Climate Change or Global Warming is the number one issue facing the human race today.
It is the basic issue of life on earth. Oceans are rising and dying, primary farm belts throughout the world are becoming deserts, fresh water is being polluted and we continue to debate whether it is real and what role man has played.
Evidence of Climate Change
NASA
NASA concludes that "Scientific evidence for warming of the climate system is unequivocal".
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Yes: "The Earth's climate has changed throughout history. Just in the last 650,000 years there have been seven cycles of glacial advance and retreat, with the abrupt end of the last ice age about 7,000 years ago marking the beginning of the modern climate era — and of human civilization. Most of these climate changes are attributed to very small variations in Earth’s orbit that change the amount of solar energy our planet receives."
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But: "The current warming trend is of particular significance because most of it is very likely human-induced and proceeding at a rate that is unprecedented in the past 1,300 years."
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(2014) National Climate Assessment
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This report "concludes that the evidence of human-induced climate change continues to strengthen and that impacts are increasing across the country."
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There is a lot of evidence. "Americans are noticing changes all around them. Summers are longer and hotter, and extended periods of unusual heat last longer than any living American has ever experienced. Winters are generally shorter and warmer. Rain comes in heavier downpours. People are seeing changes in the length and severity of seasonal allergies, the plant varieties that thrive in their gardens, and the kinds of birds they see in any particular month in their neighborhoods."
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Some other active groups:
(found on Moyers & Company interview with Bill McKibbens of 350.org)
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350.org - "founded with the goal of uniting climate activists into a movement, with a strategy of bottom-up organizing around the world"
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Sierra Club - "change came last year when, in the face of increasingly dire warnings from climate scientists, the group’s executive director, Michael Brune, and then-president, Allison Chin, were arrested — with about 50 others, including McKibben — outside the White House protesting the Keystone XL pipeline"
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Greenpeace - "initial advocacy work focused on its opposition to nuclear testing... (but) ... the organization’s priority has shifted from nuclear proliferation to confronting climate change"
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Idle No More - "a group of mostly Canadian Native North Americans, sprang into existence in October 2012, when Canada’s conservative prime minister Stephen Harper pushed a law, known as C-45, through parliament that rolled back both environmental protections and indigenous peoples’ sovereignty in order to make the country’s tar sands, and the crude oil that could be extracted from them, more easily exploitable"
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Union of Concerned Scientists - "founded during the height of the Vietnam war during a teach-in at MIT to protest the US government’s militarization of science. Initially, the group was concerned with nuclear proliferation and energy issues, but over time has shifted its focus to sustainability. Today, the majority of the UCS’s areas of advocacy focus on climate change"
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There are many more
What Can We Do?
There are many actions, here are a few
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350.org (The Science) - “If humanity wishes to preserve a planet similar to that on which civilization developed and to which life on Earth is adapted, paleoclimate evidence and ongoing climate change suggest that CO2 will need to be reduced from [current levels] to at most 350 ppm.”
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Fossil Free - "If it is wrong to wreck the climate, then it is wrong to profit from that wreckage. We believe that educational and religious institutions, governments, and other organizations that serve the public good should cut their ties to the fossil fuel industry"
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Get Involved - joining groups helps us to learn, become positive and find ways to act
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Sign petitions - do this regularly even though it can be a pain
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Contact your local, state and federal representatives - add them to your phone's "contacts"
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Watch what is happening - find good sources since the corporate media is mostly propaganda