Environmental Awareness
Kyoto Now! by Dena Ventrudo
By Dena Ventrudo
Dena Ventrudo is the Assistant Editor of Merlian News. She is a published poet and creative writer. Dena volunteered as an environmentalist with the New York Public Interest Research Group (NYPIRG) for three years serving as an project leader, an intern, and a board representative. She is attending SUNY Purchase College and will be graduating in May 2006 with a BA in Liberal Studies.
Dec 13, 2005 - 3:00:00 PM

"Environment ministers from around the world are trying to break a deadlock over climate change policy, at a major UN conference in Montreal." BBC News

The US and some developing nations, like India, have not signed on to a crucial plan, the Kyoto Protocol.

The Kyoto treaty is a plan to limit greenhouse gas emissions and expires in 2012.  Some countries, like the US, refuse to sign, and insist on a policy of voluntary reductions using new technology, claiming the Kyoto Protocol will harm economic development and growth. 

Canada's environment minister, Mr. Dion, has made a proposition regarding a more vast discussion of what various countries might be ready to do after the year 2012.  This would coincide with more stringent carbon reduction targets for industrialized nations.

There was a positive response, where countries who had formerly denied the treaty, signed on, such as China and Australia.  Yet India, one of the largest oil producing countries in the world, and the US, the world’s largest carbon emitter, still refuse to join the effort to salvage this planet.

We are past the point of imagining possibilities.  The effects of global climate change are already apparent, there isn’t much time.  A leading US climate scientist has warned that the world has only one decade to get to grips with climate change.

In a meeting of American Geophysical Union in San Francisco, Dr. James Hansen stated that just 1C more of global warming would take the Earth into climate patterns it has not experienced for more than 500,000 years. However, serious and persistent action on energy efficiency to bring about reductions in greenhouse gas emission could lead to some stabilization. (BBC News)

In other words, we've only got a decade to get a grip on this!

So write your local legislators , write your president, and tell them, “KYOTO NOW!”

Earth To America!

Global Warming: A Reality Check

Still want to learn more about the Kyoto Protocol? Click here

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