Category Archives: Climate Change.

THE BEADY EYE SAY’S IT TIME FOR CAPITALISM TO PAY.

18 Tuesday Aug 2015

Posted by in Climate Change., Environment, Humanity., Politics., Sustaniability, The Future, Where's the Global Outrage.

≈ Comments Off on THE BEADY EYE SAY’S IT TIME FOR CAPITALISM TO PAY.

Tags

, , ,

If you are one of those people who I call shadow people don’t bother reading this post in order to press the like button. However if you’re a real person all suggestions or comments will be appreciated.

We all know that there is the governments of more than 190 nations gathering in Paris to discuss a possible new global agreement on climate change.  The aim is to reduce global greenhouse gas emissions and thus avoiding the threat of dangerous climate change.

The crunch Paris climate conference is from 30 November to 11 December.

Will it achieve anything worth while other than the usual media hype.

I think not.  Why?  Because the very thing that caused the problem is not there and it will in the long run ignore any agreement.

 

With global population rapidly marching toward 11 billion and with it the demand for food, health services, energy and security, we need to reexamine the models that have gotten us to this point.

Currently, our planet is on track to fly past the 2 degrees Celsius warming that scientist have repeatedly warned marks the safe range for humans on this planet. Beyond this point, we will only see the outcome of these challenges become more severe and an increased potential of no return.

“Global climate change is not a man-made. “It is a capital-made problem.”.

Over the last 40 years, global wealth has become a more concentrated problem.

During this time, we saw a massive expansion in our planet’s destruction and disruption; global carbon emissions grew by 75 percent; deforestation rates climbed to 17 percent in the past 50 years.

Clearly, the neoliberal economic growth model being promoted as a road to economic development is not distributing our gains in wealth to the majority, but to an elite minority at the expense of the planet’s future habitability.

Global emission have also grown 70% since 1970.

Economic Research estimates that for every 1 degree Celsius in additional warming, violent crimes such as assault, murder and rape will increase by 2.4 percent, while larger conflicts such as riots, ethnic violence, political instability and gang activity will increase by 11.4 percent.

Economically, 5 percent of the global market economy is at risk currently due to climate change. This is not accounting for damages due to increased intensity of weather events, of which 80 percent will be felt by poorer Southern Hemisphere countries.

Put in plain and simple language: Limitless production and consumption is not possible on a finite planet.

We have the chance to change this paradigm through new technologies, new business models and new financial structures which redevelop the role business plays in society.

In this challenge, we need to account for not just the natural limits of our planets, but also for the injustice and inequality generated by our current economic paradigm by responding with a collaborative spirit.

We need: A new economy.

As investors, we need to review the business and financial models that we promote.

Just building a clean tech innovation economy is not enough.

Complete change will not happen overnight.

It will not be built on the back of one investor or one innovative entrepreneur.

It will be something that business owners, investors, political leaders, consumers and entrepreneurs must all have to work together toward.

What explains our collective failure on climate change?

Why is it that instead of dealing with the problem, all we seem to do is make it worse?

The answer is simple

ITS THE CAPITALISM GOD OF PROFIT.

WHICH IS NOT compatible with the actions needed to combat climate change.

Capitalism isn’t helping. In fact, it can’t help the cause, but it can pay to rectify it. .

“You might be able to argue that the economic costs of taking action are greater than allowing climate change to play out for a few more decades …

“But most people don’t actually like it when their children’s lives are ‘discounted’ in someone else’s Excel sheet, and they tend to have a moral aversion to the idea of allowing countries to disappear because saving them would be too expensive.” Naomi Klein.

She prompts an ideological solution.  We all stop being greed bad boys.

Free market cannot accomplish what needs to be done.

We need to think differently, radically differently” for changes to be even remotely possible.

Can, as Martin Luther King Jr. said in 1967, a “radical revolution of values” shift our society from a thing-oriented society to a person-oriented society?

We need to take our smartphones to the streets in massive demonstrations demanding action.

We’re too selfish, we’re too greedy — is that this idea of the “we” of who we are that has to changed.  Which of course is impossible. 

There is only one solution.

Pledges, New Global Agreements, Discussions, Hand Shakes, you name it are useless.

Capitalism must be made to pay by placing a World Aid Commission of 0.05% on all Stock Exchange transactions over $20,000, on all High Frequency Transaction, on all Foreign Exchange Transaction over $20,000, on all Sovereign Wealth Funds Acquisitions.

This will crate a perpetual World Aid Fund.

