Posted on 12/01/2005 12:36:49 PM PST by NormsRevenge
Activists demanding urgent action on global warming plan to take to the streets Saturday across the United States and beyond, with hybrid car parades, parties and marches.
The demonstrations are planned to coincide with a 10-day United Nations Climate Change Conference being held in Montreal.
There, the Bush administration has been criticized for refusing to sign on to international agreements that cap industrial emissions. President Bush has called for an 18 percent reduction in the U.S. growth rate of greenhouse gases by 2012 and has committed $5 billion a year to science and technology to address global warming.
"This is not just an environmental issue; it's a survival issue," said Ted Glick, who heads a group called Climate Crisis Coalition.
The largest protests are expected to take place in Montreal on Saturday, but smaller actions are planned in more than 30 countries and in about 40 cities around the United States.
In Washington, drivers of hybrid cars plan to rally around the White House. In New Orleans, residents plan to hold a "Save New Orleans, Stop Global Warming" party in the French Quarter. Other events will be held from Boston to Los Angeles.
Scientists believe global warming will intensify storms, floods, heat waves and drought. They are studying whether climate change has already strengthened hurricanes, whose energy is drawn from warm ocean waters, or whether the Atlantic Basin and Gulf of Mexico are witnessing only a cyclical upsurge in intense storms.
A September survey of 800 registered voters by the Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions at Duke University found that 79 percent favored stronger environmental standards, but only 22 percent said environmental concerns have played a major role in determining for whom they voted.
In focus groups, voters told pollsters they see the environment as a long-term problem that cannot compare in urgency to immediate concerns such as jobs, health care or taxes.
"Global warming is an issue that has a certain level of interest, but it's not as high on most people's radar screen as something that is more visible every day," said University of Minnesota history professor Roland Guyotte, who has studied protests in the U.S.
Environmental protests have had an effect in the past, he said. The Earth Day events of 1970, which involved an estimated 20 million demonstrators and thousands of schools and communities, helped lead to the Clean Water Act, the Clean Air Act and the Environmental Protection Agency.
Protest organizers want Bush to sign on to the Kyoto Agreements, adopted in 1997 and ratified by 140 countries. The agreements call on the top 35 industrialized nations to cut emissions of carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping gases to 5.2 percent below their 1990 levels between 2008 and 2012.
The United States has refused to ratify the agreement, saying it would harm the U.S. economy and lacks restrictions on emissions by emerging economies such as China and India.
In the snow, many of them.
I'm tired of all this bad news about global warming and now threats of a new ice age. Woe is us!
But the good news is I saved a bunch of money switching to Geico
great book!
All Right!! I'm gonna celebrate by burning a pile of old tires!!!
I'm washing my truck that day...won't be able attend...
Meanwhile across town, scientists are worried about a "mini ice age" that is about to occur in Europe.
IT'S ALL FEMA'S FAULT!!!
Funniest part is that we, who are not signatories, are closer to the Kyoto objectives than any of the other industrialized signatories.
...will cause a wobble in the jet stream sending the artic air back to the artic and freeze Santa's butt before he can take off in...
JUST 24 SQUARED SHOPPING HOURS LEFT UNTIL CHRISTMAS and Chanuka and Kwanza.
By the way, the EPA has warned against lighting your holiday Candles next to your holiday Tree
especially...
...if you have wrapped a colorful holiday Gift hand made in Zaire.
Wonder if they will play Buster Poindexter's one hit wonder "Hot, Hot, Hot"?
They should knock it off. If we're really at the end of one of the interglacial periods, like some people say, then we're gonna need all the extra CO2 we can get to mitigate the coming ice age. Burn, baby, burn!
I'm not going if it's too hot out.
I wonder how many children (evil polluters/planet killers) Ted has added to the problem?
And wouldn't they do better to stay home, cause if they go, won't they be contributing to global warming?
I haven't heard back from you on the other thread. I'm prepared to continue addressing Singer, or any other link that you want me to.
I'll need to spend the time to do the homework. Your answers deserve serious responses.
No problem. There is much to discuss.
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