It is no slightest doubt that everyone in India has experienced what really is global warming. The average temperatures have gone up in the last few summers, and even the winters and rainy seasons are showing abnormalities from their behaviors over the last few years. Indeed, this is ‘global weirding’ or rather ‘climate crisis’ that would define the thing better.

But, what really caused global warming? Industrial revolution for one, heavy pollution caused by it another and there might be numerous such reasons. But, how do we know that we have landed in a state of global warming? Of course, anyone who has experienced summer in any part of India would know better. But, any symptoms that would convince the rational mind? Yes, in fact there are many. If you haven’t seen Al Gore’s documentary, ‘An Inconvenient Truth’ you must watch it once. I would rate it 5 stars, as it is a must watch for everyone today. From the official website of An Inconvenient Truth by Al Gore, I could get some science behind this. The symptoms are listed below and are sourced from the website climatecrisis.net (official website of An Inconvenient Truth). Do visit the website, it has a good music track played once the website is accessed. Other initiatives from Al Gore are the website of WeCanSolveIt, TakePart, RepowerAmerica.

Image from www.cranberg.com

Carbon dioxide and other gases warm the surface of the planet naturally by trapping solar heat in the atmosphere. This is a good thing because it keeps our planet habitable. However, by burning fossil fuels such as coal, gas and oil and clearing forests we have dramatically increased the amount of carbon dioxide in the Earth’s atmosphere and temperatures are rising.

The vast majority of scientists agree that global warming is real, it’s already happening and that it is the result of our activities and not a natural occurrence.¹ The evidence is overwhelming and undeniable.

We’re already seeing changes. Glaciers are melting, plants and animals are being forced from their habitat, and the number of severe storms and droughts is increasing.

Have you checked out wecansolveit.org? The “We” Organization defines its existence as follows:

“Climate change is occurring now, and is already affecting our natural environment, our national security and our quality of life. But, there are effective, achievable solutions for addressing the crisis. An important step is to repower America by producing 100 percent of our country’s electricity from energy sources with zero carbon emissions — within 10 years. Making this switch will generate millions of good American jobs, cut energy costs, safeguard national security, and protect the climate. We need business and government leaders at all levels to help adopt policies and practices now that will enable America to switch to energy sources with zero carbon emissions. We need policies that encourage energy efficiency, renewable energy, and a unified national electricity grid.

We can repower America in a short time frame. We put a man on the moon in just eight years. We quickly retooled our factories to produce tanks, trucks and airplanes for World War II. We mobilized for civil rights and women’s suffrage. We’ve done this before, and we can do it again”

www.wecansolveit.org

One of the best ways to get motivated to take action and become involved in programs like this is read success stories. For example, check out the story on how the people and government of Colorado are joining together to make a difference:

How did Colorado voters become climate champions? They helped reduce greenhouse gas emissions just by going to the ballot box.

In 2004, Colorado was the first state to establish a climate-friendly RPS (Renewable Portfolio Standard) through a voter-passed initiative. An RPS is a requirement that a certain amount of electricity in the state come from renewable sources like solar, wind, and geothermal energy.  In Colorado’s case, the RPS specified 10% renewable energy by 2015.

Three years later, Colorado Governor Bill Ritter went a step further and doubled the standard to 20%. Large investor-owned utilities in Colorado must now obtain 20% of their electricity from renewable sources and small utilities must provide at least 10% renewable energy by 2020.

“By doubling the RPS, Colorado is reaffirming its commitment to maintaining national leadership in renewable energy development,” said Interwest Energy Alliance Executive Director Craig Cox.

Greenhouse gas reduction has become a state-wide effort in Colorado as more people pitch in to help reduce the state’s emissions. As American Wind Energy Association Western Representative Ron Lehr said,”Renewables are now bipartisan and mainstream. The people have spoken truth about power.”

This is just one example of how individuals, organizations, businesses and governments are helping to stop climate change. There are thousands more across the country and around the world – and it’s through these efforts that we’re going to be successful. We can’t afford not to succeed in this unprecedented challenge to our planet.