No other solution will work as no one wants to Pay the Bill.

If you have any suggestions (if you think that the contents of this post are worthy) as to how we can bring the suggestion to the attention of the delegates in Paris I am all ears.

← Back

Thank you for your response. ✨

 

The Beady Eye writes an open letter to the United Nations re the forthcoming Climate Summit Paris 2015.

30 Thursday Jul 2015

Posted by in Climate Change., Environment, Humanity., Politics., Sustaniability, The Future

≈ Comments Off on The Beady Eye writes an open letter to the United Nations re the forthcoming Climate Summit Paris 2015.

Tags

, ,

30th July 2015

Dear Delegate.

In our contemporary world it is very rare that we are asked to talk about what lies at the heart of our actions.  Instead we hide behind statistics, data, policy statements etc, few of which actually touch other people’s hearts and minds.

To days debates between today’s religions, ideologies, nations and classes will in all likelihood disappear along with Homo Sapiens so it is naive to imagine that we simply hit the brakes on climate change and all will be honky dory.

We are more powerful than ever before, but have very little idea what to do with all that power. We seem to be more irresponsible than ever. We are accountable to no one, and consequently wreaking havoc on or fellow animals and on the surrounding ecosystem, seeking little more than our own comfort and amusement, yet never finding satisfaction.

There is nothing more dangerous than a dissatisfied and irresponsible gods who don’t know what they want?

The real question is not what do we want to be come?  but ‘what do we want to want’.

We all know that we must move away from our excessive and selfish lifestyle.

So as you prepare to come to Paris I would like to ask you to think about your personal role, and answer a simple, but profound, question:

Why do I care?

In making climate change and the protection of our beautiful planet a personal issue of your own beliefs and values you will come to the Cop primarily as a conscious human being not just a representative of a Government or agency.

Since time memorial we have all been led to believe that our current lifestyle is the most satisfying, but as you know in reality it is based on egoistic and unjust exploitation of resources and of human capital. It has led to a lifestyle based on selflessness and if left unchecked it will take us to an irreversible process of self-destruction.

We all know that opportunity for an agreement will be beset by challenges.

The question at the heart of any forthcoming  Agreement surely most be > Who is going to pay for it.

It will not be the present exclusively profit-focused, job-oriented, planet threatening, income-wealth, gap-widening civilization.

It will not be the free-market capitalism even thought private investors stand to lose $4.2tn (£2.7tn) on the value of their holdings from the impact of climate change by 2100 even if global warming is held at plus 2C, a report from the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) has warned.

It will not be cash strapped world Governments.

It will not be a single global tax or regulatory scheme whether they live in a capitalist or communist society.

It will not be Industry reverting the trend of economic development and investment by coupled its insensible greed for profit with carbon emissions.

There is little point in agreeing a new climate change targets if there is no compassionate response to climate change requires for us to help the world’s poorest gain access to sustainable energy solutions so that they can improve their lives while avoiding the dirty energy path that developed countries followed.

There is little point in making the Agreement an Internationally legally binding treaty when there is no way of enforcing its terms or applying penalties for breach thereof.

There is little point in countries submitting their Intended Nationally Determined Contributions. The very reference to Intended expresses the get out clause.

By far the biggest obstacle to any agreement will be how countries will finance the move to a low-carbon global economy.

Even if one of these above problems were politically feasible, air is vital to a healthy economy. Which it isn’t. It is the people who want to breathe clean air. Climate pollutants, on the other hand, are everywhere. They are a waste product of nearly every aspect of modern life, and they are not limited to carbon; methane, soot and nitrous oxide all contribute to rising temperatures.

The present generation of young people is the forerunner of the generation of the most powerful generation in human history because of the enormous technology in their hands. We have to get them engaged in creating the world they wish to live in, and pass on to the next generation.

The sooner the socially committed players take charge of technology, the faster the world Social business is a new variety of business which delinks itself from any desire to make personal profit, where economic prosperity isn’t defined by constant reckless growth.  We need to develop social systems that encourage people to put aside short-term personal gain in favor of long-term societal and environmental interests.

It is not just yours it is our collective moral responsibility to act. We must act because we care. With that comes a different way of thinking about both mitigating and adapting to climate change, from the roads to the treetops.

We seemingly need to get as close to demise as possible to be able to see things clearly. We’re already running up to and beyond the biophysical boundaries that enable us to exist. Given the pace of change, we can no longer exclude the possibility of reaching critical tipping points that could abruptly and irreversibly change living conditions.

