Now that we have been successful in meeting the first of the four critical deadlines I identified in Left-Handed Security (i.e., the 2008 election in the USA), we must press to met the next one, and that is to achieve a meaningful global agreement resulting in drastic cuts in the human race's greenhouse gas emissions by the end of 2009. (The other third deadline I highlight is 2015, the world's stated due date for halving poverty by achieving the UN Millennium Development Goals, and the fourth deadline is tomorrow morning, because every dawn that rises is another deadline passed for the great nations to intervene on behalf of the people of Darfur,)
Just as I do not spend much time on solutions, I do not spend much time on good news either. Because it is vital that all of us understand that this is an emergency.
The news on climate change is very bad.
While the USA wasted the last eight years pretending there was a debate about it, climate change has become gotten way out ahead of our ability to mitigate it. At this point, whatever we say in front of the children, we are really talking about a) adapting to a seriously different planetary climate, and b) limiting as best we can the extremity of the predicament that will confront us down the road.
As we head rapidly toward the next great deadline, it is of paramount importance to remember that the economic security crisis and the climate security crisis and the geopolitical security crisis are one monster with three heads; and that there is both a silver bullet to slay it and a holy grail to heal us from the wounds it has inflicted. We need a new economic model, one that is green and hallows sustainability. The blind pursuit of profit has failed us as a society. The demonization of all government and any regulation has been proven to be a cruel deceit.
We will need statesmen and stateswomen of both political parties, willing to risk ending their political careers by casting the right vote in a time of great national and global peril.
If you have not already joined the Alliance for Climate Protection, Al Gore and I urge you to do so. Click here.
For the Words of Power Climate Crisis Updates Archive, click here. For an archive of Words of Power posts on Economic Insecurity, click here. For a Words of Power Archive of posts on the Crisis in Darfur, click here. For an archive of Words of Power posts on the UN Millennium Goals, click here. Richard Power's Left-Handed Security: Overcoming Fear, Greed & Ignorance in This Era of Global Crisis is available now! Click here for more information.
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