I see something that really inspires me and makes me want to share it with as many people as possible. With the failure of any kind of comprehensive climate change agreements in Copenhagen last December, many of us were looking for what the next steps could possibly be to address climate change, given the failure of governments.

The following video gives a historical context and a great solution for how we can address the single most important and critical issue we are facing on the planet today.

I have come to the realization that any substantive responses to global climate change are going to come from ordinary citizens, local communities, and the leadership of visionary businesses. Political leaders are driven by political imperatives that are at odds with the time-table for climate change.

In this short, animated film, you will see some inspiring history and solutions for our next steps within which we will be participating in a new low carbon economy. View this and be inspired.

Three practical things emerge for me, from this film:

1. It’s up to us – not governments, to lead in the war against climate change.
2. Technology offers us new ways to collaborate and share solutions.
3. We have the technology and the solutions – we can create the change. Let’s just do it!

G20 leaders designated the G-20 to be the premier forum for International Economic Cooperation

In the short time span of 11 months since the G20 first engaged world leaders of the worlds largest economies in a forum to solve the world economic crisis, the G20 has become the premier forum for International economic cooperation. The G20 representing 85% of the world economies brings a more balanced, diverse range of voices to the table of International cooperation. The G20 concensus moves the less-represented G8 into a secondary role which will mostly be concerned with geo-political issues. G20 Leaders agreed to meet in Canada in June 2010, a meeting that will be tacked onto the G8 meeting planned at the same time. It is expected that Canada will play host to the official passing of the torch of International Economic diplomacy between these two organizations.

Commitment to Copenhagen (sort of)

The leaders reiterated a promise to cooperate with all parties in reaching an agreement in Copenhagen. An agreement must include mitigation, adaptation, technology, and most critically a financing mechanism.

It is clear that this meeting of G20 Leaders missed an opportunity to establish benchmarks for financial commitments to address climate change. The most important consideration is a formula for helping developing countries to cope with global warming impacts and pay for green energy technology. Instead, Finance Ministers were again directed (as they were at the World Economic Forum in Aquila, Italy in June, 2009) to report back at their next meeting with a range of options for climate change financing considerations in the UNFCCC negotiations at Copenhagen.

Canadian PM Hiding behind Obama

Stephen Harper, speaking at a press conference here at the G20 distanced the Canadian government from supporting a fair, ambitious and binding agreement in Copenhagen.

“I would cite what President Obama said to us at our meetings and that is that while Copenhagen is a very important meeting we should not view it as a make or break on climate change. It will be a step, an ongoing step, in an iHarper, said yesterday. Harper attributed the comments by Obama in addition to saying he was not inclined to take up the challenge issued by Gordon Brown to attend the meeting in Copenhagen, in order to add political weight to the UNFCCC negotiations.

The Canadian stance on Climate Change stands in stark contrast to overtures by China and Japan, earlier this week in New York during Climate Week at the United Nations. On Tuesday, Japan’s new prime minister, Yukio Hatoyama, whose nation generates more than 4 percent of the world’s greenhouse gases, pledged his nation would seek a 25 percent cut in greenhouse gas emissions from 1990 levels by 2020.

It is clear some of the G20 Nations are pledging action on Climate Change.

Phase out of Fossil Fuel Subsidies

Energy efficiency plays an important role in promoting energy security and fighting climate change. G20 Leaders agreed to phase out, over the medium term fossil fuel subsidies while providing targeted support for the poorest (energy impoverished) who depend on such subsidies as a matter of survival. Obama was urging leaders to support a five year plan for phasing out the 300 Billion dollars in annual subsidies for fossil fuels, but will have to settle for a yet to be agreed-upon mid-term target.

Many countries, including the U.S., provide tax breaks and direct payments to help produce and use oil, coal, natural gas and other fuels that emit carbon dioxide, a gas that traps heat in the atmosphere. Fossil fuel subsidies encourage wasteful consumption, reduce energy security, restrict investment in clean energy sources and undermine efforts to deal with the threat of climate change.

Leaders called on Energy and Finance Ministers to report strategies and timelines for meeting this critical commitment for the next G20 Meeting.

The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) has found that eliminating fossil fuel subsidies by 2020 would reduce global greenhouse gas emissions in 2050 up to 12 percent. The leaders also call on all nations to adopt policies that will phase out subsidies worldwide.

Increase Clean and Renewable Energy Supplies

Promoting sustainable growth and addressing the threat of climate change leaders agree to increase funding for increasing clean and renewable energy supplies and promoting conservation and energy efficiency. Diversification of fuel sources will also enhance energy security.

Leaders agree to stimulate investments in clean energy, renewables, and energy efficiency and offering assistance in this area for developing nations. To boost the speed at which clean energy technology is developed leaders agreed to conduct joint research and voluntarily reduce barriers to trade and investment.

Energy for the Poorest

To increase access to energy among the poor , leaders will deploy clean, affordable energy resources to the developing world by funding (on a voluntary basis) programs such as the Scaling Up Renewable Energy Program and the Energy for the Poor Initiative.

Green Jobs

Leaders once again put a great deal of emphasis on Job Creation. Leaders emphasize the need for training, lifelong learning, and meeting future job market needs. New technologies, clean energy, environment, health, and infrastructure are mentioned as areas of focus to ensure sustainable job creation.