It is only a mobilization of conscience on a global scale that will enable humanity to meet this great challenge confronting us.

We are already seeing promising signs such as the joint announcement by the US and China in Beijing in November 2014 and the decision of the European Council a few weeks before. Together these cover around 50% of world emissions.

Realistically we all know that if either China or the USA were to discover new reserve of Oil, Gas, or Coal they would not leave it in the ground.

So where are we?

The first and only scientific fact to know about climate change is that carbon is (almost) forever. 

The Paris agreement for what its worth will come into effect in 2020. To Late.

At this meeting, more than 190 States will discuss a possible new global agreement you have to reach a universal agreement to limit the global warming to 2 degrees Celsius by 2100. To Late.

Countries have to agreed that there will be no back-tracking in these national climate plans, meaning that the level of ambition to reduce emissions will increase over time. Not Possible. Look at the United Nations a gossip shop with no money controlled by Veto.

Countries have been invited to submit their Intended Nationally Determined Contributions to the new climate agreement to be concluded in December, in Paris. This approach represents a concession to political and diplomatic realities, as well as to the limits of international agreements in influencing countries’ behavior in an area so vital to their interests.

The climate change issue is driven more by national than by international politics, so the agreement needs to allow states to determine the content of their own commitments.

So far 21 out of the 194 attending have submitted their Intended Nationally Determined Contributions. Bravo.

You might well ask at this point what is the solution.

There is only one solution and that is the creation of a World Aid Commission of 0.05% (for sake of argument) On all Stock Exchange Transactions with a higher commission on a High Frequency Trades, on all Foreign Exchange Transactions over $20,000, on all Sovereignty Wealth Funds Acquisition., on all Drilling Wells. 

This is the only viable solution to make Profit and Greed pay.

This would create a perpetual World Aid Fund with unlimited funds to tackle Climate Change, Inequality of Opportunity, Education and Disaster Aid.

It will create incentives and spread the funding through out the world by harnessing the very problem that has created the position we now find ourselves in.

Why will it work?

Because ( if firm action is not taken at the forthcoming climate change talks in Paris and the Earth’s temperature warms by a further 5C)  investors are facing losses of almost $7tn at today’s prices. 

Because democratizing our energy supply can be achieved by this fund in making non repayable grants available to the worlds citizens to install solar power.  There’s something special about solar. Not just because it’s genius technology but because, it puts the power to act in millions of hands.

The energy and climate debate is very political and bogged-down by big vested interests.

Because it would solve Climate change which does not have the time or money to be reverted. Ever four days we add a million more people to the planet scuttling our rosy dreams of sustainability.

The definition of success in Paris has been widely misunderstood, and as a result there is a risk that success may be viewed as failure.

Before I wish every success here is a small practical step. Let the summit ask all major TV Media Channels weather forecasts carry a section on the effects of climate change.

The citizens of the world will be watching you.

Yours Sincerely,

The Founder and writer of the Beady Eye.

PS. There is no need for you to respond to this open letter I along with millions that are currently signing online petitions in support of the Earth which has no voice other than climate Change trust you.

← Back

Thank you for your response. ✨

 

The Beady eye looks at what is needed to come out of the Paris Summit on Climate Change.

13 Monday Jul 2015

Posted by in Climate Change., Environment, Humanity., Politics., Sustaniability, The Future, Where's the Global Outrage.

≈ Comments Off on The Beady eye looks at what is needed to come out of the Paris Summit on Climate Change.

Tags

, , , , , ,

Climate change is the ultimate global collective action problem, requiring cooperation from every government in the world.

It’s over twenty years since the first treaty, signed at the 1992 Rio Earth Summit, when countries agreed to limit their emissions of greenhouse gases. 

Here is the reality:

We are the first generation to understand the consequences of a high carbon economy on the planet, on future prosperity and, in particular, on the most vulnerable around the world. Let us be the generation that stands up and takes the responsibility conveyed by that knowledge.” Christiana Figueres, executive secretary, UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, May 2014.

So the question now is whether we will have the courage to act before it’s too late. And how we answer will have a profound impact on the world that we leave behind not just to you, but to your children and to your grandchildren.” US President Barack Obama, Georgetown Address, June 2013.

