Climate Change

The need of the hour: A Renewables revolution Antonio Guterres https://indianexpress.com/article/opinion/columns/climate-change-crisis-energy-fuels-coal-oil-gas-renewable-energy-8004060/ 

The only true path to energy security, stable power prices, prosperity and a livable planet lies in abandoning polluting fossil fuels and accelerating the renewables-based energy transition. To that end, I have called on G20 governments to dismantle coal infrastructure, with a full phase-out by 2030 for OECD countries and 2040 for all others. I have urged financial actors to abandon fossil fuel finance and invest in renewable energy. And I have proposed a five-point plan to boost renewable energy around the world.

In his response from Shankar Sharma in open letter said " the global objective for a sustainable future for humankind (SDGs?) should have the primary focus on those economic activities to meet the essential needs of the communities...Such a changed developmental paradigm will require unwavering global focus on those economic activities which will not lead to further diversion of forest/ agricultural lands; which will not demand a lot of water, materials and energy; which will not lead to pollution of land, air and water; and which will lead to sustainable harnessing of our natural resources, while providing large number of job opportunities." for full text of letter

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Global warming has long been subjected to the propagandistic influence of a wide variety of public relations (PR) organizations. Yet, despite its overwhelming importance, the impact of public relations/propaganda on our awareness of global warming has long been overlooked.

https://countercurrents.org/2022/07/how-pr-is-preventing-awareness-of-global-warming/

Over the past decades, gas and oil corporations have engaged many – if not almost all – top PR firms in their quest to prevent people from getting to know the corporate pathologies that cause global warming – including our potential and impending global death. Global warming has the potential to end humanity as we know it.

Perhaps the height of corporate engagement by these key PR firms has come since the end of the 1980s. Up to now, they continue to work on circumventing scientific knowledge about global warming. Their task is to ensure that this does not reach the public domain. Simultaneously, they also seek to defame whom and what they have identified as the enemy of polluting corporations: environmental NGOs, politicians, government agencies, and related (often scientific and research) institutions. Much of this has a long history.

What they learned from the tobacco battle and the 100 million people who died from the products of tobacco corporations, they are now applying to global warming. One of the more common PR methods is known as PR’s 3Ds: deny that global warming exists at all; and when this is no longer possible, move to deflect, claiming that climate change is not really that severe an issue; and when this stops working, move to delay, just adapt to global warming and everything will be fine.

by  Thomas Klikauer 

05/07/2022

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Climate Summit in US: A critical time for India in charting out its sustainable future   https://counterview.org/2021/04/05/climate-summit-in-us-a-critical-time-for-india-in-charting-out-its-sustainable-future/ https://counterview.org/2021/04/05/climate-summit-in-us-a-critical-time-for-india-in-charting-out-its-sustainable-future/  India, being the third largest and still growing polluter of the atmospheric GHG content, has a critical role in the fight against global warming. It should become evidently clear to our policy makers that without India’s active and effective participation in reducing the global GHG emissions, the global target to achieve the 50% reduction in GHG levels by 2030 as compared to 2005 levels, and to achieve global net-zero level by 2050 will be impossible. It will not suffice for India to make repeated and rhetoric statements that it wants to be a leader in the fight against global warming.

India must not miss this chance to become a sort of a global icon in the fight against Global Warming, and also to chart out a sustainable and green pathway for its vast and highly vulnerable population?

https://countercurrents.org/2022/05/world-drought-gets-worse-cities-ration/

The planet trapping heat at double the rate of only 17 years ago is off-the-charts bad news and reason enough for the world’s leaders to go all-in on global warming preventive measures, and then hope and pray that it’s not too late.

Throughout Earth’s history drought has been a normal feature of climate change, but that’s the past. Droughts are no longer normal features. They are much, much more severe and longer lasting, for example, America’s drought in the West is ongoing for 20 years, the worst in 1,200 years, and it’s taken Lake Mead water levels down to 1937 when it first started filling up.

Along those lines, in an historic judgment, a Belgian court ruled that Belgium’s climate failures violate human rights, stating that public authorities broke promises to tackle the climate issue. 58,000 citizens served as co-plaintiffs in the case. To wit: “By not taking all ‘necessary measures’ to prevent the ‘detrimental’ effects of climate change, the court said, Belgian authorities had breached the right to life (Article 2) and the right to respect for private and family life (Article 8).” (Source: Drought: The New Global Calamity? The Kashmir Monitor, June 30, 2021)

It is noteworthy that Dr. James Hansen’s (Columbia University) most recent monthly temperature update states:

“Note monthly temperature anomalies on land now commonly exceed +2°C (+3.6°F), with the Arctic anomaly often exceeding +5°C (+9°F).”

By Robert Hunziker

10/05/2022

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