Pennsylvania, host for this gathering, set an example of what is possible with a mandate that 15% of power come from green power. Pittsburgh and region have demonstrated that investments in wind power, battery tech manufacturing, proprietary solar technology can been leveraged with relatively small public investments. In one example, Axion, a private solar panel manufacturer invested over 50 Million dollars based on a relatively miniscule $400 000 state investment. Gamesa, a wind turbine manufacturer in the region started with a $15 Million investment from the state which resulted in over $200 Million company investment.

mportant world process to deal with this critical issue,” Canada’s prime minister, Stephen

1. Global Warming is unequivocal and primarily human-induced.
2. Climate changes are underway in the United States and are projected to grow.
3. Widespread climate-related impacts are occurring now and are expected to increase.
4. Climate change will stress water resources
5. Crop and livestock production will be increasingly challenged.
6. Coastal areas are at increasing risk from sea-level rise and storm surge.
7. Risks to human health will increase.
8. Climate change will interact with many social and environmental stresses.
9. Thresholds will be crossed, leading to large changes in climate and ecosystems.
10. Future climate change and its impacts depend on choices made today.

The Debate is Over

OK, so it’s real, it’s happening, it’s causing nasty impacts. Read the whole report.

How are governments of the world going to react to the threats in a way that has benefits for everyone?

Where do journalists get their credibility? For Dobbs, it would seem that simply being an anchor on a nightly news show is enough to give him the right to make such unscientifically based claims.

We need to be careful about where we bestow credibility.

In December 2008, CNN axed their science, nature and environment team and a few weeks later, Lou Dobbs makes the inane assertion that sunspots cause climate change.

If you believe differently and are outraged by such assertions, maybe it’s time you started a blog.

A new paper released yesterday presents a summary from the Business Travel Coalition – Beyond the Airlines $2 Can of Coke, Catastrophic Impact on the US Economy From Oil Price Trauma in the Airline Industry about the impacts of high aviation fuel prices and the imminent impact on airlines and associated trickle-down economics seem pretty clear.   

It will affect everything…

The synergy of yesterday’s stunning presentation from Dr. James Hansen, Director of NASA’s Goddard Space Institute’s address to the National Press Club on June 23, 2008 yesterday (which is rocketing around the world – see the ABC News Summary) and the dire warnings about C02 targets , and the above paper from the Business Travel Coalition and the imminent impact on airlines and associated trickle-down economics seem pretty clear.

It seems in Canada that the Green Shift proposed by the Federal Liberals is a necessary shift. Carbon taxing, even lower CO2 targets and many other mitigations and adaptations will soon be part of the new carbon economy.  

Where will tourism shift?  My sense is that tourism as we know it today globally, and nationally in Canada is about to be revised in ways that we just do not know, cannot predict, and will come with a speed that we have never seen before….This will have impact and implications for any projections and discussions at the national level with the CTC, at the provincial level and at the local level.  I think, more and more, that “our tourists” are going to be regional tourists….not international or US arrivals.  

My sense:  This will be a composite result of high gas costs which are here to stay; the collapse of many airlines and associated supply management issues on food and other air-transported things; and our various individual and country responses to adapt or mitigate to a global CO2 target that has to be reduced much more than we thought. Now, more than ever, it’s time to be creative and collaborative.

These papers just came out in the last couple of days.

Note:  Dr. James Hansen’s address to the National Press Club in the US was a twenty-years later update to his June 23 1988 testimony to Congress that global warming was underway.  This time, though, his presentation provided direct reference as to why the tipping point is near.  He says, “The disturbing conclusion, documented in a paper I have written with several of the world’s leading climate experts, is that the safe level of atmospheric carbon dioxide is no more than 350 ppm (parts per million) and it may be less.  Carbon dioxide amount is already 385 ppm and rising about 2 ppm per year.  Stunning corollary: the oft-stated goal to keep global warming less than two degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) is a recipe for global disaster, not salvation.”

Hansen says the EU target of 550 parts per million of C02 – the most stringent in the world – should be slashed to 350ppm. He argues the cut is needed if “humanity wishes to preserve a planet similar to that on which civilisation developed”. The team studied core samples taken from the bottom of the ocean, which allow C02 levels to be tracked millions of years ago. They show that when the world began to glaciate at the start of the Ice age about 35m years ago, the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere stood at about 450ppm. “If you leave us at 450ppm for long enough it will probably melt all the ice – that’s a sea rise of 75 metres. What we have found is that the target we have all been aiming for is a disaster – a guaranteed disaster,” Hansen told the Guardian. 

The fundamental reason for his reassessment was what he calls “slow feedback” mechanisms which are only now becoming fully understood. They amplify the rise in temperature caused by increasing the concentration of greenhouse gases. Ice and snow reflect sunlight but when they melt, they leave exposed ground which absorbs more heat. 

As ice sheets recede, the warming effect is compounded. Satellite technology available over the past three years has shown that the ice sheets are melting much faster than expected, with Greenland and west Antarctica both losing mass. 

Hansen said his findings were not a recipe for despair. The good news, he said, is that reserves of fossil fuels have been exaggerated, so an alternative source of energy will have to be rapidly put in place in any case. Other measures could include a moratorium on coal power stations which would bring the C02 levels to below 400ppm. 

For the U.S. inaction on climate change adds up to an annual loss by 2100 of 1.8 percent of gross domestic product, or GDP, the sum of the nation’s output of goods and services.

Results are based on impacts of climate change described by the Nobel Prize-winning Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change last year.

Read the whole story:

http://www.sacbee.com/378/story/961211.html