I was very struck by the fact that the impacts of climate change are undermining a whole range of human rights: rights to food, safe water and health and education. But it is also displacing people, which is very likely to cause not just human distress but potentially conflict. So for me it’s a very, very serious issue of human rights.” Mary Robinson, UN special envoy for climate change, 2013

Climate change will amplify existing social, political and resource stresses, shifting the tipping point at which conflict ignites, rather than directly causing it. Climate change is likely to increase the frequency, scale and duration of humanitarian crises. It is also likely to change patterns of migration, making border security an ongoing concern, especially in the developed world.” UK Ministry of Defence, Global strategic trends out to 2040.diesel global warming ny

We have just 5 months left until the Paris Summit. How likely is it that it will be meaningful and make a difference to climate.

What should be in it? 

A world Agreement; ( anything less is worthless.) 

The international agreement that has a clear legal basis that works for different national constitutions.  (All agreements are broken, so perhaps an agreement tied to World Trade/ and Arms deals might be enforceable.)

This agreement should be supported by a clear, shared accounting system and robust, transparent monitoring and reporting requirements.

It must be seen as fair for all. The agreement must allow for comparisons of national contributions, using appropriate indicators of national responsibilities and capabilities, to encourage ambition and ensure that climate action links with strategies for poverty alleviation and sustainable development.

The Agreement can not be seen as static. It should be for five-year cycle, with a ratchet mechanism over time built into the system and a clear, long-term goal.  Why? Because carbon targets will need to be revised in the light of emerging science. It should move towards a goal to phase out pollution from fossil fuels by 2050 and phase in clean energy technologies.

It will need financing to support actions on adaptation and mitigation.

The agreement should include commitments to scaled up public finance, to support adaptation and mitigation action, aligned with other public finance for development; and wider efforts should be made to secure private sector investment in the low-carbon economy.

Any new agreement covering forest protection, land use and agriculture should be properly financed, have clear rules for emissions accounting and involve local communities in decision-making. It should ensure better biodiversity, ecosystem protection and restoration, and include support for sustainable agriculture and increased climate resilience.

Here what at stake:

The uncompromising Math of Global Warming, Pollution will if we fail to act early will guarantee that we are leaving humanity with more dangerous climate change such as more frequent extreme weather, more droughts, heat waves, and floods.

Even in the face of planetary catastrophe, 195 governments in a room can be just incompetent. Amidst the thicket of complex policy talk, we need to define the red lines of the agreement and organise the press and politics around them.

Our top focus – a clear commitment to a world without carbon, powered by 100% clean energy.

That is what will put the fossil fuel industry on notice, and shift private investment massively into renewable energy. New power plants, buildings, city designs, and lifestyles are being formed as we speak. How these are built could lock us into decades of increasing climate pollution as many of these last for several decades at a minimum.

A prime example is in the electricity sector where the emissions of power plants that the International Energy Agency projects could be developed in the next two decades would be larger than the emissions of coal from the beginning of the industrial revolution and eat up a huge chunk of the amount of carbon that can be emitted by all sectors.

The current targets aren’t deep enough to address climate change and most countries only made commitments through 2020. So there is a need to deepen and extend the emissions reduction commitments.

The scale of this crisis demands action that goes beyond consistently “kicking the can down the road”. 

Once we have an agreement in hand then we can engage in serious ethical consideration over whether or not to act.

Will any of this happen?

Not a hope in a world that is driven by Capitalism.

The only way is as I have said in previous blogs is for Capitalism to contribute by placing a World Aid Commission of 0.05% on all High Frequency Trading , on all Foreign Exchange Transactions over $20,000, and on all Sovereign Wealth Funds Acquisitions.

https://youtu.be/anfbjiShjP8

← Back

Thank you for your response. ✨

Your World is being stolen right in front of your eyes.

13 Saturday Jun 2015

Posted by in Climate Change., Environment, Natural World Disasters, Politics., Privatization, Sustaniability, The Future

≈ Comments Off on Your World is being stolen right in front of your eyes.

Tags

, , , ,

If your eyes could speak, this is what they would say.

Unfortunately for us technology is blurring our global vision of what humanity means or can achieve.

The question is how long are we going to keep our eyes shut to a world run by Private Corporations, and out of date World Organisations, and Elected Corrupt Governments that are signing trade deals that put Corporate power above people power called TTIP ( The Transatlantic Trade Deal or tee-tip for short) that none of us have a say in.   https://youtu.be/YVrDF0nSIAU

Now I know that Apple, Facebook, Amazon, Exxon Mobil,  Express Scripts Holdings, Wal-Mart Stores, Google and World Fuel Services by the year 2025 will have made vast profits in the trillions.  But they are likely to take our species to the brink of extinction. Why because if we continue to allow Capitalism to serve the bottom line of the Balance Sheet and not to contribute to resolving global problems we are all insane. ( See Previous Post:  ) 0.05% WORLD AID COMMISSION)

How long are we going to allow all of our values along with the Earth just to become products to fuel the Stock Exchanges and Balance sheets of Privatization and Greed.

