Tuesday, June 11, 2013

Heads Up


Al Gore is back with his Climate Reality Project. Today's e-blast out to the world goes as follows:

Seven years ago, I was honored to have my presentation on climate change turned into a movie called An Inconvenient Truth. To this day, I am consistently gratified when people tell me that the film opened their eyes to the climate crisis, and that it has encouraged and inspired acts of leadership, big and small, around the world.

In honor of the seventh anniversary of the film's release, I'm pleased to invite you to join me for an interactive Google Hangout with my good friend Jeff Skoll tomorrow, June 11, at 2pm EDT. We will talk about some key developments in the climate effort since the film originally came out. Most importantly, I want to invite you to participate in shaping the conversation by submitting your questions and watching the Hangout here.

Also, as part of the anniversary celebration, The Climate Reality Project has helped put together this list of ten actions you can take right now on climate change. I hope that you'll visit the site, share it with your friends, and get inspired!
Sincerely,   Al Gore

And in back of this, the Obama administration is rounding up the troops for a full-court press against the climate-deniers. The organizers' website with the ammo and the targets are at the Organizing for Action site.

There seems to be a concerted effort now with respect to getting climate change on the political table ahead of efforts to participate in global climate negotiations. The recent meeting in Rancho Mirage, CA, between Obama and the Chinese President Xi Jinping (as opposed to the Dec. 2009 unofficial meeting between the two countries) has resulted in serious progress on an agreement to fight climate change that is realistic, and not a result of both nations being triangulated into false positions as anti-emissions-cap players. Both countries' leaders want to control emissions and have put positions on the table only to have them portrayed as globally uncooperative because they don't agree to basically a shakedown by third-world countries for money as a front to corporate protection of profits. The proposed cap-and-trade system is part of that, since it allows continued emissions under the cover of "allowances" that feeds a system of monetary transfer. This is why the math isn't being done right on the emissions caps, they're being set high enough to allow for this game by the European governments, but unfortunately that doesn't bring the carbon levels in the atmosphere down enough to avert the destruction of climate change. It's politics and money again. Still.

The climate negotiations have to based upon a fair and scientific system, otherwise they'll simply collapse. Time is of the essence.