Global warming to continue for centuries, UN says
Climate change may continue for centuries, and governments will have to spend billions of dollars annually to slow warming and adapt to its effects, a United Nations panel said.
Somehow, someway, we as a planet need to start working together on solutions for global warming. Starting now.
It’s times like reading about this study that I am thankful I don’t have kids (and don’t plan on having any).
Agreed. But this is also an area where individual action can accomplish much. Consider: The U.S. emits 25% of the world’s CO2, at 8.2 tons per year per capita. The average household emits about 4 tons, the rest (one presumes) is from industry.
Now, suppose that every household cut its emissions in half through basic conservation– not unreasonable considering the many examples of those who have done it succesfully– ironically, much of what we emit is from wasted energy. That leaves 6 tons of CO2 per person to be offset annually. How much would it cost to offset this with clean energy construction? At NativeEnergy.com, you can offset 6 tons for $72 per year or $6 per month. That helps finance clean energy plants (wind &/or methane recapture), which reduce the amount of CO2 generated by power plants. For $14 a month, you could offset your share of emissions and someone else’s (unreduced) share, too.
Obviously there’s a limit to how many clean utility plants we can build. At some point, theoretically, we don’t need any more– and the remaining emissions would come primarily from trucking our food and consumables across the country. But in the mean time, we will have moved this nation much closer to the necessary goal of clean power, while at the same time embedding responsible usage in the minds of Americans throughout the country.
We can’t go the distance without national and international action. But this is one issue where we can have a great deal of imapct on our own.
(This will be expanded on http://www.AsymptoticLife.com)
Whoops, I used an old per-capita CO2 figure. The current U.S. figure is not 8.2 tons, but about 20 tons of CO2 per person. Figuring a reduction through individual conservation of 2 tons per person, it would cost $216 per year or $18 per month to offset our own share; $38 per month to offset our own plus someone else’s.