There is one thing sure about life. It makes no promises.

But I make you a promise THAT our eyes are going to be opened by Climate Change.

If we do not reduce emissions ( Don’t tell me with the mountain of data dealing with global warming that you  STILL believe it will resolve itself or that teleology will be your Savior. ) they will not only threaten Society as a whole with food shortages, refugee crises, flooding, wars, and mass extinction of plants and animals, but make us all realize to late that Capitalism is the ultimate cause of global warming and climate change.

Our City bit living and greed along with our Social Media interconnected world has not only blinded us to the crises it is also eroding our understanding of what it means to live a fulfilled life.

The must have materialism that is dumped within months irrelevant of where it comes from other than it is affordable must stop.

Imagine an alternative where Capitalism and collectivism live together.

Open your eyes and take a look at our world in 2015. (see previous post)

The Planet currently seems on the cusp of a decidedly unharmonic convergence.

The world is rife with crime, corruption, growing inequality and militarism.

The USA was once about the little guy– the rights of individual — the success of small business– it has gone big in the worst possible way.

The International community ( what ever that is) is now facing an unholy trinity of authoritarian politics, cutthroat economics and big brother surveillance, and far-right party anti-immigrant.

Indeed even if you were to take a squint through those eyes of yours. No matter whether we live under Capitalism or Communism they are both struggling to adapt to the same environmental factors.

You would think that the forces of modernity — of technological development, of growing bureaucratization would push both systems in the same evolutionary direction.  Not on your nanny. Just look at their feeble reactions to ISIS.

If you cant rely on visual clues, listen to the sound waves rippling around the Globe.

Currently 2.5 degrees centigrade warming by 2100 is cited as the tipping point for catastrophe.  However by 2050 at the current levels of Co2 emissions never mind the methane we will be at twice the pre-industrial level.

(The permafrost in the Arctic is melting pumping Methane into the atmosphere adding to the Co2. The Greenland ice sheet will be totally melted causing a sea level rise of 39″ and so forth and so forth.)

If no MAJOR POLICY CHANGES ARE ACHIEVED Now to curtail the greed of Capitalism which exist on the rampant, uncontrolled use of natural resources the human race can kiss its ass goodbye.

Capitalism depends upon the exploitation of natural resources at the highest possible level. And we are, of course, not talking just about fossil fuels. With no thought to conservation, recycling and what will happen when the sources, from iron ore to copper, to say nothing of the fossil fuels themselves, run out.

But capitalism can exist only if the rampant, uncontrolled use of natural resources continues unabated, for that is within the very nature of the system.

But when the natural resources go, so will capitalism and by that time it will be too late to replace it with anything else.

“The suicide of capitalism.”

By it’s very nature, operating to the greatest degree possible with no thought to anything other than the accumulation of profit, capitalism is leading to this possible outcome.

When the critical resources are gone, or at least the supply is reduced to such an extent that their cost makes making profit from their exploitation increasingly difficult, capitalism will die, even without workers’ revolution.

Indeed, by its very nature of focusing exclusively on profit-making, it will eventually kill itself, as well as taking many humans and many other species along with it.

According to a recent report in Nature, 41 percent of amphibians, 26 percent of mammals and 13% of birds are threatened with extinction, if nothing is done about global warming.

But the point here is that even without global warming, with no controls on the utilization of natural resources other than fossil fuels, capitalism is essentially killing itself.

And so, what is to be done?

There is of course hope.

While it may be too late to slow carbon emissions down enough to prevent reaching the “tipping point,” as some scientists think, it may very well be possible to develop a series of environmentally safe methods for capturing carbon and methane, shielding the earth from the increasing heat levels, and so on and so forth.

It is definitely possible to institute economic planning on a massive scale to conserve and re-use natural resources that will otherwise run out.

But that will require the replacement of capitalism with some form of socialism.

What form that system might take and how we will get there are matters for further consideration.

But given historical experience and an analysis of how capitalism has dealt with the socialist experiments that have come along so far (see, e.g., The 75 Years War Against the Soviet Union), we will not get there spontaneously, we will not get there without the formation of a series of leading parties and universal world organisations with clout, around the world to promote Humanity other than religions dominance.

