OPEC Oil and Climate Change
TRANSCEND MEMBERS, 25 Apr 2016
John Scales Avery – TRANSCEND Media Service
In an amazing display of collective schizophrenia, our media treat oil production and the global climate emergency as though they were totally disconnected. But the use of all fossil fuels, including oil, must stop almost immediately if the world is to have a chance of avoiding uncontrollable and catastrophic climate change.
The recent Doha summit meeting of the Oil Producing and Exporting Countries (OPEC) aimed at reaching an agreement on limiting the production of oil. This aim did not stem from the climate emergency but rather from a desire to raise oil prices and profits. However, the OPEC meeting failed to reach an agreement. Production continues to be extremely high and prices low.
http://www.cnbc.com/2016/04/17/doha-oil-producers-meeting-ends-without-an-agreement.html
Our high-energy lifestyles continue. Our profligate use of fossil fuels continues as though the life-threatening climate emergency did not exist.
Meanwhile, early spring temperatures in 2016 have totally smashed all previous records, and this is especially pronounced in the Arctic and Antarctic regions. Polar ice caps are melting in an alarmingly rapid and non-linear way. The rate of melting of the icecaps is far greater than predicted by conventional modeling that does not include feedback loops. Many island nations and coastal cities are threatened, not in the very distant future, but by the middle of our present century. Here are a few links reporting what is happening:
http://www.commondreams.org/news/2016/03/14/nasa-drops-major-bomb-march-toward-ever-warmer-planet
http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/35283-arctic-sea-ice-volume-nears-record-low
http://dissidentvoice.org/2016/03/does-methane-threaten-life/
http://www.countercurrents.org/bardi150316.htm
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article44427.htm
http://ecowatch.com/2016/03/02/february-record-hot/
http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/charctic-interactive-sea-ice-graph/
http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/
http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2016/03/01/3754891/arctic-sea-ice-growth/
http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2016/02/16/3749815/carbon-pollution-hottest-12-months-january/
http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/35468-agriculture-on-the-brink
http://ecowatch.com/2016/04/08/mckibben-break-free/
http://www.motherjones.com/environment/2016/04/water-scarcity-wikileaks
http://www.commondreams.org/news/2016/04/15/towards-common-good-mr-sanders-goes-vatican
In the long-term future, catastrophic anthropogenic climate change threatens to destroy human civilization and to drive the majority of plant and animal species into extinction. To prevent this from happening, we need to stop subsidising and accepting fossil fuel production. We need to vigorously support the transition to a sustainable economy based on renewable energy.
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John Scales Avery, Ph.D., who was part of a group that shared the 1995 Nobel Peace Prize for their work in organizing the Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs, is a member of the TRANSCEND Network and Associate Professor Emeritus at the H.C. Ørsted Institute, University of Copenhagen, Denmark. He is chairman of both the Danish National Pugwash Group and the Danish Peace Academy and received his training in theoretical physics and theoretical chemistry at M.I.T., the University of Chicago and the University of London. He is the author of numerous books and articles both on scientific topics and on broader social questions. His most recent book is Civilization’s Crisis in the 21st Century (pdf).
This article originally appeared on Transcend Media Service (TMS) on 25 Apr 2016.
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