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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Brumar89 who wrote (189033)	6/10/2006 1:43:51 PM
From: Wharf Rat	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 281500

Spending little time on outlining climate change Porritt suggested that amongst this audience at least there can be little remaining doubt either of the urgency or severity of the climate change challenge. Tipping his hat to the recent statements from Sir David Attenborough on the subject, he noted that “The ranks of those still trying to tell us this is not serious is thinning, diminishing, all the time”. Porritt outlined four key points on what the science is actually telling us about climate change: Everything is moving a great deal faster than they thought it was moving, even two years ago. When you talk to scientists in the science community they will tell you the last two years have been deeply shocking, in terms of the volume and the authority of the data that has come forward on a number of different climate phenomenon. We shouldn’t think about climate change as a gradually unfolding set of phenomena, all gradually increasing within our midst. The climate record tells us very clearly this is as much about sharp discontinuities in patterns of climate as gently rising changes. We should be thinking about systems not symptoms. We still focus on individual symptoms, we focus on the permafrost, disappearing sea-ice, melting glaciers or increased intensity of hurricanes. We keep looking at these individual phenomena, epiphenomena, and what we’re not looking at is the big systems stuff. This means nothing less than a radical break in the way we create and distribute wealth in the world today. I still hear people talk about climate change as something which can be managed in the dominant orthodox economic paradigm. I don’t believe them, I just don’t believe that is the case, I don’t see how we’re going to be able to manipulate those conventional aspects of growth bound consumer driven economy and cope with climate change in the way that we actually need to. Since it is clear that something absolutely has to change, something has to done, the question of whether we have enough time to enact the necessary changes must be addressed. There must after all come a time when it is too late to mitigate disaster. Whilst some, including James Lovelock would say it is now too late, Porritt said he was “not in the all too late category”. However I was left wondering whether this statement was his true belief or whether it was just what someone in his position has to say since to suggest it is too late also abandons all hopes of being able to “empower people, give them a sense of agency, a sense that there really is a set of actions, individual, communal, national, global, that we can take”. Without that the situation really is without hope. Message 22531209 Clutch those illusions. Hang on tight to them. Cherish them. Just a small town girl, livin in a lonely world She took the midnight train goin anywhere Just a city boy, born and raised in south detroit He took the midnight train goin anywhere A singer in a smokey room A smell of wine and cheap perfume For a smile they can share the night It goes on and on and on and on Strangers waiting, up and down the boulevard Their shadows searching in the night Streetlight people, living just to find emotion Hiding, somewhere in the night Working hard to get my fill, Everybody wants a thrill Payin anything to roll the dice, Just one more time Some will win, some will lose Some were born to sing the blues Oh, the movie never ends It goes on and on and on and on (chorus) Dont stop believin Hold on to the feelin Streetlight people