If that series of events does not occur, then indeed capitalism will commit involuntary suicide with disastrous results for ours and many other species. It will indeed vault us into a full-blown “Sixth Extinction.”

The burning question: Can any of this be achieved other than Extinction.

A world where one is for all and all are for one.  History tells us highly unlikely.

So I will leave you with another promises.  That is–  You and I will be long departed.  So why bother?  Because we and earth are worth It.

← Back

Thank you for your response. ✨

 

 

This is where you Live.

09 Tuesday Jun 2015

Posted by in Climate Change., Education, Environment, Natural World Disasters, Politics., Sustaniability, The Future

≈ Comments Off on This is where you Live.

Tags

, , , , , , ,

The other day I was wondering how one would describe Earth to an alien or a classroom of our modern-day interconnects kids.

Where would one start.

Is it round?  Not quite it is an oblate spheroid instead of a perfect sphere. It takes the Earth on solar day to rotate upon its axis.

An alien might come to earth and attempt to understand the planet by reading the literature of the planet, or just the dictionary. Looking up the word “earth” the alien may be surprised to see the this term has multiple meanings, referring to a planet and to a substance (soil/dirt).

May be the best place to start is to give an perspective of where we are in space.

As you look outward into space, you’re actually looking backwards in time. The light you see from your computer is nanoseconds old. The light reflected from the surface of the Moon takes only a second to reach Earth. The Sun is more than 8 light-minutes away. And so, if the light from the nearest star (Alpha Centauri) takes more than 4 years to reach us, we’re seeing that star 4 years in the past. There are galaxies millions of light-years away, which means the light we’re seeing left the surface of those stars millions of years ago. For example, the galaxy M109 is located about 83.5 million light-years away.

A radio signal to travel once around Earth in 1/7 of a second.  To get to the moon from Earth, so the round-trip time is twice this or 2.46.

From the sun to earth at the speed of light  seconds.https://youtu.be/Bw-I9JimhOM

If aliens lived in those galaxies, and had strong enough telescopes, they would see the Earth as it looked in the past. They might even see dinosaurs walking on the surface.

Only a few of us have ever seen Earth from afar.  It’s mankind’s rarest view of all.

To see it without borders, see it without any differences in race or religion, we would all have a completely different perspective. Because when you see it from space you cannot think of your home or your country. All you can see is one Earth….”Earth, our home planet.

It is a beautiful blue and white ball when seen from space.  the only planet in our solar system known to harbor life.

All of the things we need to survive are provided under a thin layer of atmosphere that separates us from the uninhabitable void of space.

HERE IS HOW I WOULD DESCRIBE IT;

It was formed about 4.5 billion years ago.

Earth is made up of complex, interactive systems that are often unpredictable. Air, water, land, and life—including humans—combine forces to create a constantly changing world that we are striving to understand.

It is the third planet from the sun and the fifth largest in the solar system.

About 71% of its surface is covered by water; the rest by land.

It is orbited by one satellite, the Moon.

Earth’s total surface area is 196,950,000 sq. mi. The area covered by the oceans is 139,480,000 sq. mi. Total land area is 57,470,000 sq. mi.

Earth’s diameter is just a few hundred kilometers larger than that of Venus.

The Earth’s crust is about 6.5 miles thick beneath the oceans, and about 25 miles thick under the continents.

Our planet’s rapid spin and molten nickel-iron core give rise to a magnetic field, which the solar wind distorts into a teardrop shape. The magnetic field does not fade off into space, but has definite boundaries.

Our planet completes its elliptical orbit around the sun in an average solar year, 365.24219 days. Its average distance from the sun is 80,777,537.8 n.mi.

The Earth’s axis is tilted 23.45 deg away from the perpendicular to its orbital plane.

It wobbles very slightly.

The Moon orbits the Earth about once a month (every 29 days, 12 hours, 44 minutes, 2.9 seconds) The average distance from the Earth to the Moon is 238,857 mi., about 30 times Earth’s diameter.

The Earth’s crust is about 6.5 miles thick beneath the oceans, and about 25 miles thick under the continents. The surface layer is made of rock. This outer layer formed a hard, rocky crust as lava at the surface cooled 4.5 billion years ago.The crust is broken into many large plates that move slowly relative to each other. Mountain ranges form when two plates collide. The plates move about one inch per year. About 250 million years ago, most of the land was connected together, and over time has separated into seven continents. So millions of years ago the continents and the oceans were in different positions.

Scientists had previously concluded that the Earth was slightly older than 4.5 billion years old, but had not found a piece of the Earth’s primitive mantle.

