Atlas Blogged! Climate Change In UK, in UP, in US?

Almost simultaneously last week, the Parliament of the United Kingdom (UK) and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) of the United Nations (UN) published their official statements on global warming. November 15 UK, a bill to be debated by Members of the Parliament. November 17 IPCC, a synthesis report to be acted upon by every Government in the world. Except the US?

Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand (1957, Random House) is ´about the importance of reason and productivity, and how those characteristics have such a bad press, relative to hope and inadequacy´ (undated, Harold Leiendecker, eckerd.edu). Just like in the Philippines, if the press would have little to do with global warming, which has everything to do with reason and continuing productivity, it´s just like the US.

Scientists telling politicians what must be done – in the case of global warming, I´m glad there´s no separation between Science and State. Kyoto Protocol was the boy who cried ´Wolf!´ on the blustery day of 1997 December 11; the United States (the US) was the villagers who told the shepherd boy in a delayed telecast 4 years later, ´Save your frightened song for when there is really something wrong!´ (borrowing from storyarts.org). What does that mean: The US can tell a lie when it sees none?

Ah, but listen to President George W Bush talk about the United States´ commitment to a leadership role in climate change (vienna.usembassy.gov):

The earth´s well-being is also an issue important to America – and it´s an issue that should be important to every nation and in every part of the world. My Administration is committed to a leadership role on the issue of climate change. We recognize our responsibility and we will meet it, at home, in our hemisphere, and in the world.´

Is that a fact? Yes, the US is the leading polluting country in the whole world (Vexen Crabtree, 2002 June, vexen.co.uk). No, on 2001 March 29, the Bush Administration withdrew the United States from the Kyoto Protocol (vienna.usembassy.gov). The Greatest Government on Earth cannot be told, not even reminded, what it must do. Pride before the fall?

Learning more from Atlas Shrugged, as according to Leiendecker (cited):

The overarching story is that the men of the mind, who like Atlas, carry the world on their shoulders, gradually get fed up with being exploited, and abused, and given no respect. They retire from the world, shrugging the burden, in effect.

In the United States, the overarching story is that the man of the command, who thinks he is Atlas carrying the world on his shoulder, shrugs the burden. Those whom the gods wish to destroy, first they make mad?

About leadership in climate change, there was the 1992 United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (ec.europa.eu). With the very first climate change bill in history, today the UK is the world´s #1 boy shepherd, tending to a pack of sheep grazing, knowing of a coming wolf that could devour not only the sheep but also the shepherd. Could it be that George W Bush doesn´t know the story of ´The Boy Who Cried Wolf?´ With the 4th assessment report of the UN IPCC, this is the 4th time the boy has cried ´Wolf!´ If you don´t care about the sheep, does that make you a wolf?

We recognize our responsibility and we will meet it, at home, in our hemisphere, and in the world.´ What George W Bush seems to be saying is that the US is at liberty to choose what course to take, as if rejecting the Kyoto Protocol as an imposition devoutly to be unwished, as if it is something abridging freedom of choice which, thereby, the US is claiming as the 1st freedom of a country. 66 years earlier, US President Franklin Delano Roosevelt spoke to the 77th US Congress (1941 January 6) about four freedoms: Freedom of speech, freedom of worship, freedom from want, freedom from fear. The Yankees are very good when it comes to declaring freedoms. Learning from the Yankees, I suggest the United Nations declare a 2nd freedom of a country, that is, freedom from pollution. In that way, the stubborn United States and other big polluting countries can exercise their freedom of choice and the stubborn countries of the rest of the world can combine forces and exert their freedom from pollution. Something´s got to give. I hope it will be the stubborn United States. If the US goes, can Australia be far behind?

The US is ignoring the history of global warming. My first Atlas of global warming is the French mathematician Jean Baptist Joseph Fourier who discovered in 1824 that the Earth´s temperature was slowly increasing (globalwarmingarchive.com). My next Atlas is Nobel Laureate Svante Arrhenius who in the late 1900s coined the term ´greenhouse effect´ to explain how CO2 traps heat in the Earth´s atmosphere. My third Atlas is amateur scientist GS Callendar who in the 1950s claimed that the greenhouse effect was impacting the atmosphere of the Earth. The ´Callendar effect´ led to increased research on global warming, and studies began to predict that increased use of fossil fuels would trigger an outbreak of global warming. My biggest Atlas would of course be, who else? Al Gore.

First the UK. Now then, what can the rest of the world do? 3 things:
(1) Countries pass their own Climate Change Laws.
(2) Countries plant climate crops.
(3) Intellectuals raise a storm.

(1) Countries pass their own Climate Change Laws.

And twice better than the UK Bill on Climate Change. (a) To reduce carbon dioxide emissions by at least 80% (the UK sets it at only 60%) by 2050, against 1990 levels. Countries can further learn from the UK example. According to Green Party principal speaker Caroline Lucas (politics.co.uk), ´We need a climate change bill which sets binding emissions-reduction targets of at least 6% a year´ to achieve cuts of 90% by 2030. (b) To put in place a year-on-year commitment, that is, measurable milestones on CO2 reductions. The UK bill does not do this. Without milestones, nobody can tell whether anything is moving forward. Unless of course you´re a politician and you´re really just making empty promises.

(2) Plant climate crops.

If you haven´t heard about climate crops, now you have. I first wrote about climate crops February this year, calling sweet sorghum ´The Great Climate Crop´ in the American Chronicle (americanchronicle.com). If I may define climate crop, it is a plant cultivated from which to extract biofuel ultimately to replace fossil fuels used in cars & trucks. A short list of climate crops is this: corn, jatropha, sugarcane, sweet sorghum.

Climate crop, biofuel crop.