Isn’t it time to talk not only about weather, but also about climate?
Sandy was particularly destructive because it was prevented from moving back out to sea by a “blocking pattern” associated
with the jet stream. There’s debate about this, but one recent study suggested that melting sea ice in the Arctic may lead to such blocking.
Rising seas create a higher baseline for future storm surges. The New York City Panel on Climate Change
has projected that coastal waters may rise by two feet by 2050 and four feet by the end of the century.
And yes, my plan will continue to reduce the carbon pollution that is heating our planet – because climate change is not a hoax.
More droughts and floods and wildfires are not a joke. They’re a threat to our children’s future.
And in this election, you can do something about it.
We should prepare for the weather risk changes that lie ahead, and nowhere more so than in North America.
Of the 10 warmest summers on record for the contiguous United States, seven have occurred since 2000.
We need a shift from an economy that consumes us to one that serves people and planet.
A level of no more than 350 ppm is still feasible,
with the help of reforestation and improved agricultural practices, but just barely - time is running out.
Human progress is neither automatic nor inevitable. We are faced now with the
fact that tomorrow is today. We are confr onted with the fi erce urgency of now. In this
unfolding conundrum of life and history there is such a thing as being too late…We may
cry out desperately for time to pause in her passage, but time is deaf to every plea and
rushes on. Over the bleached bones and jumbled residues of numerous civilizations are
written the pathetic words: Too late.
Just 8% of the $409bn spent on fossil-fuel subsidies in 2010 went to the poorest 20% of the population.
We would expect natural change in the oceans over decades or centuries but change
with such elevated sea surface temperatures in a growing number of locations and in a synchronised manner was definitely not expected.
The world beyond 450 ppm atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide,
the world that crosses carbon cycle tipping points that quickly take us to 1000 ppm,
is a world not merely of endless regional resource wars around the globe.
It is a world with dozens of Darfurs. It is a world of a hundred Katrinas, of countless environmental refugees
Future generations are going to look at the way we make toilet paper as one of the greatest excesses of our age.
Making toilet paper from virgin wood is a lot worse than driving Hummers in terms of global warming pollution.
In 1989 when I first climbed Everest there was a lot of snow and ice but now most of it has just become bare rock.
That, as a result, is causing more rockfalls which is a danger to the climbers.
The impact of global warming in many countries is preventing sustainable development or even destroying existing development gains.
We remain on an unsustainable course for the climate!
Smoking Causes Cancer. Carbon Pollution Causes Extreme Weather
Temperature fluctuations can have large negative impacts on poor countries.
Assuming an increase in global average temperature by 3 to 5 degrees Celsius by the end of the 21st century,
this could mean very substantial increases in rainfall intensity as a result of climate change
A recent report by UNEP and Interpol estimated that between 50 to 90 per cent of logging in key tropical countries of the Amazon basin, Central Africa and South East Asia is being carried out by organized crime.
This threatens not only attempts to eradicate poverty and deforestation but also efforts to combat climate change.
A 4-degree warmer world can, and must be, avoided.
The planetary machinery tends to be jumpy, this is to respond disproportionately to disruptions
that come with the manmade greenhouse effect.
Climate change isn’t a graph or a number; it’s a storm and a flood.
It’s not in Greenland or Vanuatu; it’s in New York and New Jersey.
It is our collective and individual responsibility to preserve and tend to the environment in which we all live.
Don’t ask what global climate protection can do for your country; ask what your country can do for climate protection.
First law of humanity: Don’t kill your children.
A circular, resource-efficient and resilient economy should be achieved in a socially inclusive and responsible way by:
1. Encouraging innovation and accelerating public and private investment in resource-efficient technologies, systems and skills ...
...
3. Abolishing environmentally harmful subsidies and tax-breaks that waste public money on obsolete practices ...
4. Creating better market conditions for products and services that have lower impacts across their life-cycles, ...
We are just about to cross the 400 parts per million threshold.