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Chad
Kister to speak on Arctic Climate Change Effects
Wed.,
Feb. 8, 5:30pm, Lord Auditorium, Asheville, NC
Arctic Melting author
touring country by fuel efficient train
After again touring throughout the Canadian and Alaskan Arctic, Arctic Melting
author Chad Kister is on another speaking tour by train from the West Coast to the East Coast and back to Ohio.
On February 8, Kister will be speaking and presenting a slide show at Lord
Auditorium in the basement of the Pack Library in Asheville, sponsored by
the Canary Coalition.
The permafrost has caved in with 20-foot-deep sinkholes, glaciers have melted 8 miles in the last 16 years, open water formed over the North Pole, Native American villages have crumbled into the sea along the Arctic Ocean and Bering Strait and pack ice has retreated hundreds of miles and decreased more than 40 percent in thickness in 50 years.
Millions of acres of forest have died because of climate change induced insect outbreaks causing record fires, and the most well known Arctic animals like polar bear, walrus and seal are threatened with extinction.
With Global Warming Bush pushing for yet more subsidies to the doomed fossil fuel industry that is the cause of climate change,
Arctic Melting: How Climate Change is Destroying One of the World's Largest Wilderness Areas details not only the horrific problems, but also the solutions to this massive crisis.
Arctic Melting shows how climate change needs to be the central focus of policy makers, institutions and individuals to make the needed changes to ensure the diversity and quality of life as we know it for our children. The book details massive, unquestionably and horrific changes that
threaten the existence of the polar bear, walrus, seal, bowhead whale, caribou, scores of species of birds and some of the last native peoples still living off the land.
With discussion in Washington now on the Energy Bill, Arctic Melting provides the needed solution to this "creeping disaster" as Alaskan Senator Ted Stevens described climate change. Through solar, wind and biomass energy sources, and efficiency in every sector of energy use, we can easily meet all of our needs without changing our lifestyle. This would reduce and ultimately eliminate greenhouse gas emissions.
Arctic Melting details a Pentagon report under the Bush Administration that found climate change to be a much more serious threat than terrorism. That report likened the probably abrupt climate change that could easily occur in the next few years to the tipping of a canoe, that starts slowly and then overturns in a violent upheaval.
The media needs to act for the will of the people and common sense in repeatedly asking why Global Warming Bush's energy policy gives billions of dollars to coal, oil and natural gas companies, while reducing subsidies to solar and wind energy production? Why is the average fuel efficiency of vehicles in the United States getting worse while in every other country on Earth it is getting far better?
Just by increasing the corporate average fuel economy to 39 mpg, we can save more than a hundred times more oil than could ever come from the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. And that would reduce greenhouse gas emissions while drilling in the Arctic Refuge would increase them.
Just eliminating the exemption of Sport Utility Vehicles from the Corporate Average Fuel Economy would save far more oil than could ever come from the Arctic Refuge. And this would not change the lifestyle of Americans: Ford now has an SUV getting 39 mpg using hybrid electric technology.
What this would do is help every American by saving us money at the pumps, employing more people in the auto industry to retool the industry and reduce greenhouse gas emissions. This would help our economy by importing less oil and improve our image as a world citizen in a very real way.
The United States, with 4 percent of the world's population emits 25 percent of greenhouse gas emissions. Any energy policy needs to include real measures to begin the path of rectifying this global injustice. The beautiful thing is that the solutions create such a nicer world and solves so many other environmental problems, such as mining, smog, mercury pollution, oil spills and extractive industrial development in pristine lands.
Arctic Melting quotes top scientists who relate the massive potential of wind and solar energy to meet all of our needs. This will not take new technology or excessive monetary input, but can be achieved within our existing technological and economic limitations.
Don't
miss this presentation. Wednesday, Feb. 8, 5:30pm, Lord Auditorium,
Pack Library, Asheville, NC
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Caring
for Creation Joins Effort
for
Disapproval Bill on NC PSD revisions
Caring
for Creation, an important environmental alliance of members of the
religious community in North Carolina has decided to join the effort in
calling for a Bill of Disapproval on the PSD rule revision handed down by
the Environmental Management Commission last year.
The
PSD rule is part of the New Source Review process that was designed to phase
out "grandfather" emission control exemptions for older power
plants, factories and refineries. The revision of the PSD rules creates
loopholes in the regulations making it easier for older industries to
maintain their exemptions.
Canary
Coalition members were able to temporarily block implementation of the
revised standards by submitting letters of objection to the Rules Review
Commission last April. But, unless a Bill of Disapproval is passed in
the 2006 NC General Assembly the revised rules will come into effect.
So
far, joining the Canary Coalition in this effort along with Caring for
Creation is the Western North Carolina Alliance, Clean Water for North
Carolina and Carolinas Clean Air Coalition.
View
the letter to state legislators. |
