Klimaatverandering 41

Truthout bericht: 'Editor's Note: Paul Rogat Loeb's stock in trade is hope and the local progress he describes is all the more remarkable against the backdrop described by Libération's Pascal Riché: "Global warming, 'concerns very much' 66% of Japanese, 65% of Indians, 51% of Spaniards, 46% of the French. But only 19% of Americans and 20% of Chinese share such fears (41% of Americans conceding that they could care less about it). The United States and China, we know, are the two big producers of greenhouse gases ..."


Global Warming, Local Hope
As the evidence of global warming becomes inescapable, I fear Americans will switch instead to a fatalistic pessimism. Maybe it's real and maybe it's our fault, this sentiment goes, but at this point there's nothing we can do, so we're off the hook.
It's hard to deal with melting arctic glaciers, Katrina refugees who might never return to New Orleans, and floods that recently covered half of Bangladesh. Weather-related catastrophes cost a record $225 billion last year, with the impact of global climate change just beginning. Add in a president deep in denial, and it's tempting to feel powerless. We can't even escape to the Weather Channel without a sense of impending doom.
Yet people are beginning to act, sometimes from unexpected places. By so doing they're opening up new possibilities. The heads of BP Amoco and the world's largest reinsurance companies, Swiss Re and Munich Re, have spoken out. So has the vice president for governmental affairs of the National Association of Evangelicals, joined by other key evangelical leaders like the country's largest mega-church pastor, Reverend Rick Warren. In Britain, even the Conservatives are demanding the issue be made a top national priority. In spring 2005, in Seattle, where I live, Mayor Greg Nickels recognized that even though the Bush administration was still denying the consequences of global warming, local mayors could still take a stand. Nickels committed Seattle to meet or exceed the Kyoto standards of greenhouse gas reduction and challenged the mayors of other cities to make the same commitment. Now 238 cities have signed the US Mayor's Climate Protection Agreement, from New York, Los Angeles, and Chicago to Omaha, Charlottesville, and Laredo. Together they represent 44 million people and greenhouse gas emissions exceeding those of the combined population of Great Britain, the Netherlands and Scandinavia.
Nickels also created a committee of environmental, business and community leaders to issue a Green Ribbon Report on specific ways Seattle could cut back. They just issued their report after a year of work, and the municipally owned utility, City Light, will now meet all new electrical demand with conservation and renewable resources - they've already been giving rebates for energy-efficient light bulbs and appliances. Seattle will expand infrastructure for public transportation, biking and walking. The city will offer incentives and requirements for city contractors to use more fuel-efficient vehicles or ones using bio-fuels, and work with major employers to increase car-sharing. A Green Building program will support conservation in residential and commercial construction and renovation.' Lees verder:
http://www.truthout.org/issues_06/061606EA.shtml