http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/23/science/earth/23climate.html
Now we've all heard about global warming at one point or another and how we keep trying to do things, but never end up doing enough. Well, here we went again today at a UN Conference to talk about global warming. And you guessed it, we aren't doing enough.
China is currently the largest air polluter in the world, closely followed by the United States. During today's United Nations meeting on climate change, over 100 countries discussed their goals on reducing emissions by 2050.
Most industrialized nations have agreed to "a 25 percent to 40 percent reduction from 1990 levels by 2020". However, developing countries like China have said "Due to their low development level and shortage of capital and technology, developing countries have limited capability and means to deal with climate change". Despite this China said they would "cut carbon dioxide emissions by a “notable margin” by 2020 compared with 2005 levels; drastically increase the size of forests; increase the use of nuclear or non-fossil fuels to 15 percent of power by 2020; and work to develop a green economy."
A fairly arbitrary percentage for the more industrialized nations. They need to set a far stricter goal that isn't so vague. China had a slightly more focused plan, actually stating what they want done in a period of time, but the notable margin part is a bit more bleh.
President Obama wants the U.S to invest largely on renewable energy, and giving incentives for cleaner vehicles and clean energy. He also wanted developed countries to provide both financial and technological aid to developing countries to help the world reduce carbon emissions.
While this looks very nice, none of this has really happened. Frankly, the Cash for Clunkers thing wasn't useful at all. It required you buy a vehicle with a fuel economy of over 22 MPG which is absolutely abysmal. Older cars from 10 years ago had mileages ranging up to 45 miles per gallon, and after over a decade, all we ask for is 22 miles per gallon? Come on!
Many environmentalists still don't feel we are doing enough to cut emissions, however the target date is so far into the future that Indian environmental minister Jairam Ramesh said that "It is the height of dishonesty to have a target for 2050 because none of us will be around to be held accountable,".
The main problem I've found with climate change, is that no one now actually cares. They won't live long enough to see it, and their children may or may not see it either. Furthermore, all we've done so far is plan. We "plan" to cut emissions by 2050. We "plan" to invest into various clean energy. Not much has actually happened to do anything of the sort. With dates like 2050, as the Indian environmental minister had said, are so far into the future that President Obama can just push the problem onto the next president, and not have to do anything but lay a big speech on how we'll do something about it. We need change now, not in 50 years.
-Weilu Jia
9 comments:
I'd like to agree with most of your post, things are getting as done as we "plan" or other excuses are being made so nations won't have to spend the money. However, I want to point out a couple steps that have been made that are generally overlooked.
In the car industry
In R&D among other ideas
Things are happening around us for attempts at curbing emissions, let's just hope things happen quickly enough..
Props for defending China Wei Lu but you're lauding the same country that spray painted a mountain side in order to go "green". Now that's "climate change fail".
Here is the link:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2007/feb/14/china
To be honest that's all just a bunch of political fluff because none of them really believe that they can fix the climate so they want to push it on the next guy. Can we get it done now? Nope, but I’m sure Billy here can when he runs for president of insert country name.
However, it takes more then just some magic powder and some good thoughts to change the mindset of people much less change the environment for the better. I'd like to see any avid environmentalist go down into the deep south and try to convince hummer driving good ol' American people to give up the way of life that suits them just fine and buy another car. That's why Obama set it at the Mpg it is at currently for the cash for clunkers because that's where the least gas guzzling trucks sit. (Which is 20 to about 25 Mpg on a good day.)
Though it's very easy to sit back and say FIX GLOBAL WARMING! You really have to step out of our comfortable California bubble and really look at the world; do you really think that it can be done now? Even if we had the best President in the world we couldn't do it now, it's impossible. Well, unless you have a ray gun that turns people into selfless people who actually care about the world.
Nice post though, nothing like politics, the grandest of spectator sports.
I agree with your post Weilu, but it is very hard for nations to just cut down on pollution. Industries thrive on pollution, as does innovation. So to cut down on pollution would be to slow down production, which many countries, especially China, don't want. There needs to be a balance between efficiency and morality, but that is often hard to find. So, while you say that most people don't really care about stopping pollution, could it be that they're just stumped on how to both have efficiency in production (thus making products cheaper) and have a healthier earth? Kinda makes you wish, Al Gore had been president huh?
-Henry Zhang
First off, I'd like to address the global warming crisis as a whole. Many people hear global warming as car's emissions and smoke stacks of these random factory-like things in the middle of nowhere. Global warming is a lot more than that. Sure, cars and industries do make a good amount, but cutting back on just these two contributors only make so much of a difference.
The generation of electricity is on of the bigger pollutants. Coal plants, oil refineries, etc.
There are tons of solutions to these problems but, as Henry and Jeff stated, no one wants to do anything. It's not just doing nothing, however, the research and technology is there. It's just that no one wants to INVEST. We have nuclear power, we have solar panels, we have electric cars that go as far in one charge as an internal combustion engine will go on one tank. It's just that people won't invest. Now I can go into the controversies of nuclear fission, but that's for another debate?
Anyway, point being, the issue is not the world not caring, it's not how we are to acquire the technology, but rather it's the issue of when people will care enough to let it dent their pocketbooks for a little bit.
There is something I want to add.. I believe it was over the summer that there was an agreement to not raise the atmosphere's carbon emissions to any higher than another 2/3s of a percent. Ironically, 1/3 (which is what we are currently at) has already caused the ice to melt in the north pole and stimulated several catastrophic events.
Also the a major percentage in terms of automobiles comes from transporting oil... not from us driving.. hmm
(you can look this up! if I am wrong just say so.)
In Reply to Franklin: I was mainly talking about government's plan. There are plenty of people that go green, but the government isn't doing enough to help out.
Joe: That's probably an an exception...
Jeffrey: Agreed, but I think that the government should be more forceful. You can still drive your hummer, but it's gotta be 30 MPG.
Henry: Yeah, that seems to be the biggest hurdle. No one wants their growth stunted because of global warming...
Franklin: It's up to the government to invest and instate the technology. Some things just have to happen whether the people like it or not.
Lily: Temperatures are rising quite rapidly currently. We gotta reduce our emissions, not slow the rise of emissions. The emissions of transporting oil is another reason we have to do something about our fail tactics.
Yes, agreed. I guess that's part of the implied part of my post that I don't think I got across well. People need to invest and the only one with enough money to really make a difference is the government. What's good though is that public awareness is improving, so hopefully Obama or whoever the next President is will be able to enact some change..
Nuclear Power FTW
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