For all our futures

Written By: - Date published: 7:13 pm, September 23rd, 2014 - 16 comments
Categories: activism, climate change, sustainability - Tags:

There have been some massive international demonstrations for people wanting more concerted action to counter climate change.  The demonstrations have focused on New York, where the UN is about to hold a UN summit on the issue.

climate change pacific

People marched in Auckland on Sunday:

Organisers have said as many as 600,000 people turned out to thousands of events in the US, Latin America, Europe, India and Australia, including up to 310,000 in New York and up to 30,000 in Melbourne.

The People’s Climate March – co-ordinated by international campaign organisation Avaaz – was timed to coincide with the UN Climate Summit in New York.

The summit, hosted by UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on Tuesday and expected to attract over 100 world leaders, is an attempt to build momentum before the next major round of climate change negotiations in Paris in December 2015.

Al Jazeera’s latest edition of Inside Story focuses on the demonstrations, and their significance:

More than 120 world leaders will attend that meeting on Tuesday in New York. They will discuss ways to address issues relating to the environment and develop a new strategy that will lead to a consenus for a possible treaty – to be signed in Paris next year.

Organisers say some 570,000 people took part in the rallies in 161 countries; far more exceeding the number of those who demonstated for climate action in Copenhagen in 2009.

The US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration announced last week that the months of June, July, and August were the hottest on record. And that 2014 is on course to break the record for the hottest year, which was set in 2010.

The programme features guests,

Anne Lassman-Trappier – an environmental campaigner.

Asad Rehman – senior campaigner with Friends of the Earth.

Michael Jacobs – a senior advisor to the New Climate Economy. He is also director of Strategy for the Global Commission on the Economy and Climate.

The problems brought about by climate change are now so pressing, people are no longer saying that we need to do something now to ensure a sustainable and livable environment for future generations.  it is something impacting on all our futures.

A load of people whose homes and communities are already threatened by climate change travelled long distances to get to the demonstrations.  Many are from low lying coastal communities.

Bill’s recent post gives some background to climate change and the struggle to counter it.

 

16 comments on “For all our futures ”

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  1. Bill 1
    23 September 2014 at 8:29 pm

    Al Jazeera voice-over claims the demand is to switch to clean energy and be carbon free by 2050… to avoid + 2 degrees C. The science is that carbon free by 2040 only affords us a 50/50 chance of dipping below 2 degrees C.

    Then we have Michael “we can have our cake and eat it” Jacobs (senior advisor to the “New Climate Economy”) at the end having a go at activists for putting everything off into the distant future (seriously!) and referring, I think, to the report I linked to yesterday at the top of the “Idiots, Cowards and Bastards” post. A negative carbon scenario is assumed and built into that report.

    Anne Lassman Trappier was more interesting – the need for grassroots activism and the prospect of ‘facing a difficult end’ if we don’t do enough.

    Shame it all cuts out at 24 min before anything from Asad Rehman. Oh well.

    • karol 1.1
      23 September 2014 at 8:40 pm

      Yes. Jacobs did go on about a kind of BAU but with different energy sources. Trappier said a bit more about having to change the way we live.

      Both the Youtube version & the video on the AJ site are only 24 minutes long.

      I watched it on TV earlier today. I think that must be the last broadcasting of that edition – the next Inside story later tonight is on the Middle East.

  2. Draco T Bastard 2
    23 September 2014 at 9:17 pm

    World on track for worst-case warming scenario

    The bleak image is brought home when emissions over the last few decades are plotted against projections for the future. Models predict how much the world will warm depending on how much we emit in future. Scientists typically look at four different possible futures, ranging from an uber-green society to a worst-case scenario, in which no action is taken to combat global warming. Le Quéré and her colleagues show how today’s emissions are near-perfectly in line with the worst-case scenario. This means that, according to scientists’ best estimates, the world will be as much as 5.4 °C warmer in 2100 than it was before the industrial revolution.

    And that means total fucken disaster for life on Earth. Yes, life on Earth will continue afterwards but it won’t contain most large animals and could get as bad as only amoebas surviving.

    • Bill 2.1
      23 September 2014 at 10:23 pm

      Fuck, you gotta laugh…(from your link)

      Le Quéré says it is still possible to stay below the internationally agreed target of 2 °C, but that this will require drastic emissions cuts across the world, and very soon. Bringing certain technologies online – such as carbon capture and storage – would be instrumental in achieving this, she says.

      Because CCS is just like kinda sitting on a box on a shelf somewhere needing dusted off. Just need to find the windy up key thing and we’re away.

      btw. 5.4 °C with no tipping points on the way would be….a surprise.

      • Draco T Bastard 2.1.1
        24 September 2014 at 12:06 am

        Yep, I cringed when I saw that as well. Some people just seem determined to hold on to the delusional.

  3. brian 3
    23 September 2014 at 10:11 pm

    Thank you for raising a topic, that makes the result of the recent election insignificant in importance

  4. tricle up 4
    23 September 2014 at 10:57 pm

    2030 the where about s figure…after2030 using 31 climate change models they (that is researchers at the university of NSW in Sydney) conclude that if emissions keep rising,the chance of a hiatus a 10 year period with no significant warming drops to virtually zero after 2030 but that could change if we slow our greenhouse emissions now ,if our emissions peak by 2040 the temperature rise will slow by 2100 and hiatus periods will become more likely..after 2030 the rate of global warming is likely to be fast… (slow by 2100)

  5. Gareth 5
    24 September 2014 at 11:58 am

    Professor Kevin Anderson in 2012, Real Clothes for the Emperor: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RInrvSjW90U
    And an interview in 2013 where he mentions civil disobedience: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rn03oxCb94Y

  6. Steve Wrathall 6
    24 September 2014 at 9:58 pm

    Has Leonardo DiCaprio got there on his Saudi-owned super-yacht yet?

  7. Paul 7
    24 September 2014 at 10:03 pm

    Just reading Naomi Klein’s ‘This changes everything.’
    Sobering.
    Either capitalism goes or we’re on the way out.
    And we just in a fossil fuel burning government.
    48.1 % voted for severe Climate outcomes.

  8. rich the other 8
    25 September 2014 at 10:48 am

    Chinese premier didn’t attend ,Canadian , Australian leaders also gave it a miss .
    1000 , coal fired power stations currently under construction in Asia , more cars on the roads than ever , developing country’s aiming to improve the lives of millions etc etc .
    The solution isn’t cutting carbon emissions by closing everything down , that’s not going to happen , the only possible answer is science developing technology’s to control emissions , cut the funding given to the climate scientists and give the money to scientists who have the ability to develop clean burning technology’s .

    • Colonial Viper 8.1
      25 September 2014 at 11:16 am

      The solution isn’t cutting carbon emissions by closing everything down , that’s not going to happen ,

      Affordable coal is over in less than 50 years. Coal fired power stations are going to shut down, one way or another.

      • rich the other 8.1.1
        25 September 2014 at 12:26 pm

        A bit like peak oil ?.

        .

        • Colonial Viper 8.1.1.1
          25 September 2014 at 12:44 pm

          Peak conventional oil was about 2006; the economics of oil production has been declining ever since. If you look around the world economy of the last few years – this is exactly what post-peak oil in progress, looks like.

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