Green Party: New climate change report shows the need for Green agenda, Green election wins
Report proves that the Lieberman-Warner bill is inadequate and short-sighted and capitulates to industry, say Greens
Green party leaders today said that a new climate change report to be released Monday proves the election of Green Party candidates into office is essential to enforce the immediate and drastic steps needed to combat global warming.
According to an Associated Press news article, the report to be issued by the Center for Strategic and International Studies and the Center for a New American Security said that climate change could be one of the greatest national security challenges ever faced by US policy makers (“Think Tank: Climate Affects Security,” by Arthur Max, November 3, 2007“)
The report details numerous disastrous consequences of global warming, including massive migration, health issues from drought, famine and disease, and nuclear proliferation.
“Republican and Democratic officials failed to take the steps needed to confront this global catastrophe for many years when they had the chance, to the point that global warming is now a certainty,” said Ronald Forthofer, 2002 Green Party candidate for Governor of Colorado and retired professor of biostatistics from the University of Texas School of Public Health in Houston.
“They depend too much on corporate contributions to address global warming aggressively,” added Mr. Forthofer, who is also a member of the Green Party’s Speakers Bureau. “The frontrunners for the Democratic and Republican presidential nomination are competing for money from energy and nuclear producers, car manufacturers, water privatizers, developers, and other corporations who have a vested interest in preventing the efforts necessary to confront the problem. Green Party candidates and elected officials take no corporate contributions and can devote their attention fully to efforts to solve the problem.”
(See OpenSecrets.org’s chart of oil and gas industry contributions to 2008 presidential campaigns <http://opensecrets.org/pres08/select.asp?Ind=E01>.)
Greens have called recent legislation on global warming, such as the Lieberman-Warner bill, inadequate and corporate-friendly. The Lieberman-Warner bill’s free emissions allowances and the use of carbon offsets to enable polluting companies meet emissions targets will delay the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions. The European Union, which grants and enforces carbon trading permits, has failed to reduce emissions (”Smoke alarm: EU shows carbon trading is not cutting emissions,” The Guardian, April 3, 2007 <http://business.guardian.co.uk/story/0,,2048733,00.html>).
Monday’s report expects regional conflicts to increase as a result of competition for land, water and other resources, and predicts “the collapse and chaos associated with extreme climate change futures [will] destabilize virtually every aspect of modern life.”
“As the highest consumer of energy and resources, the US must take the lead in setting a good example with a short-term 50-70 percent reduction of worldwide carbon dioxide emissions necessary to contain climate change,” said Deanna Taylor, co-chair of the Desert Greens (Utah) and member of the Green Party’s Eco-Action Committee. “Wars for resources like the Iraq War will increase unless we take immediate action. War financing will continue to steal dollars from human needs and prevent us from promoting sustainable jobs from new energy technologies, including energy efficiency and renewables, that will address global warming.”
The Green Party also strongly opposes the use of nuclear energy as an alternative to fossil fuels, citing security risks, high costs, and the difficulty of disposing huge amounts of dangerous nuclear waste.
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For more information about Global Warming, try Boiling Point: How Politicians, Big Oil and Coal, Journalists, and Activists Have Fueled the Climate Crisis and What We Can Do by Ross Gelbspan.
From a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist comes a shocking expos of the forces that perpetuate the crisis of global warming–with a prescription for saving the planet. Ross Gelbspan was a longtime reporter and editor at the Washington Post and the Boston Globe, where he won a Pulitzer Prize. He covered the United Nations Conference on the Environment in Stockholm in 1972, and addressed the World Economic Forum in Davos in 1998. The author of The Heat Is On, he lives in Brookline, Massachusetts.
Filed under: activism, election, elections, Global Warming, grassroots democracy, Green Party Websites
[…] Just Left wrote an interesting post today onHere’s a quick excerptNew Climate report shows Green Party imperative Green Party: New climate change report shows the need for Green agenda, Green election wins Report proves that the Lieberman-Warner bill is inadequate and short-sighted and capitulates to industry, say Greens Green party leaders today said that a new climate change report to be released Monday proves the election of Green Party candidates into office is essential to enforce the immediate and drastic steps needed to combat global warming. Acco […]
Scientists can’t seem to agree on any of it. I list on my site ways to save money and help the environment. Who knows which scientists to believe?