Bill McKibben: Remember This: 350 Parts Per Million

I would like to know if there is anyone who is working on this specific issue--The particulates in the air.

Does anyone know how we could take specific action on this issue?

Please let me know--karenzazzaretti@comcast.net

Oh my yes, don't take MY comfort away. Horse manure.

md71, it is interesting that you say "kill poor" is the other choice here. What are you afraid of? That you will have to do something different?

What baloney. Do you care about what the effects of this crisis are now doing to the poor? No one is advocating freezing anyone to death, and that is just in my view the thoughts of someone who doesn't understand this fully or is part of the "Bjorn Lomberg" fan club. I am talking about GOVERNMENTS doing what is necessary to wean us off of oil, gas, and coal, or at least make it cleaner until we can move on from it. There is absolutely NOTHING wrong with that and that would not only make this world a cleaner place, it would make it a safer place in the longrun as well. And if you read what people are saying, they advocate keeping thermostats at 68 and turning them down in winter months and up in summer months. It does not freeze anyone to do that. Taking a bit of personal respsonsibilty for your planet is not bad and would actually save that single mother money she needs for food and other provisions as an example, and I'm tired of people twisting this all around to make it sound like as if people are condoning freezing people to death. And FYI, that "few PPM" could mean the difference between someone having a home on a low lying island or seeing it under water and being a climate refugee... and most of them are also POOR and it is the POOR of this world who are actually calling for these measures to SAVE their homes. Organizations in Africa and around the world are now looking into solar power and other cleaner safer means to light peoples' homes and give them heat, energy, and a life source, and also keep them off the grid and give them the power to provide their own energy... I would dare say THAT is really what twists the knickers of those who want to keep control. Don't tell me that single mother wouldn't want a chance to be able to sell her excess electricity back to the grid or be off it altogether to save money for her children knowing she is also making a better planet for them. Oil and coal are the OLD ways and need to be put on the dust bin of history to make way for sources that actually help the economy and the POOR. Those who want to enslave their grandmothers and children with dirty fuels that cause disease and high bills are those in my view who need to actually pick up a book and read about alternate energies and stop scaring people into thinking that to turn down their thermostat is going to freeze them. No one is advocating that or has ever advocated that. However, the time is now upon us when the ingenuity of the human spirit must look for better ways for us to cope with the damage WE have done and are still doing. So you can fight it if you want, but circumstances will make it inevitable if you want to have a sustainble planet to live on within the next twenty years or sooner. And what a coincidence. Again, you only have this one post on this entire site, and have no profile, just like the other skeptic in the other thread I posted. How interesting.

My question for those advocating such extreme responses is this: Who will your actions hurt most? THE POOR! Look your grandmother in the eye and tell her that heating her home in winter is a "selfish desire". Look at a single mom who is choosing between gas money to get to her jobs and gas money to heat the house (and the kids are already thin...) and tell her she needs to shell out more in taxes. There may be a correlation between CO2 levels and 15000 (check all the data, please) years of global warming (remember ice sheets over Europe?), but you assume way too much accuracy in the computer models of future trends (read the articles in the BACK of the Science journals, and you'll see they're still having trouble "predicting" the PAST!). Should we conserve? Yes. Use alternative technologies? Garden in backyards? Walk to work? Absolutely. Kill poor people by freezing them to death to save a few ppm CO2? Never.

we all breathe the same air, and no one wants to die. why is this so hard?

if our empowered leaders wont do anything about it, they need to be thrown out, yesterday.