 Why lose sleep?
Better cautious than dead.Scientists cannot prove what they say will eventually happen,
argue some. Responding to the threat is expected to be expensive, complicated, and
difficult, they add. Yet, if the nations of the world wait for the perfect science, until
the consequences and victims are clear, it will probably be too late to act.
The issue is no longer whether or not climate change is a potentially serious problem.
Rather, it is how the problem will develop and what its effects will be. The science will
never be perfect when dealing with something as complicated as the planet's climate
system. But there is general agreement in scientific circles that climate change is indeed
happening and that we have to act, and act fast.
 What are we doing?
Precious little.
165 nations signed the 1992 United Nations
Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) at the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro. It
is one of a series of recent environmental agreements through which countries around the
world are putting their heads together to meet this challenge.
Solving the problem of climate change is going to be the biggest cooperative effort of
nations and peoples around the world. Are we up to it?
According to scientists, the only way to escape the disastrous consequences associated
with climate change, is to reduce emissions by 50-70 per cent below 1990 levels. The use
of fossil fuels, hence carbon emissions are closely linked to economic growth and
lifestyle. The richer you are the more you emit. So someone has to put limits to their
emissions, hence the way they live. Someone has to stop driving fuel guzzling sports
utility vehicles. But few are willing to change the way they live.
|
