Wednesday, July 26, 2006

mother nature's warning

In England last week, the newest addition to our family, two-week old Alaska Rose, spent a scary night in hospital. Despite her mom’s best efforts to keep her precious new baby cool, Alaska Rose’s tiny body simply overheated. Had her parents dithered and not rushed her to hospital, doctors say she might well have gone into seizure and worse.

Also in England last week, during 40-degree centigrade (100F) temperatures, the BBC said "Get used to it!" They reported that Britain’s typically moderate summer temperatures will regularly reach over 100F within the next ten years.

Back here in the USA, more than 50 people lost their lives as a direct result of last week's heat wave. With temperatures soaring as high as 52C (that’s 125.6F!) in parts of California, the Fresno County Coroner, Loralee Cervantes, said so many bodies had arrived she couldn’t give an accurate figure for heat-related deaths. "We cannot keep up … we have capacity for 50 [bodies] and … no room for anyone else."
What's going on?
Tom Brokaw. Matt Damon. Al Gore. All three recently presented separate documentary films on global warming. All three films were slammed by right-wing critics as unbalanced, liberal, self-serving hogwash. Liberals struck back with accusations of right-wing conspiracy and denial theories.

One thing we can’t deny—because this is fact—is that the United States of America stands head and shoulders above every other nation when it comes to producing harmful greenhouse gases.

We consume. We toss. We throw. We are the world's biggest polluters. We waste more than any other nation on earth. And because of that, we take more from our planet than any other nation on earth.

So how do we justify being the only western industrialized country—along with Australia—who refuses to ratify the Kyoto Treaty?

Ratified by 141 nations, the 1997 agreement drawn in Kyoto, Japan, limits emissions from 35 industrialized countries and is estimated to reduce greenhouse gases by more than one billion tons by 2012. Although the Clinton regime was instrumental in drafting the Kyoto Protocol, President George W. Bush withdrew US support as soon as he took office. In fact, in March 2001, Bush was quoted as saying that the United States would never participate in the treaty since it would impact our bottom line; our economy.

Right. Left. Middle of the road. Who cares!

I care that little Alaska Rose has a healthy future and a healthy planet. And I trust you care that your children and grandchildren do too.


For more information on the Kyoto Treaty and to learn what you can do, see United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.


8 comments:

Ginco said...

This heat is dreadful, last
Sunday we suffered with temps
of 42°C, by 11.45pm, one could
not sleep - 30°C! It,s really
frightening.
I sure hope the little button
is fine and coping much better.

Kelly Wolfe said...

Amen. Amen!

Lisa

Yasmine Galenorn said...

You're preaching to the choir, ~V~. Now if we could just get the nutjobs in office to believe it--what do they care, though? They'll be dead by the time things get unbearable, and I have sincere doubts they care anything about future generations. How do we go about starting a grassroots movement to change things? I've never understood how people managed to do that, but I suppose this is one way--getting the word out. Will put those links on my blog too!

~Y~

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Bibi said...

Thank you all for your comments and concern ... and yes, my niece tells me that Alaska Rose is a little grumpy, but doing very well.

Charles said...

I care too. Its almost as if the United States has a split personality based on the presidency.

I think Life is way more important than the bottom dollar.

Bibi said...

I agree Charles. We have to ask, at what cost, and I don't mean financial.