The Time for Climate Change Solutions is NOW

The debate on how to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions must end quickly. Recent research has proven that climate change is now producing unacceptable impacts and we only have 10 to 20 years to head off catastrophic economic and biodiversity collapse.

The October 2006 Stern Report and the 2007 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Report emphasize that humanity has less than 20 years remaining to implement and strictly enforce global greenhouse gas reduction laws.

Also, in less than 10 years, we must significantly reduce our greenhouse gas emissions if we are to avoid severe shifts in the world’s weather patterns, according to NASA climatologist Jim Hansen. Some recent research findings:

R The horrible drought in Africa’s Darfur region, which precipitated genocide and civil wars, was caused by greenhouse gas-driven climate change according to a 2003 study by the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado. The Stern Report and the IPCC Report predict that other third world countries will suffer the same fate in the coming decades.

R If the average atmospheric temperature increases by just another 3.6 degrees, one third of all wildlife would be forced to migrate outside normal habitat ranges or face extinction.

R The IPCC scientists reported that there is a 90 percent probability that our rapid climate change is caused by human-released greenhouse gas. That number would have been 95 percent if it weren’t for political pressure on scientists to dilute their findings.

R According to Stern’s analysis, preventing a 3.6 degree temperature increase would cost the world $1 trillion dollars now (about the cost of 2 Iraq wars), or $20 trillion in later damages, if we do nothing.

R A business as usual path will cause more dramatic coastal storm surges, more intense hurricanes, greater destruction to transportation systems and infrastructure, even more

tornados and wildfires, as well as a 4.5 percent increase in ozone-related deaths by mid century.

R The World Health Organization estimates that global warming already claims the lives of 150,000 people each year.

The level of total greenhouses gases in our atmosphere is now at 430 parts per million (ppm). That total is presently increasing by about 2 ppm/year. If that total isn’t stabilized between 450 – 550 ppm within the next two decades and then rapidly reduced, the world’s economic impacts will be greater than the 20th century’s world wars and Great Depression combined, according to Stern.

The worst consequences to West Virginia citizens will be loss of life and property damage due to severe storm events and flooding, which will gradually increase in intensity and frequency as time goes on. We must see to it that state and federal disaster mitigation plans are fully funded and implemented.