The world we're leaving for today's teens...
By Thom Hartmann A...
Without immediate global action on climate change, today's teenagers will be forced to live with the consequences of our inaction. The World Bank has issued their third report of climate change, and it says that global temperatures could rise by as much as 4 degrees Celsius by the time today's teens hit their 80th birthday.
This new report, called “Turn Down The Heat,” says that 4 degrees would be on top of the 1.5 degree Celsius warming that we've already locked in to the atmosphere. A temperature increase that large would substantially impact poverty, food crops, water resources, ocean acidification, and sea level rise, all of which would make global conflict far more likely.
At the rate we're burning fossil fuels, we're damning our young people to a future of hunger, strife, and war – and that's if we leave them a future at all. Rachel Kyte, the World Bank Group Vice President and Special Envoy for Climate Change, said, “The (new) report makes crystal clear that we cannot continue down the current path of unchecked, growing emissions.”
The World Bank is calling on governments to stop subsidizing the fossil fuels that our destroying our planet and our future. Developed nations like ours can put an end to tax breaks for Big Oil and Big Coal, and even put a price on their destruction with a carbon tax. For countries that are still developing, the World Bank says that they should skip the investment in fossil fuels and move straight to clean energy.
For the sake of ourselves, our young people, and our species, we need to do everything we can to protect our environment. We only have one planet to call home, and our kids shouldn't suffer because we refused to act.
Comments
#2
Amy Goodman on Democracy Now pointed out that the arrayed police powers stood between white and black Ferguson leaving the black community open to riot but protected the white community. Some of the broadcast video clearly show this and a (prohibited) drone-cam would have shown this strategy even more clearly.
#3
This is off topic, but, the events in Ferguson and elsewhere, prove that we humans are still a primitive, barbaric, and savage species, despite our technological advances.
And we won't live long enough to out grow it.
#4
We All Live in a Yellow Submarine might become the anthem of the world and reality.
#5
Well, I don't want support people predicting future through pure nonsense, but didn't Edgar Cayce foresee flooding and severe weather changes.. I don't believe anybody can just looked into the future, but history always provides us with information to make accurate prediction for the future and maybe Edgar happen to catch a glimpse of the future, hell, I once guessed a guys weight at carnival once, anything is possible.
My point for bringing up Edgar Cayce is that people trust supernatural explanation much more then rational, reasoned, measured, logical science based explanations. You know that crazy science that does all that experimenting, data processing and scientific method, verses, the pull it out of your ass methodology based in superstition, pseudo-science, religious visions and buckshot guessing method where eventually something sticks.
Thom. present your case as a vision that came to you in a bathroom stall at Hardees and you'll get a lot more bites. Using reasoned and measured science based date will get you nowhere in a country where a vast number of population believe in angels, ghost and demons.
Science is an every changing, living process and not an absolute. But it provides us the best chance to predict future events, however, in the land of the free and superstitious we have to contend with voodoo based ideology with no rational grounding whatsoever. You're better off tell your audience that the Angel Tim sent you a vision of tomorrow and it's filled with water, blood and doom..
#6
Oops!
#7
Thom your right being worried about the American teenager. Not only is there planet falling apart they are left a crumbling infrastructure, massive debt that is growing by the second. Health care they will never be able to afford whether it is through the ACA or private. A education system that is falling apart. WOW I need a drink this is one of the most depressing things I have ever put on this blog. Those poor kids are doomed.
