On why there needs to be left leadership to prevent Climate Catastrophe!
I am writing this to the Left, because I have seen little mention of Global Warming as a Climate Catastrophe, and because I have seen so little discussion of the vital role of Left leaders in demanding and championing a call for a world-wide preventative plan. Instead we seem to be leaving it up to non-political scientists and non-scientific politicians, who don’t even speak of preventing a catastrophe that is likely to make all our very good and important works relatively irrelevant!
So I ask, why aren't ’t we discussing how to prevent the coming global climate catastrophe? Why are we collectively avoiding thinking about if and how we might prevent it? Or have we, lemming like, come to accept it as inevitable and thus we don’t even want to think about how bad it will be?
Each day brings escalating proof and more rhetoric about this fuzzy thing called “global warming,” but there remains a great silence and absence of leadership about preventing this catastrophe that threatens us all.
I won’t bother here to repeat the frightening list of changes that have already begun nor their almost unimaginable consequences. Make your own list and see if you can predict what they will do to all the things we now take for granted and worse to those already vulnerable.
At least the term “tipping point” is being introduced and some vague long range plans are being offered.
Yet, it is hard to find anyone who dares to argue we still have a chance to prevent these irreversible changes and damage to our climate, environment and civilizations. Still no major leadership is warning us of what we must do and by when, and even if we are to have a chance to prevent this catastrophe - nor what the full consequences will be if we fail.
Yes, the environmental movement and evidence grows weekly. New plans are being launched which focus on lessening the effects and suggest mechanisms to encourage more responsible behavior. Optimistic scientists say we have 10 or more years, while the pessimists argue it’s too late already. Others focus on slowing down the rapidly escalating rate of change and then make suggestions how we might adapt as best we can.
Al Gore’s film didn't include many of the newest threats, but even he spelled out millions of deaths, losses of port cities and vast changes to ecosystems that would destroy food and water sources for much of the human population. But Gore, like all other leaders offers nothing sufficient to mobilize us.
He says he is an optimist and that we can do it! I agree with Se Si Pueda, but do we really have time, the kind of decades and centuries usually assumed to make the profound changes needed? Gore and others are laying out scenarios we aught to follow, but no one yet has taken the responsibility to spell out just what are the minimums we must do to have even a reasonable chance to prevent this irreversible catastrophe.
Without a clear deadline and explanation of what will work, I doubt the general public will be able to force the politicians and those controlling resources to do enough to prevent the increasingly definite Global Catastrophe (GC) from happening.
Consider, if there was a large meteor going to hit us in 2 years, one that was going to destroy cities, kill millions and threaten our very survival, maybe that would get our attention and force us to try and divert it. I am convinced that without such a target and time line, we will realize what we should have done, only when it's too late.
And if the GC happens, all our other good works, efforts and important stuff won't really matter. So while we may still have that chance, I'm urging everyone to demand of the scientists, politicians, rational folk and anyone who wants humanity to have a viable future, that a plan based on what's possible and needed, be spelled out. If Katrina wasn't just one city and a few thousands of people, but if Katrina was our planet faced with a truck sized asteroid, maybe we would have had done better. Maybe even the profiteers and racist politicians would have sounded the alarm and done something.
Note that with far fewer resources, Cuba’s socialist perspective warned and prepared and successfully protected their people. When Cuba offered much needed and capable medical assistance to the US, the callous US leaders rejected and still deny the people of the Gulf the medical help they need.
So I am asking we not remain silent on this and the we speak most loudly to the more rational and humane leaders and say this time, we need them to act now, while there is still time.
Imagine if you can, how we, those of us who claim some passion for humanity and reality, will be judged if we could have, but didn't prevent this catastrophe; because no one pointed out what had to be done – and by when and so we were too late with too little! Who would be most guilty if we fail to meet this challenge?
So to prevent this catastrophe,
Where is the Plan?
What is the minimum that must be done?
When is the deadline?
Walter Teague
DC CCDS
9-21-2006