As a former marketing executive, I know that one of the key tasks of marketing and advertising management is keeping a rein on the copywriters and creative talent in the advertising agency.  Here is a perfect example of an agency that has developed a script to fit a contrived character/spokesman with something less than a perfect outcome.

The character that has been created is supposed to be something like a rancher or oil field rough neck; a type that would probably not be prone to the adoption of “new-fangled technology.”  In keeping with the character, he uses a couple of folksy expressions, but they are at odds with one another.  Did you catch them?

With respect to the earth, and the ad’s euphomisms to describe it, I have a question…Which one is it?  “God’s green earth,” or “Hell’s half acre.”  If the ad agency had presented this ad to me in storyboard form with the script, it would have failed on account of trying to be too cute with the character and his lines.  Send it back to the copywriters for a re-work.

Today I watched the movie “An Inconvenient Truth”, and I can honestly say that it has changed the way I see our world; it has changed my life.

This movie has brought to my attention the delicate state of our precious planet, of our lives, of the lives of our future or current children.  It has impressed on me something that I will never forget, and from this moment on I pledge to do what I can to help our planet, to make sure my future children have a safe place to live; a place where they don’t have to be afraid to breathe the air outside because of pollution, a place where hope still exists, a planet that still lives.

Right now, I want you to think about the person in this world that means most to you.  Now I want you to think of that person in ten years.  Think of what they may be doing with their life.  Think of how precious their life really is.  

Now I say to you, if you truly love this person then watch this movie. Watch it with an open mind, and thoughts of your loved one, and if then you don’t feel like something needs to be done, then God help us all.

Join the effort to solve the problem. Show future generations that you do care.

I ran across the link for a site called We Can Solve It dot Org which is a project of Al Gore’s Alliance for Climate Protection and has a goal of Repowering America with 100% clean electricity within 10 years. Whichever side one takes on the issue of man made global warming (real or not), in terms of national security the goal makes quite a bit of sense, so I thought I’d post about the site and give them a link.

We can Solve it este numele unei campanii de advocacy initiate de All Gore. Scopul este determinarea guvernului american sa ia masuri serioase pentru a reduce incalzirea globala. Mai exact, campania militeaza pentru un plan mai mult decat ambitios: in 10 ani, America sa fie alimentata in proportie de 100% cu energie provenind din surse regenerabile (energie solara, eoliana, etc.) Campania are deja sustinerea a 1,663, 867 de oameni.

De curand, Unlikely Alliances, campania de comunicare care promoveaza initiativa We can Solve it a castigat premiul Ethic Mark Award 2008. Competitia premiaza anual ”marketing, advertising, and public relations campaigns and communications designed to uplift the human spirit and society”.

Mesajul campaniei este acela ca oricat de diferiti am fi, oricat de ireconciliabile ar fi pozitiile noastre, atunci cand vine vorba de salvarea planetei, trebuie sa actionam impreuna. Mai multe “cupluri certate” de oameni politici si vedete TV au fost de acord uite de conflictele personale si sa sustina impreuna campania.

David Letterman si Billy Crystal

Al Sharpton si Pat Robertson, doi politicieni americani cu abordari religioase diferite

Publicul este invitat sa propuna si alte exemple de “unlikely alliances” care ar putea sustine cauza mediului. Printre sugestiile facute pana acum: Angelina Jolie and Jennifer Aniston ) Pe plan local, eu i-as propune pe Traian Basescu si Calin Popescu Tariceanu. Cred ca impaginea lor, pedaland impreuna pe o bicicleta dubla, ar fi chiar un statement puternic!

Inconvenient Youth is a group of young people dedicated to disseminating information about the environment to their peers. Article here from World Changing.

The We Can Solve It Campaign is a project’s goal is to build a movement that creates the political will to solve the climate crisis. It offers solutions and ways to take action about saving the environment from a personal and a political perspective. Short videos on the each of the pages offer a friendly way of introducing each topic.