#8
Thom, I am organizing an initative in Washington State to require the State Prison and Welfare systems to go plant based (DOC & DSHS). The way this works is to require DOC & DSHS to examine their food programs and maximize reductions in 1) costs, 2) CO2 emissions, 3) freshwater consumption and 4) # of animals raised and slaughtered. I estimate savings of $33M-$100M, 300k-600k tons CO2, 40 Billion gal of water, and 3.6M farm animals saved. But I can't get Governor Inslee to make this change. He can't get his carbon emission reduction plan past the Republicans, yet this change could be made Executively. My website is www.cutprisonandwelfarecosts.com; email is same but @gmail, and I am currently running indieogogo campaign for first phase public opinion survey. Could you help spread the word? Andrea
#9
Does anybody care about the future or is it all about the short term.Short term gratification take all you can while you can .Squander all the resource's in a short a period as possible with NO thought to the future we have used more of the Earths natural resource's in the last 40 years than the last 40 thousand and we are not slowing down .The model is not working .Create a new model and make the old one obsolete .Greed blinds us and sends us all to the depths of the abyss .The progress we think we make is progress towards our own demise .With greed comes violence and then the end.Like Atlantis or Mu or Rome the end will come if we do not wake up and change our ways .
Oneness and non use of violence are the guiding principles to build our new society .
Theres enough of everything for all people on our planet but the manufacturing of poverty is a creation we have devised with the tools of greed .With 5% of the world"s people holding 80% of the world"s wealth and resources .We could reverse this very easily giving oppertunities to everyone and making available wealth and resources .
Just live simply so others can simply live !
Namaste
#10
The more things change, the more they seem to remain the same. The society that trains its policeman like it trains its soldiers, as with South Africa under apartheid, is living on a very short rope. The phrase " Protect and Serve," must apply to the whole of that society and not one color of it only.
#11
Somehow we need to make your shows more popular
Going to the source of the problem and exhibiting the absurd messages and thinking of the people in power along with a scandal of some sort could possibly be worth your efforts in saving our beloved home.
A Lot of credible help goes a long ways.
#12
This is a crucial problem (the environmental deterioration) and I wonder if there is enough time left to reverse what has been done. Just like a human life cycle which goes through birth, maturation, and death a society/civilization does so as well. Ours appears to be in the latter phase. Should we try to resurect a structure that is falling apart (perhaps because it must) and what would replace our modern American way of life that would possibly create a safe world for future generations? Like Thom has written in the past, we need to create new stories and perhaps the best way is to borrow ideas from cultures that lived in harmony with the Earth. That is what people like Tom Brown, Jr. and Thom Hartmann are trying to do. But will we listen and act in time....As a father I am very scared for what lies ahead. Still, we must act as if it is possible.
#13
When today's teens hit their 80th birthdays, in postmodern dark age America, the Kochs will be well known as major players," Fascists," in the political movement that thwarted efforts to reduce carbon emissions . In other words their names will be synonymous with the likes of Hitler, Caligula, Manson, Berkowitz, Bundy ......the criminally insane! The Koch's legacy will shatter all the mass killing records by far. Hard to beat destroying an entire planet.
There's also a very good chance that history will record an ending to the Kochs very similiar to their peers from the past...only the names change....evil souls will always be amongst us, which is precisely why we need good government.
Thom's Blog Is On the Move
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Hello All
Thom's blog in this space and moving to a new home.
Please follow us across to hartmannreport.com - this will be the only place going forward to read Thom's blog posts and articles.
Images of Thom
With His Holiness The Dalai Lama, at His home in Dharamsala, India (Synthesis Dialogues - made into a movie narrated by Harrison Ford)
From Unequal Protection, 2nd Edition:
"If you wonder why and when giant corporations got the power to reign supreme over us, here’s the story."
From The Thom Hartmann Reader:
"In an age rife with media-inspired confusion and political cowardice, we yearn for a decent, caring, deeply human soul whose grasp of the problems confronting us provides a light by which we can make our way through the quagmire of lies, distortions, pandering, and hollow self-puffery that strips the American Dream of its promise. How lucky we are, then, to have access to the wit, wisdom, and willingness of Thom Hartmann, who shares with us here that very light, grown out of his own life experience."
From The Thom Hartmann Reader:
"Right through the worst of the Bush years and into the present, Thom Hartmann has been one of the very few voices constantly willing to tell the truth. Rank him up there with Jon Stewart, Bill Moyers, and Paul Krugman for having the sheer persistent courage of his convictions."
Maybe Darren Wilson could be prosecuted for perjury.