writeaboutwarming

December 23, 2013 – Have you heard about The Great March for Climate Action?   I just learned about it today.   Organizers have determined it will take them 246 days to march from Los Angeles to Washington, D.C.   They are looking for 1,000 people – 20 from each state – to participate.   The march is stopping in many, many locations along the way so that locals can participate for as little as a day, or as long as they like. The march is Ed Fallon’s brainchild.   Ed, along with most of his staff members, is from Iowa, where he served as a state legislator for fourteen years.   He currently hosts a radio program called Fallon Forum.   Fallon began his career as a social activist coordinating the Iowa section of the Great Peace March in 1986.  Ed bases his approach on Great Marches of the past.  Women suffragists marched on Washington on March 3, 1913; Gandhi led the Salt March in India on March 12, 1930; Dr. King led the voting rights march from Selma to Montgomery

December 16, 2013 – The end of the year is a time for taking stock, so that’s what we’ll do today.   To a large degree, I will simply be lifting information from an article that first appeared online in Climate Progress. There’s a lot to talk about, and really very little analysis warranted; the facts speak for themselves, and very loudly, too.   None of the news is good - we appear to have much in common with the proverbial deer caught in the headlights. CO2 levels hit 400 ppm – the highest level in recorded history.   This fact notwithstanding, Americans rejoice in being told that our country is once again energy independent, thanks to the fracking of oil and gas.   At the current pace of increase, there will be 450 ppm within three decades, which will drive catastrophic climate change. Hotter, faster – In its fifth assessment report, released this year, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) determines that the world as a whole will be 7 degrees F

December 10, 2013 – Picking up where we left off last week, businesses at the leading edge of climate change understanding have discovered that the cost of climate change inaction is greater than the cost of grappling with climate change.   No surprise to climatologists, this is a concept badly in need of promulgation.   The response in Washington is and will always be, but where do we find the money?   The answer is simple.   No one wants to be the first (or second, or third) to say it out loud, but it has to be said.   The money will, and must, be taken out of the defense budget.   Smaller percentages will come from entitlements’ budgets.   These are all tough pills to swallow, but the alternative is unimaginably worse. The defense budget currently stands at $530 billion, not including any ongoing wars.   That number needs to be cut dramatically, and it needs to be cut right away.   Halving the defense budget within five years would afford the United States $265

December 2, 2013 – If such a thing is possible, I think countries have grown bored with their own inertia vis-à-vis slowing climate change.   The sense one gets, in reading about the lack of progress at yet another Cop Conference is that, unless the next meeting is held in a place and at a time when a Haiyan-sized typhoon will disrupt the proceedings, very little will get done any time soon.   Since climate change is generally perceived as a time-sensitive issue, I present this as further evidence of our world’s self-inflicted dysfunction. Can businesses do what nations cannot?   Peter Bakker, president of the World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD), says that yes, businesses (plural) can and must come together to collaborate on a mutual agenda designed to slow climate change and, simultaneously, develop renewable energy.   The Council was much in evidence in Warsaw, sponsoring its own conference of member companies and organizational participants durin