The folks at the We Can Solve It campaign have made a great short ad about repowering America with clean, renewable energy that was to be aired during the previous presidential debates.  ABC refused to air it last Tuesday.  The main message of the commercial is that to strengthen our economy, we need to end our dependence on foreign oil.  It also argues that one reason why America has not made the transition to clean, renewable sources of energy is because of the stronghold that oil and coal lobbys have on the media.

Don’t let the big spending oil and coal lobbys dictate our future.  There are a lot of misleading ads out there aobut the climate crisis and the roles that oil and coal play. Educate yourself and others about the issues. Demand that the argument for clean, renewable energy is heard.

We Can Solve It has sent a letter to ABC asking that they reconsider the ad and air it tonight (Friday) on 20/20. So far no response has been given.  In the past 24 hours over 100,000 Americans concerned about the climate crisis have sent emails to ABC to let them know that they want the ad to be aired.  Thank you to  everyone who expressed their concerns to ABC, and for those of you who have not done so yet, its not too late! Please click here to send your email.

Check out the ad below.

and thought it was great. Hope you do too….!

and then you can sign the petition by going HERE.

I’m probably going to be reading and writing about China, the environment, and energy policy for what remains of the semester…so I thought I might use this forum to offer periodically some speculations on various related things.

So In his latest “We Can Solve It” email, The Man Himself Al Gore sums up current US energy policy with aplomb (a quality notoriously absent from his 2000 presidential bid.) He says: “We’re borrowing money from China to buy oil from the Persian Gulf to burn it in ways that destroy the future of human civilization.” Word. But we don’t want oil stealing the limelight!

Of course US foreign policy has been driven by considerations of oil at least since World War I (before that it was cotton) but oil is not the source of most of the energy that you and I use. Coal is. Furthermore, the trade that we’ve built with China over the past few decades is also coal powered.

Now consider the fact that China now produces more greenhouse gases then any other country, having recently overtaken the US for that dubious distinction. While per-capita energy use in China is very low, this is because the majority of China’s outrageously large population are farmers who don’t use much energy. Most of the energy used in China comes from coal and goes towards the industrial sector. Coal has fueled Chinese development — it’s primarily used to power the extraction of steel and other minerals as well as the manufacture of consumer goods for US and European markets. These activities bring in enough revenue for the PRC to have billions laying around to lend the US. The other source of revenue is the 25% income tax on Foreign Direct Investment, mostly levied upon corporations who also want to produce things for export.

So when China lends us money, it’s because our consumption is the source of their revenue. They need us to stay afloat. American mass consumerism depends on electricity that is also primarily powered by coal. So, what we have is a vast system for extracting and burning coal — they extract it and burn it so as to make and sell stuff to us; we extract it and burn it so as to buy things from them. The very fact that I can type this post (on my Made-in-Taiwan laptop) and you can read it (presumably on yours) is predicated upon this relationship.

In light of this thought, check out this ad from “We Can Solve It”:

Like I said in my previous post, we’re all familiar with what happens when you elect representatives of the oil industry to high political office. It’s bad. So I’d be in favor of “breaking big oil’s lock on the government.” But if you agree with my above statement that the Chinese and US economy are linked inexorably through coal production and consumption, then in order to stop pumping carbon into the atmosphere we would have to stop (and retool) the whole machine. We would have to stop the global economy and change out its rusty old engine.

Besides the fact that this would be catastrophic to our daily lives, both here and in China, it’s also completely impossible for governments to undergo such an action.

I’m currently interning at an outfit whose goal is to use the market and a growing network of business/civil society folk around the world to try to fix the problem not by lobbying government per se but by promoting investment in renewable energy, which is a very dynamic industry right now. It’s exciting stuff. But I don’t believe this tactic will be very effective, simply because it’s grounded in the very market ideology that created the problem.

Tell 5 Friends: Climate change likely to bring more severe weather

Tell five people about the ground-breaking findings from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration — climate change is likely to bring more forms of extreme weather, from hurricanes to floods.

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