Vigorous action needed, and soon, on climate change (excerpt): Yale Climate Connections

"Our essays in this series have presented compelling scientific evidence about the warming of the planet, reviewed the evidence that human activity is its principal cause, and discussed the resulting economic and environmental damages.

Now comes the question of what we are going to do about it. The options are clear:

– Nations can work toward eliminating greenhouse gas emissions and reducing the scale of future warming.
– Governments and private actors can, and will, invest in measures to protect home and livelihood from effects of changes that cannot be prevented.
– Or human societies and natural ecosystems will suffer the severe harms of inaction.

The more they (really we) do now and in the near future, the smaller will be the residual damages imposed on ourselves, our children, and our grandchildren. The choice is ours.

The suffering is already here, of course. In some places, it is almost impossible to bear despite growing investments in adaptation. So what is missing? A commitment to emissions reductions appropriate to the special nature of the climate change threat. Fortunately, with a smart choice of policy measures, the emissions control challenge can still be met at a tolerable economic cost."

Go to complete Yale Climate Connections article 

 

Related: A nine-point plan for the UK to achieve net zero carbon emissions (excerpts): Guardian

 

economic impact, ecology, ecocide, greenhouse gas pollution, #globalheating, extreme heat, children,

Shell is not a green saviour. It’s a planetary death machine : The Guardian

Is the Shell oil company greenwashing?

"Don’t buy the greenwash. Shell’s initiatives, which have won over many conservation groups, are dwarfed by its investment in oil and gas"

"Shell’s “cash engines”, according to its annual report, are oil and gas. There is no sign that it plans to turn the engines off. Its “growth priorities” are chemical production and deep water oil extraction. It does list low-carbon energy among its “emerging opportunities” in future decades, but says it will develop them alongside fracking and liquefied fossil gas technologies. In the future, the company says, it will “sell more natural gas”. But as an analysis by Oil Change International explains, “there is no room for new fossil fuel development – gas included – within the Paris agreement goals”. Even existing gas and oil extraction is enough to push us past 1.5C of global heating. Shell is a company committed for the long term to fossil fuel production – which is another way of saying ecocide."

by George Monbiot

Read The Guardian article 


See also:

Meet the Money Behind The Climate Denial Movement: Smithsonian

Ecocidal Maniacs: How Complacent, Fact-resistant Humans are Destroying the World: Fractal Enlightenment

Gas nozzle ecocide

"We all intuitively sense that there is something fundamentally unhealthy and unsustainable with the way our human cultures pollute and destroy the planet, but most of us do not have the moral courage to admit that we’re part of the problem. Cognitive dissonance too easily slips in and pacifies us against the discomfort. And so the vicious cycle continues.

This dissonance is so powerful that it compels people to remain ignorant to a great many things. The majority of us think we know the way the world works, when really we have forgotten that everything is connected. This can be extremely dangerous."

Read the original Fractal Enlightenment article

Image source:

Gas nozzle ecocide
Frantz Fanon quote
Brittany Jackson art

#ecocide  #climate change  #global heating  #cognitive dissonance  #climate change deniers

  See also: New Report Warns Geoengineering the Climate Is a '...