop global warming and demand solutions from themselves, their schools and their country. (Stop Global Warming! 2-20-07)
On the global front, the interdependence of the struggles to mitigate global warming, end extreme poverty and guarantee basic human rights is gaining greater recognition:
Northern Canadians believe that carbon emissions from the US have contributed so much to climate change symptoms that their human rights have been violated.
The case was made Thursday by the Inuit community before the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights.
In their petition, the Inuit community asked the 34-nation body's assistance "in obtaining relief" from the impact of climate change.
The petition specifically refers to the United States as the country most responsible for climate change.
Sheila Watt-Cloutier, an Inuit activist, said climate change is "destroying the right [of the Inuit] to life, health property and means of subsistence".
"Average Arctic temperatures increased at almost twice the global average rate in the past 100 years"
"States that do not recognise these impacts and take action violate our human rights," she said. US emissions 'breach human rights,' English Al-Jazeera, 3-2-07
Driven by increased concerns and mounting evidence of the threats posed by global warming, some of the world's most eminent scientists are telling policymakers to get their act together before it is too late to avoid a doomsday scenario.
Releasing a new study entitled "Confronting Climate Change: Avoiding the Unmanageable and Managing the Unavoidable," researchers said here Tuesday that world leaders should take immediate steps to start reversing the upward trajectory of greenhouse gas emissions, otherwise the current path would lead to "serious" climate change impacts.
Prepared in response to a request by the U.N. Commission on Sustainable Development (CSD) two years ago, the 144-page study outlines a roadmap for measures to reduce dangerous emissions, alleviate poverty, and spur sustainable development....The study's authors urged policymakers to take immediate steps for energy efficiency in the transport sector, environmental measures in urban construction, and expanded use of biofuels and other renewable sources.
"These steps will contribute to achievement of the U.N. Millennium Development Goals (MDGs); failing to do so will make these goals much harder, if not impossible to reach," said Peter Raven, a biodiversity expert and former president of Sigma Xi, a U.S.-based research group with more than 60,000 members worldwide that carried out the study in collaboration with the U.N. Foundation.
Haider Rizvi, Fighting Warming Key to Anti-Poverty Goals, Inter Press Service, 2-27-07
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Richard Power is the founder of GS(3) Intelligence and Words of Power. His work focuses on the inter-related issues of security, sustainability and spirit, and how to overcome the challenges of terrorism, cyber crime, global warming, health emergencies, natural disasters, etc. You can reach him via e-mail: richardpower@wordsofpower.net. For more information, go to www.wordsofpower.net
Global Warming, Energy Security, Environmental Security, Alternate Energy, Sustainability, Green Power, Renewable Resources, Climate Change, Weather, Al Gore, An Inconvenient Truth, Green the Capitol, Inuit,, Indigenous People, Sheila Watt-Cloutier, U.N. Commission on Sustainable Development , Western Regional Climate Action Initiative , Crisis Management,TXR, Laurie David, Stop Global Warming!, UN Millennium Goals, Nancy Pelosi, Sheryl Crow, Richard Power, Words of Power