[GJM] Fw: The Real Global Threat and A Question for All

Wed Sep 20 19:52:20 MDT 2006

 I have shifted my emphasis from anything else to spreading the word on
global climate change.
But I am also continuing to write the book on human consciousness because as
long as we are operating in the same paradigm, we will continue in the same
old ways.  We must make the shift toward holodynamic consciousness and look
at the picture from a 360 degree spherical point of view.      

-------Original Message-------

From: Brian Bogart
Date: 09/17/06 19:04:01
To: IntelligentFutureUO at smtp.uoregon.edu; IntelligentFuture1 at smtp.uoregon
edu; IntelligentFuture2 at smtp.uoregon.edu; IntelligentFuture3 at smtp.uoregon
edu
Subject: The Real Global Threat and A Question for All

Whether a professor or homemaker, has your family yet fully contemplated the
ramifications of how rapidly climate change is literally altering the
landscape of our future?  ("Landscape" pun certainly not intended.)  

Because what we are now experiencing is the result of gases we produced a
generation ago, any immediate "war" on global warming is almost too late to
win.  The leading contributors to this threat -- who also happen to be the
leading promoters and creators of the time- and resource-wasting "global war
on terror" -- are the real terrorists, and to all life on Earth.

This is our true common crisis.  How are you dealing with it?  Have you
observed the underlying opportunity that accompanies this crisis?

It cannot be dealt with alone or in small groups.  It requires a wholesale
human surrender from ordinary ways of interacting to extraordinarily
selfless ways of organizing a common need into an outcry all over the world.
 In other words, it's time to change gears from fighting against myriad
symptoms and products of militarism (war in Iraq, for example) to demanding
climate stability, which is inherently incompatible with militarist policies
and the lucrative weapons trade.  This one common focal point can end the
many injustices militarism creates.  Even DOD-funded schools will have to
recognize climate change as a greater threat -- and a greater opportunity --
than terrorism, and that militarism will exacerbate the crisis more than any
other factor.

We must help engender a corporate shift from the lucrative "global war on
terror" to the potentially even more lucrative solutions to global warming. 
The former represents lazy business (exploitation) as usual; the latter
represents a swift leap forward, and will require an extremely rapid and
unprecedented shift in US policy, to say the least.

I am not optimistic, but one person's pessimism, regarding the current human
ability (at least in the US) to form an effective strategy to challenge
status quo, should not detract from any efforts to do so, or stifle any
other visions of how to do so.

Our divided attentions and diffused energies should unite on this single
issue, which should be approached as if we have only ten years left, period.

This is the great equalizer: the test of our lives, as humans equal with
animals, as "progressives," or as whatever we have to this moment labeled
ourselves.  We know that those at the wheel are asleep, but what about us? 
Will we wake up or open up in time to fashion a united strategy?  If we do,
our many desires and approaches against injustice will be realized.  And if
we do not, we will have conquered ourselves and our children out of
existence.

For life's sake we must declare a global war on war, and sing a single song
demanding global leaps in leadership.  No other cause measures up to this
challenge or has the potential to resolve so many problems.

Brian Bogart
IntelligentFuture

For every $25 you donate to IntelligentFuture, choose and receive a new book
from Brian's list.  Ask about it.  (Many popular titles available.)  Free
shipping.
----------------

