We Made History
Yesterday, Americans made history. We elected the first African American president and the first man in nearly a half century who understands what it means to look at this country with hope, not fear; with pluck, not cold political calculation.
It's understandable that millions of Americans celebrated last night on the streets of Washington DC, in New York and San Francisco, in Phoenix and Cleveland and Miami, and that millions more celebrated in their homes with friends and family close by.
But, as we all know, celebration isn't a uniquely American trait. Friends in Budapest and Sydney related jubilation from around the world, becuase what Barack Obama has the opportunity to accomplish on a global scale is truly historic. With any big win, as we all know, comes responsibility. Responsibility to those who worked for you and those who sacrificed on your behalf, but also those who did not even have an opportunity to take part in the choosing.
Billions of us around the world, some who voted for Obama and others who did not or could not, are saddled with an ailing economy, poverty, pandemic disease and an energy crisis that like dry tinder could ignite at any time -- it's already on fire in some places around the world.
Despite these warnings, the path has never been clearer towards a prosperous future, a robust economy and a resurgent America. We know as president, Barack Obama must follow that path to rebuilding America by investing in green jobs and pathways out of poverty, towards a carbon-free, clean energy future. In his victory speech, Obama said "There is new energy to harness and new jobs to be created."
And he has a responsibility to bring that vision -- a vision he espoused again and again on the campaign trail -- to the world. He must reengage the world's leaders, as Nelson Mandela writes in a brief letter to the President-Elect. One way he can lead, and take a decisive stand against dangerous climate change and for clean development is by attending the UN climate talks this December in Poznan, Poland.
Yvo de Boer, the UN climate chief said yesterday that "It is impossible to advance on this important topic without the full engagement of the United States. I am very encouraged by the stated commitment of Senator Obama to the issue of climate change, and I really hope that he or his
representatives can come to the climate change conference in Poznan and speak to his vision of the way forward."
It's up to us to make sure Senator Obama follows through with the vision of a world we desperately want that is now a little bit more within reach. Sending him to Poland is a needed first step towards rebuilding the world economy and solving climate change, tasks which will no doubt take years, if not decades, to accomplish.
At this historic turning point, it's up to us to shed the yoke of history and move forward by joining with our new leaders and pushing for a bold new solution to these dual crises. The world is counting on us.
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Anne says... on Nov 06,2008
Obama supports multilateralism so I don't see how this would not happen naturally, despite the US not being a signatory to Kyoto.
What you can learn from Australia is this: Our Kevin and his team came to the climate negotiations at Bali last year immediately after their landslide election and signed on to the Kyoto Protocol. He got a lot of nice attention for it. However what really matters are the targets. The targets they have set so far for our Carbon Pollution Reduction scheme are low- too low to rescue us from Dangerous Climate Change - see James Hansen here . We also may rely heavily on credits from poor Majority World Countries (a loophole in Kyoto called the CDM that in the name of technology transfer/ climate justice betrays the principles of climate justice, Carbon equity and producer responsibility) rather than fulfilling our targets domestically.
What IS important are that ADEQUATE and JUST targets and commitments are discussed at Poland in the leadup to the extremely important meeting at Copenhagen.
The situation now is like leaving an essay to the night before it is due: we have been irresponsible- Carbon emissions are still RISING rather than stabilising: we need to accept that this irresponsibility necessitates sacrifice- an emergency response, reducing the atmospheric concentration of CO2 rapidly through mass electrification of transport and rapid conversion to renewables, as well as restoration of native forest and agricultural sequestration. In other words we need to go beyond zero emissions.
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Andrew Riley says... on Apr 25,2009
Excuse this plop of text, but it's from someone claiming to know the science that the IPCC, and other climate scientists who are proponents of AGW, refuse to divulge to the public. Could someone point me in the direction of someone who does have the scientific fact, or is what this person writing true? I doubt it, but he's put more explanation of CO2 as a greenhouse gas than others. I don't believe that our effect is negligible, but what is the truth behind this skeptics assertion? I know skeptics like to use the tactic that more CO2 could only be beneficial, but they explicitly disregard the obvious changes in climate all over the world, taking place as we speak. They simply say, natural cycle, get over it. Well, should we? I think, warming or not (I believe we are) we need to change a great deal about how we live on and interact with the planet. GW may exacerbate the problems, but over time. We have many other issues to deal with.
Though the greenhouse effect itself is completely natural, and very beneficial, global warming scientists believe that anthropogenic (man-made) emissions of carbon dioxide (mostly from burning fossil fuels) have increased CO2 in the atmosphere to a point where we are now experiencing what could be called an "enhanced greenhouse effect". This artificial enhancement of the greenhouse effect, could cause significant warming of the atmosphere and the surface, over and above what the natural greenhouse effect causes. Though such additional warming will have both positive and negative consequences for human beings and other life on the planet, global warming scientists believe that the negative consequences far outweigh the positive consequences. (However, in reality, they have no scientific basis for that belief - they just believe, just because it's "man-made", just because it's not "natural", that it must be "bad". Even the alarmist IPCC admits that no one can be certain which effects will dominate, but, in true alarmist fashion choose to err on the side of pessimism. But that is a completely different discussion, not appropriate to the question at hand.)
Now, here's an important point that global warming scientists don't mention. Though carbon dioxide definitely absorbs IR, it only absorbs IR in two very narrow ranges of wavelengths, one between 2.5 and 3 microns, and another between 4 and 5 microns. This is a small percentage of the total IR emitted by the surface. I don't know exactly how small (because I can't find any source for the wavelength distribution of IR emitted from the surface), but it's probably less than 10%, and perhaps as low as 4%. And even in those ranges, CO2 has to compete with water vapor, which also absorbs 2.5-3-micron IR. So, even if carbon dioxide in the atmosphere increased a thousand-fold, and even if there was no water vapor, there is a limit to how much IR CO2 can absorb, and that limit is 10% (or less) of all the IR emitted from the surface. And of that 10%, over half of it still ends up escaping into space.
This limit of absorptivity is important because some skeptics argue that, between water vapor and CO2, every available ray of IRwithin the absorption ranges of CO2 is already being absorbed. Additional molecules of CO2, therefore, will have zero effect on the total absorption of IR. So future warming due to CO2 is simply not possible. The only way CO2 could absorb any more IR than it is already absorbing is if 1) the surface started re-emitting more IR, which could only happen if more sunlight reached the surface, or 2) atmospheric water vapor levels dropped, freeing up more IR to be absorbed by CO2, in which case, warming would not occur, because that radiation was already being absorbed by the water vapor that disappeared. In fact, if the second option occurred, temperatures would in fact drop, because water vapor absorbs IR over a much wider range than CO2, and therefore, CO2 cannot completely offset the loss of IR absorption by water vapor. However, the existence of CO2, replacing the IR absorption of some of the lost water vapor, would mitigate this temperature drop. Therefore, at current levels, CO2 could be said to be somewhat of a stabilizer of the greenhouse effect, taking up part of the slack when water vapor levels drop too low. In this respect, it is good to have an excess of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.
Found here: http://wiki.answers.com/Q/How_is_Carbon_dioxide_a_greenhouse_gas
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