Post by ecoSanity.org Kindred Defender, Dr. Peter D. Carter, M.D. and Glenn MacIntosh
The biggest thing about the climate crises that we all need to understand – FAST – is that it is an urgent global emergency. Whether we realize it or not, all of us are in a life-or-death race against time to avoid rapidly approaching climate tipping points beyond which devastating, accelerating and irreversible impacts are assured.
This means, WHAT WE DO RIGHT NOW IS WHAT MATTERS AND WOULD HELP THE MOST. What we do later, or small, gradual increments of change over time, would be far too little, too late.
With the rise in the price of oil, tar sands, shale oil, coal and liquid coal – the worst, most emissions intensive sources of energy – have become more economically attractive to investors. But these methods of gathering energy must stop, they must be shut down and this would happen if it weren’t for government subsidies and the unregulated freedoms that allow companies to pollute.
In the first half of 2008, the oil and coal industries spent $427 million on lobbying, advertising, protecting their interests and hurting ours. If allowed to persist, their impacts threaten to cause the termination of most life on Earth including us within decades – all in order to temporarily sustain record profits.
It is only by changing the realities of our economics that we can hope to minimize what Sir Nicholas Stern said threatens to be THE GREATEST AND MOST FAR REACHING MARKET FAILURE EVER. And this can only be achieved by implementing a carbon tax on the scale of at least $100 per tonne to start, rising to $300 per tonne as soon as possible.
At present, the world’s atmosphere is on course to reach unsurvivable temperatures and climate extremes within the lifetimes of today’s children — Glenn MacIntosh, Founder’s Imperative.
Special interests will outspend us, but we must work to compete with them head-to-head any way we can. One of these ways is by sharing messages like the videos above from wecansolveit.org.
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