The solid shell that is between the Earth’s crust and the outer core makes up about 84 percent of the Earth’s volume. Until recently, researchers generally thought that the Earth and the other planets of the solar system were chondritic. This means that the mantle’s chemistry was thought to be similar to that of chondrites, some of the oldest, most primitive objects in the solar system. Chondrites contain certain isotope ratios of the chemical elements of helium, lead and neodymium.

Sixty-five million years ago it looked quite different than it does to-day.

There are about 300,000 plant species and about 1,400,000 animal species on Earth.

In the next 6.4 billions of years it will be eating by it nearest star the Sun which is 149,597,891 kilometers away.  It will take a little more than 8 minutes before we realized it is time to put on a sweater. It takes Sunlight an average of 8 minutes and 20 seconds to travel from the Sun to the Earth.

It weighs 5.9736×1024kg.  That is about 13,170,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 pounds (or 5,974,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 kilograms).

80% of its fresh water is in its polar ice caps. Fresh water exists in the liquid phase only within a narrow temperature span (32 to 212 degrees Fahrenheit/ 0 to 100 degrees Celsius). The surface is unique from the other planets because it is the only one which has liquid water in such large quantities.

Its greatest present day threats come from humanity which is at a crossroads now, where we have to make an active choice.

Evolution, the Big Bang, and climate change are all things that were first proposed as hypotheses long ago.

Climate change is not. What are we doing about it. The same as always. Turn it into a product for profit.

One choice is to acknowledge these issues and potential consequences and try to guide the future (in a way we want to). The other choice is just to throw up our hands and say, ‘Let’s just go on as usual and see what happens.’ My guess is, if we take that latter choice, yes, humanity is going to survive, but we are going to see some effects that will seriously degrade the quality of life for our children and grandchildren.

The ongoing wars, the distortions of truth we have witnessed, the widening gaps between rich and poor disturb us more than we can say; but we have had so many reminders of powerlessness that we have retreated before the challenge of bringing such issues into our classrooms of our brains.

The best effort so far is the creation of an Earth Day this year.  One day!

Population growth, widespread destruction of natural ecosystems, and climate change may be driving Earth toward an irreversible change in the biosphere, a planet-wide tipping point that would have destructive consequences absent adequate preparation and mitigation. No one knows how close Earth is to a global tipping point, or if it is inevitable.

Life on Earth is constantly changing and only the fittest organisms survive.

Every few of us appreciate how thin our little atmosphere is that supports all life here on Earth. So if we foul it up, there’s no coming back from something like that. The dictionary offers a firm set of definitions for this term, but no single definition, which leads to a sense of complexity. The complexities of perception are, in part, what post-modernism is all about.  I describe it as pure insanity.

The Earth system now includes human society, Our social and economic systems are now embedded within the Earth system. In many cases, the human systems are now the main drivers of change in the Earth system. Earth system changes, natural or driven by humans, can have significant consequences without involving changes in climate. Global change should  not be confused with climate change; it is significantly more. indeed, climate change is part of this much larger challenge.

Throughout history human societies have had to confront and adjust to climatic and environmental hazards. A long-term perspective that draws on such experiences must inform today’s climate policies. I argue that climate policies aimed at mitigating and adapting to hazards should be informed by our knowledge of past human experience.

In today’s globalised world our food tends to take a long route from farm to table, relying on international trade routes that pass through several bottlenecks. Sudden disruption of such delivery systems – via climate change or political volatility – can severely affect the food security of particular regions.

Large-scale governance is unavoidable in today’s world where hazards are regional and often transcend political boundaries, unfortunately at the moment we are relying on out of date World Organisations that are incapable of putting the  Earth First!

<p><a href=”https://vimeo.com/32001208″>EARTH</a&gt; from <a href=”https://vimeo.com/michaelkoenig”>Michael K&ouml;nig</a> on <a href=”https://vimeo.com”>Vimeo</a&gt;.</p>

<p><a href=”https://vimeo.com/79771046″>Climate Change &mdash; The state of the science</a> from <a href=”https://vimeo.com/anthropocene”>WelcomeAnthropocene</a&gt; on <a href=”https://vimeo.com”>Vimeo</a&gt;.</p>

 

Take a trip into the unknown.

https://youtu.be/YzMrNFd4oOk

← Back

Thank you for your response. ✨

The Beady Eye, Looks at Our Common Future Under Climate Change.