September 15, 2006
Former Skeptics Call for Action on Warming - Bush Silent
Thanks to Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth, along with Katrina and this
summer’s blistering heat waves, the threats posed by global warming have
morphed from a far-fetched possibility to a clear and present danger in the
minds of voters, scientists, politicians and theologians. Even those who
previously scoffed at the notion are true believers now: 
“It is getting hotter, and the icecaps are melting and there is a build-up
of carbon dioxide in the air. We really need to address the burning of
fossil fuels. If we are contributing to the destruction of this planet, we
need to do something about it,” said Rev. Pat Robertson on a recent
broadcast of the “700 Club.” He also added that the recent heat waves had
made a “convert” out of him on the issue.1 
“
science has changed from ambiguous to near-unanimous. As an environmental
commentator, I have a long record of opposing alarmism. But based on the
data, I’m now switching sides regarding global warming, from skeptic to
convert.” Gregg Easterbrook of the Brookings Institution and senior editor
of The New Republic.2 
Representative Bob Inglis (R-NC and chairman of the House Science Research
subcommittee) says he “pooh-poohed” global warming until a trip to the South
Pole in January convinced him otherwise. “I think we should all be concerned
 There are more and more Republicans willing to stop laughing at climate
change who are ready to get serious about reclaiming their heritage as
conservationists.”3 
“I was a certified global warming skeptic
[but] I eventually came to the
judgment that I was wrong and global warming was real, largely caused by
human activities and profoundly changing the planet on which we live,”
admitted Stu Ostro, senior meteorologist and director of weather
communications for The Weather Channel.4 
“I used to be skeptical
but now I’m absolutely convinced that the world is
spiraling out of control. CO2 is like a brushfire that gets bigger and
bigger every year.” Richard Branson, founder of The Virgin Group.5 
A national LA Times/Bloomberg poll conducted in July found that 74 percent
of Americans consider “global warming a serious problem” and want the
government to do more to solve it.6
The Bush administration's response? Silence. President Bush remains
resolutely incurious while the planet heats.  [Meanwhile, he covertly shuts
down EPA libraries. So he is clearly not oblivious. -BB]
Take Action - sign the petition to put a cap on global warming!

Sources
8/3/06, The Christian Post, “Heat wave makes Pat Robertson a global warming
convert,” the AP.
5/24/06, The New York Times, “Finally feeling the heat,” by Gregg
Easterbrook.
4/24/06, Bloomberg News, “Bush faces growing dissent from Republicans on
climate change,” by Kim Chapman.
9/24/06, The Weather Channel Blog, “If this isn’t global warming, I don’t
know what is (confessions of an ex-skeptic), by Stu Ostro.
7/27/06, Business 2.0 Magazine, “Branson’s next big move,” by Carleen Hawn.
7/28-8/1/06, LA Times/Bloomberg poll of 1478 adults nationwide

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Web site comments: info at bushgreenwatch.org

Copyright 2006 Friends of the Earth
---------------------------------

http://www.countercurrents.org/cc-mccarthy150905.htm
Climate Disaster is Upon Us
By Michael McCarthy
15 September 2006
The Independent

Ten years ago, when the world was groping its way towards the signing of the
1997 Kyoto protocol, the sense that the issue needed to be tackled urgently
was largely based on one thing only: computer programs.

Predictions from supercomputer models of the Earth's atmosphere, about how
global warming would progress, were the main drivers of that heroic effort
to agree international reductions in the greenhouse gases which cause it.

These immense mathematical structures looked forward a full century (and
still do) at the rise in carbon dioxide in the earth's atmosphere, and how
that would worsen the greenhouse effect; and their predictions were enough
to get the Kyoto protocol signed (but not, thanks to George Bush, enough to
make it work).

Yet what was almost completely missing from the climate debate a decade ago
was observation: evidence of actual effects that the warming was having.
This absence contributed to the sense, still widespread, that global warming
is a distant problem, its consequences a century away.

Things have changed. Since the turn of the millennium, observations of the
concrete effects of rising temperatures have started to mount up: the
unprecedented European heatwave of 2003, which killed more than 30,000
people; the UK's record temperature topping 100F for the first time in that
year; the record US hurricane seasons of 2004 and 2005, culminating in
Katrina; and most of all, the melting ice.

The great ice masses are now shrinking rapidly everywhere; almost every
mountain glacier, the great Greenland ice sheet, the great ice sheets of
Antarctica, the legendary African snow on the top of Mt Kilimanjaro, and the
ice of the Arctic, whose rate of disappearance, we now learn, has increased
explosively.

It means two things: firstly, you can't deny it any more. Last week, we had
the remarkable spectacle of The Economist magazine, climate change
skeptic-in-chief, cheerleader to the American business community, coughing,
shuffling, looking at its feet and admitting gruffly, well, perhaps there is
something in this global warming stuff, after all.

Secondly, it's coming, to you. Doesn't matter you're not bothered about it.
Doesn't matter you're thinking about your next holiday, or the state of your
marriage or the next Big Brother. This vast phenomenon that is going to
change the world unthinkably is coming right to your doorstep. A lot sooner
than you think.

© 2006 Independent News and Media Limited

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