Tags
California Drought, Divesting from fossil fuels, Earth Day 2015, Earth Day Network, Global Poverty and Climate Change, Green Cities Campaign, Transition to clean renewable energy, Two Billion Acts of Green, United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP21)
Earth Day 2015: It’s Our Turn to Lead
Image Credit: Earth Day Network
Wednesday, April 22, is Earth Day 2015. The theme this year is “It’s our turn to lead.” Our leaders worldwide are dragging their feet in addressing global poverty and climate change. While they debate and make pledges they don’t keep, the degradation of Earth’s ecosystems won’t take a timeout.
In December 2015, around 40,000 world leaders and other participants will meet in Paris at the United Nations Conference on Climate Change (COP21). [Their] aim is to reach, for the first time, a universal, legally binding agreement that will enable us to combat climate change effectively and boost the transition towards resilient, low-carbon societies and economies. The stakes are high. To make this happen, we have to lead the way by raising our voices as one.
Individuals and organizations have already begun the transition process to renewable energy solutions by divesting from the fossil fuel industrial complex. As we have already experienced in changing from wood to coal to oil, energy transition is a slow, decades-long process. Resistance from the fossil fuel barons will be relentless.
To coincide with meetings at the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF), activities for Earth Day 2015 kicked off on April 18 in Washington D.C. with Global Citizen 2015 Earth Day, a free event organized by the Earth Day Network and The Global Poverty Project. For those who missed this event, there are several more activities planned in the United States and across our planet. Search here for events in your country.
The Earth Day Network is calling on cities and their leaders to go 100 percent renewable by 2050. To accelerate this transition, you can join the Green Cities Campaign.
In collaboration with other organizations, the Earth Day Network is also promoting the largest climate petition ever, calling on each one of us to do our part to keep the increase in the average global temperature below 2 degrees Celsius (35.6 degrees Fahrenheit).
Before the United Nations Conference on Climate Change (COP21) in December 2015, the Earth Day Network continues to work at achieving its goal of registering Two Billion Acts of Green for submission to the Conference. In committing to implement a small achievable action, like reducing our energy usage, we take the first step towards reducing our carbon footprint.
When we are unwilling to make the right choices for a more sustainable global economy and lifestyle, we will eventually be forced to do so. Just ask Governor Jerry Brown of California, my home state. Faced with our deepening water crisis after four consecutive years of drought, Brown admitted on ABC’s “This Week” Sunday April 5, that “we do live with a somewhat archaic water law situation… And I can tell you, from California, climate change is not a hoax. We’re dealing with it, and it’s damn serious.”
In the days and weeks ahead, let us join forces to show our world leaders a new direction forward. The survival of life on Earth is at stake. It’s our turn to lead.
Three Worlds One Vision 
Reblogged this on Guyanese Online.
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Cyril, thanks for sharing with your readers.
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Well said, Rosaliene. I have sometimes thought that we humans have too short a life span to learn enough about the awful consequences of our action (or inaction). Were we, individually, to suffer from the effects of climate change in a more obvious way, we might be less likely to deny the disaster we are in the process of visiting on our children. Of course, if we lived longer, there would be even more people on the planet, using even more carbon, etc.
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Thanks for sharing your thoughts on this issue, Dr. Stein.
We, here in California, are already suffering from the effects of climate change. (I’ll discuss California’s crisis situation in next week’s post.) Several other American states are also suffering from the effects of climate change with extreme weather conditions.
Climate change is not a thing of the future. It’s already here. But the worse is yet to come.
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I know you are right, Rosaliene. But most of the USA is not California and it is easy for many to think of the climate change effects as either somewhere else, temporary and cyclical, or an excessive reaction by a few extremists. I personally don’t think there is data to support their stance, but most individuals are not data-driven. Many of the reactions to these issues are emotional and political, not to say expedient and often a function of material interests. All that said, I don’t have a magic bullet to help make people understand the urgency and the “present” nature of the problem. I am glad people like you are doing what you can.
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Dr. Stein, when our giant media corporations resume their responsibility by reporting the causes and effects of climate change in our communities, cities, and across our nation, anthropogenic climate disruption will become urgent for every American citizen.
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Thank you for enlarging my vocabulary. The next time anyone refers to anything I do as anthropogenic, I shall know to be offended;)
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Can’t help feeling impatient when global groups for positive change create time goals like 2050, 2030, etc. It’s almost analogous to a violent husband who sets the goal of stopping the abuse of his wife by 2020. Or peace activists setting 2040 as the year war ends. Such far-in-the-future goal-setting seems to greatly reduce the necessary sense of urgency to deal with major problems now, not tomorrow.
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You make a valid point, Jerry. What makes our situation worse is that we’ve been procrastinating in handling the greatest problem of our civilization for so many years that we’ve run out of time.
On the other hand, the problem is so great that we can’t achieve change in the short term; hence the need for setting a date for achieving our goal. Thirty-five years to 2050 will soon be upon us.
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