01 Monday Jun 2015

Posted by in Climate Change., Environment, The Future

≈ Comments Off on The Beady Eye, Looks at Our Common Future Under Climate Change.

Tags

, ,

The hope of the twentieth century rests on its recognition that war and depression are man-made and needless as is so with Climate Change.

Over the past 50 years, humans have changed ecosystems more rapidly and extensively than in any comparable period of time in human history, largely to meet rapidly growing demands for food, fresh water, timber, fiber and fuel.

All can be avoided in the future by turning from … nineteenth-century characteristics … and going back to other characteristics that our Western society has always regarded as virtues: generosity, compassion, cooperation, rationality, and foresight, and finding an increased role in human life for love, spirituality, charity, and self-discipline.

We now know fairly well how to control the increase in population, how to produce wealth and reduce poverty or disease. We may, in the near future, know how to postpone senility and death but to what avail if we continue to deny Climate Change.

It certainly should be clear to those who have their eyes open that violence, extermination, and despotism do not solve problems for anyone and that victory and conquest are delusions, as long as they are merely physical and materialistic.

Our problem is that capitalism provides very powerful motivations for economic activity because it associates economic motivations so closely with self-interest.

Money and goods are not the same thing but are, on the contrary, exactly opposite things. Most confusion in economic thinking arises from failure to recognize this fact.

Goods are wealth which you have, while money is a claim on wealth which you do not have. Thus goods are an asset; money is a debt.

You would think that policymakers with the dark future of Climate Change ahead would be addressing a new set of existential questions.

Such as: Should Economics that grew wealth bear more of the burden to stop climate change.  Another words developed countries should take the lead allowing less developed countries to maintain emissions.

As we all know to date no international mitigation and abatement efforts have taken place on a large enough scale to freeze emissions. We don’t see any intense geopolitical cooperation. Countries will not do anything on behalf of other that requires them to sacrifice their own interests.

Off course when you introduce future generations into the question democracy as it stands is not equipped to represent the interests of future generations never mind the here and now. Humans that don’t exist have no say as to what will it mean to live a meaningful life in a world that has eliminated all wildness, and forms of life from the planet.

So here we are poised to become agent of the greatest catastrophic events ever to hit our planet which could have to support over 10 billion people by 2050.

We are currently on a trajectory to warm the planet 4°C. In such a 4ºC world most of us will not be able to adapt never mind our natural systems.

As we move beyond the stable state we are already well beyond the zone of uncertainty.  The risk for all species – including ours- grow and grow.

planetary boundaries

We need to start thinking in terms that we are just not used to thinking of as a human species.

Will it be left to the market to decide.  With businesses as hubs for democratic engagement this could unfairly shift costs onto either consumers or taxpayers.

I’m not convinced.. that we’ve ended up with a society that’s really able to harness the innovation potential of business.

Climate change challenges democracy. But climate change also needs democracy.

We live in a carbon dependent world. And for the most part, we are loath to forego this somewhat cosy arrangement. Carbon dependency is promoted in part by technology which gives us many good things on the cheap: electricity, personal mobility, affordable consumer goods, cooling and warmth. It is also encouraged by governments which promise easy options to low-carbon outcomes, without delivering these options. And for the most part, we do not seem to care, as the goodies continue to arrive.

We all know in our hearts that this is a cop out: we are duped but we connive in the deceit. Democracy is not a system that forces us to face up to these contradictions. We want to live in a sustainable society but the political system does not reward or support the innovators and entrepreneurs who would guide us to it.

Political institutions manipulate us, as do the power brokers who shape political opinion and guide policy.  Democracy shuns the long-term.

The goal of equipping democracy to mitigate and adapt to climate change is not a one-time endeavor but a continuous process.

Today, the formerly contented European middle classes, sitting in the gap between the rich minority and the poor majority, for the first time in living memory cannot be sure their children will be better off than they are. Confronted by this austere prospect, this group – the natural allies of climate stability – will become unsettled.

The world’s nations are desperately looking for guaranteed techno-fixes to climate change. Democracy around the world has suffered as governments seek to lean on eco-technocrats to cut back on investment in education and health and invest instead in technology for climate mitigation and adaptation.

I really do believe that people can provide the answers – if only we could unleash the real power of that creative potential. Environmental innovation has to be about much more than technology. I’ve realized that, and I’m going to make it my business to ensure that as many other people as possible do too.

So where best to start than requesting your Television Stations to highlight Climate Change in their Weather Forecast.   Join me. This is a war against no enemy other than ourselves.

← Back

Thank you for your response. ✨