Climate Crisis & Sustainability Update: Only $30 billion a year could mitigate 20% of the greenhouse effect responsible for the planet's climate change crisis; $30 billion is the cost of approximately three months of the US occupation of Iraq
By Richard Power
Climate change and the sustainability meltdown are not insurmountable challenges or unmanageable crises. There are simple, sweeping and achievable solutions available to us. It is human greed, fear and ignorance that are seemingly insurmountable and unmanageable.
Here is an example --
At the UN Biodiversity Conference in Bonn, Greenpeace has urged that the great nations establish a fund to thwart deforestation.
The Greenpeace plan would cost $30 billion a year.
Yes, that's right -- $30 billion a year to mitigate 20% of the greenhouse effect responsible for the planet's climate change crisis; $30 billion is the cost of approximately three months of the US occupation of Iraq.
The Greenpeace plan is practical, economical and efficient.
Why you haven't heard of the Forest for Climate Plan in the US mainstream news media or from the floor of the U.S. Senate?
To read it for yourself, click here.
Greenpeace urged industrialised nations .. to set up an international fund to fight deforestation but warned it would require at least 30 billion dollars a year to work.
The plan would see rich nations give poorer ones money to preserve their natural forests instead of felling trees to create farmland, Greenpeace's Roman Czebiniac told an 11-day UN conference on biodiversity in Bonn.
He said the fund would need 20 to 27 billion euros (31 to 47 billion dollars) a year to halt the rapid destruction of forests, but billed it as the only plan on the table "to protect both biodiversity and the climate."
"At the moment, the rainforests are disappearing at a rate of the equivalent of a football field every two seconds," he warned.
Put differently, deforestation accounts for 20 percent of the greenhouse effect blamed for global warming.
Greenpeace asked that its proposal -- dubbed the "Forest for Climate Plan" -- be made part of a blueprint for fighting deforestation in negotiations for a post-2012 climate deal. Agence France Press, 5-20-08
Richard Power's Left-Handed Security: Overcoming Fear, Greed & Ignorance in This Era of Global Crisis is available now! Click here for more information.
For the Words of Power Climate Crisis Updates Archive, click here.
Click here for access to great promotional tools available on The Eleventh Hour action page.
To sign the Live Earth Pledge, click here.
For analysis of the US mainstream news media's failure to treat global warming and climate change with accuracy or appropriae urgency, click here for Media Matters' compilation of "Myths and Falsehoods about Global Warming".
Want to participate in the effort to mitigate the impact of global warming? Download "Ten Things You Can Do"
Want to join over one people on the Stop Global Warming Virtual March, and become part of the movement to demand our leaders freeze and reduce carbon dioxide emissions now? Click here.
Center for American Progress Action Fund's Mic Check Radio has released a witty and compelling compilation on the Top 100 Effects of Global Warming, organized into sections like "Global Warming Wrecks All the Fun" (e.g., "Goodbye to Pinot Noir," "Goodbye to Baseball," "Goodbye to Salmon Dinners," "Goodbye to Ski Vacations," etc.), "Global Warming Kills the Animals" (e.g., "Death March of the Penguins," "Dying Grey Whales," "Farewell to Frogs," etc.) and yes, "Global Warming Threatens Our National Security" (e.g., "Famine," "Drought," "Large-Scale Migrations," "The World's Checkbook," etc.) I urge you to utilize Top 100 Effects of Global Warming in your dialogues with friends, family and colleagues.
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