Climate Change isn't new news at all. Here is video from The Bell Telephone Hour in 1958
And here is an evaluation of a scientific paper written in 1981 and authored by eminent climate scientist James Hansen et al. Original paper was published in Science (pdf).
To conclude, a projection from 1981 for rising temperatures in a major science journal, at a time that the temperature rise was not yet obvious in the observations, has been found to agree well with the observations since then, underestimating the observed trend by about 30%, and easily beating naive predictions of no-change or a linear continuation of trends. It is also a nice example of a statement based on theory that could be falsified and up to now has withstood the test. The “global warming hypothesis” has been developed according to the principles of sound science.
So climate change predictions made 30 years ago have proven accurate. And what have we accomplished since that time? Well for one see video below for amount of C02 emission growth since 1980.
Mean temperature increase in US has been 2 degrees F within the last fifty years and we are already seeing the evidence of extreme weather caused by that increase. The still burning Colorado Wildfires are due to the severe drought conditions in that area. Unimaginable amount of rain dumped by tropical storm Debbie on Florida this past week produced more than 2 Ft. of rain in some areas and tremendous flooding.
Internationally, surging sea rise due to arctic melting is responsible for the relocation of villages as the Island nation of Fiji prepares for climate change. And the UK prepares to abandon parts of it's coastline due to rising seas.
We have reached the age of consequences for climate change. Much faster than was expected we are faced with extreme weather which can only get much worst.
Additionally, science is just catching up to the problem. Once identified, most action to mitigate has been focused on reducing C02 in atmosphere. But we are now understanding that C02 remains in the atmosphere for hundreds of years. So even if we stopped all C02 emissions tomorrow there would still be the current dangerous levels of C02 in the atmosphere pushing us toward runaway and irreversible climate change. We need to stop spewing C02 into the atmosphere and a rapid transition to green energy can accomplish that but it will not stop the worst effects of climate change. For that we will need a different plan and a change of attitude.
There has been great disappointment coming out of the Rio+20 meeting in Brazil in June. It became apparent that there would be no global binding agreement for climate change mitigation in the near future. Governments have given up up on climate change. But for me there was a message seen in the beautiful mammoth sculpture made of recycled bottles on display in Rio and pictured below. Recicle suas attitudes. Recycle your attitude.
recicle suas attitudes by Ascom Riotur
So for at least the last 30 years we have been waiting for some leadership to mitigate climate change and we find ourselves without time and with the necessity for some emergency solutions. It's time to recycle our attitudes and take possession of this crisis because it may be the only chance we have.
We're not the only ones realizing the emergency of our situation. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has organized a focused, flexible group The Clean Air and Climate Coalition to build support for reducing the short-lived climate pollutants. The SLCP's of Methane, Black Carbon(soot) , tropospheric ozone and some hydrofluorocarbons (HFC's) stay in the atmosphere from several weeks to only as long as a few years. By reducing them we gain a rapid reduction of greenhouse gases and considerable cooling which can buy us the time to reduce the much longer living C02.
We here know that the greatest source of the short-lived climate pollutants is livestock production. That gives us the fastest and simplest way to reduce the SLCP's and mitigate climate change and a way for all of us to participate just by eliminating or reducing our meat consumption. A simple recicle de notre attitudes