We’ve lived so long under the spell of hierarchy—from god-kings to feudal lords to party bosses—that only recently have we awakened to see not only that “regular” citizens have the capacity for self-governance, but that without their engagement our huge global crises cannot be addressed. The changes needed for human society simply to survive, let alone thrive, are so profound that the only way we will move toward them is if we ourselves, regular citizens, feel meaningful ownership of solutions through direct engagement. Our problems are too big, interrelated, and pervasive to yield to directives from on high.
—Frances Moore Lappé, excerpt from Time for Progressives to Grow Up

Tuesday, December 27, 2011

No Time Left to Adapt to Melting Glaciers

Click here to access article by Stephen Leahy from IPS.
The water supplied by the glaciers of the Cordillera Blanca, vital to a huge region of northwest Peru, is decreasing 20 years sooner than expected, according to a new study.
Michel Baraer, a glaciologist at Canada's McGill University and a lead author of the recently completed study, has come to these conclusions:
"This water decline is guaranteed. The only question is how much and how quickly," he said. There is already so much carbon in the atmosphere from the burning of fossil fuels that it is "already too late for most of the glaciers in the Andes,"


Their research on Peru's glaciers provides another example what many climate warming scientists see ahead: climate changes coming so fast that we will be unable to adapt. I'm not suggesting that the situation is hopeless and therefore we should do nothing. I'm suggesting that we need immediately to make every effort to change a system that is addicted to growth and driving us to extinction--capitalism.