Rising Sea Levels Create first Climate Change Refugees

Climate Crisis
Today we take action against global warming. Along with actions in Montreal and in more than 60 localities around the world, we are in NYC to introduce the People’s Ratification of the Kyoto Global Warming Treaty. Together with the Environmental Defense, Greenpeace, Energy Action and other really great, really dedicated groups, we have at least 650,000 signatures on a petition against global warming.

Many of us have been feeling very worried, and sad and angry that the Bush Administration and Congress and our Representatives have been putting our childrens lives and future at risk.

The Bush Administration does not want to stop Global Warming, and in fact, has debilitated the protection of our country's air, water, public lands and wildlife, deceiving us and under the White House's rule, the very government agencies entrusted to protect our children from polluters have destroyed environmental laws. With Bush’s polices, our children’s standards of living have been diminished.

Bush's "Healthy Forests" initiative, promotes destructive logging. It is a lie. His "Clear Skies" program, allows more emissions. It is a lie. The administration lies and tries to twist our understanding of issues with words like streamlining or reforming instead of weakening, and thinning instead of logging.

The Kyoto Treaty is a diplomatic accomplishment. The Bush Administration has rejected this treaty. Their idea of diplomacy rests on plundering for oil, and a fatal addiction to fossil fuels.

In a misguided and tragic war for oil, our American leaders have murdered our children, over 2000 of our heroic soldiers in Iraq. Innocent foreign citizens have been killed, approximately 30,000, and 42,000 wounded. Iraqi children, babies, have been burned to the bone with chemicals that melt their skin. And many Iraqi children who survive are maimed and orphaned and traumatized. Life is such a precious gift and we are being used as kindling for the fire that burns the administrations profits for oil. We have been made into idiots in the eyes of the international community. The Bush Administration has fueled a terrorist movement against us, and finally, propelled us into a future of climate crisis’ that could become catastrophic.

This administration has altered, suppressed and discredited clear scientific facts about Global Warming, launching a $100 million ten-year effort ($100 Million dollars of our tax money) to prove unsuccessfully, that global temperature changes have occurred without human influence.

The Bush administration has dishonestly and corrosively given thousands of environmental-science jobs to compliant industry consultants who change data to support corporate profit.

America has been hijacked and our children’s future has been severely compromised by Bush and his corporate oil buddies. The corruption is staggering and they are propelling us dangerously, and criminally toward a Global Climate Crisis.

Franklin Roosevelt warned, "the liberty of a democracy is not safe if the people tolerate the growth of private power to a point where it becomes stronger than their democratic state itself. That, in its essence, is fascism -- ownership of government by an individual, by a group or by any controlling power."

Well, I don’t want to live in a fascist state. Or as a corporate consumer slave. And I don’t want to see my earth, my environment and it’s people and our children destroyed by greed, selfish profit and stupidity. So, I have joined a coalition. And I have been working on a campaign. Not a campaign for a politician, a campaign for our children’s future. USA Join the World, www.kyotoandbeyond.org with The Climate Crisis Coalition.

The Climate Crisis Coalition is a coalition of individuals, ordinary citizens, moms, dads, students, artists, business owners, laborers, all kinds of different people, organizations and constituencies engaged in the stop global warming movement. We have formed to advance awareness, to forge a common agenda and advance action plans with a united front about the urgent crisis of Global Warming.

We are doing this with urgancy because, the scientific consensus is that Climate Change is accelerating much faster than anticipated. The permafrost in the West Siberian tundra is melting and will release hundreds of millions of tons of methane from thawing peat bogs into the atmosphere. On top of already soaring CO2 levels peat bog methane will push global temperatures much higher than what was previously expected.

The West Antarctic Ice Sheet is disintegrating, and Greenland glacial ice is melting into the ocean at an unprecedented rate. If a significant amount of either of these ice sheets smashes down into the ocean, sea levels will rise worldwide by 15-20 feet, inundating coastal cities and towns. In this scenario, with the Gulf Stream shutting down, Europe will be covered in ice.

We are experiencing drastic shrinking of ice floes in the Arctic Ocean, which is now expected to be ice-free throughout the summer before the end of this century. Sea levels are rising.

Why is this a crisis? The current repercussions of this climate crisis are endless and all connected with multiple climate change impacts, from land and sea storms increasing in strength, to the disintegration of the Inuit and Nuptial cultures, starving polar bears, threatened caribou herds, increasing severity in insect attacks and infestation, increases in disease, towns sinking on the thawing permafrost, small islands becoming submerged, changing winds in the Northern hemisphere, extinction of aquatic, animal and plant life, and changes in animal reproduction and migration. Without immediate human intervention we will see escalating and more extreme disasters along coastlines, storms and drought, disease pandemics, collapsing agriculture, massive numbers of refugees and, on past that, even greater cataclysmic Earth events.

If we stop industrial carbon dioxide emissions this minute, temperatures will continue to rise and dangerous levels of greenhouse gases will stay in the atmosphere for decades. The ability of our Earth to sustain life is deteriorating. If we do nothing the collapse will accelerate and intensify each season.

As difficult to believe and emotionally debilitating as it is, these events are happening. We don’t have time for neutrality. If we do nothing, the collapse will accelerate and intensify each season. The environmental chain of events will snowball. We will experience misery on massive scales until it becomes clear, too late, that we belligerently, arrogantly and feeble-mindedly failed to redefine civilization.

My experience has been that after a wavering denial period was over and the shocking realization of impending climate catastrophe sank in, it was agonizing to create anything. Art pieces seemed insignificant, useless or just sad. Then a Cassandra syndrome occurred, Cassandra, from the great Greek Drama Trojan Women, Cassandra lost her mind because others didn’t see what she knew was happening. This Cassandra syndrome was followed by denial again, hoping I was only Chicken Little. Then immobility, feeling helpless to change anything, followed by a broken heart. I wasn’t (actually I’m still not) the life of the party. The process of creating something can seem much too slow compared to losing your mind or taking to the streets.

So, what can we do?
We can be pioneers of change. We can influence and mobilize people, government, businesses, our schools and all our institutions to act on all levels to stop Global Warming. It is a very real possibility that we can avert some of these oncoming disasters by converting our energy strategy from fossil fuel addiction to clean energy. With the Earth’s gifts of sun and wind, with serious conservation of resources, and conversion to the use of environmentally benign vehicles, we can create millions of jobs and save many lives.

There is no kind of scientific evidence that will convince the White House to take action on global warming."

We must convince them. We must take them out of office. We don’t have time to waste. And we must make our voices heard and vote into office, those who can represent us properly.

Americans are dying and will continue to die for the Bush Administrations mistakes.

We can all participate in the dialogue, and make choices that determine the destiny of our communities, our children and our Earth. It is imperative that we adapt as quickly as we can to save our children and future generations from an impoverished environmental legacy. We must help each other through these challenging times and into a more sustainable way of life.

We have taken to the streets to protest the state of crisis in our environment and in our government and we demand that our leaders honor our rights as American citizens of the Earth to do all we can to protect our children and our planet, our only home, from harm. We the People insist on the Ratification of the Kyoto Global Warming Treaty.

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