CO2 Emissions Reduction - Take Action Now

In late 2005 I watched a Horizon programme on the BBC about global dimming. This is the phenomenon where airborne pollutants (mainly sulphate) increase the reflectivity of clouds, reducing the warming effect of the sun on the earth's surface. The conclusion of the programme was that it has, in effect, been slowing the onset of global warming so that all existing predictions of the timescale are too conservative. It was also pinpointed as the root cause of the severe droughts in East Africa during the 80s.

In recent years there have been great strides taken to eliminate these pollutants from our skies, for public health reasons. It has been widely successful in Europe and the USA and brought the rains back to sub-saharan Africa. However, if we don't do something immediate and decisive about greenhouse gases - principally CO₂ emissions - we will have greatly accelerated the onset of global warming, to the point that much of the world will become uninhabitable within our own lifetimes.

I consider this to be the only issue of any importance in today's world. It doesn't matter if Osama Bin Laden kills a million westerners over the next ten years, if 100 million people die the following year in droughts and 2 Billion are made homeless by rising sea levels and coastal erosion a decade later! What is one megadeath when set against several gigadeaths? The Asian Tsunami, 100 times more devastating to human life than 9/11, should have taught us to respect the power of nature unleashed.

So, I have assembled the manifesto on this website. If these measures, or ones with a similar level of emissions reduction are implemented, they will rapidly reduce our production of CO₂, and so begin the long process of pulling us back from the brink of disaster. All of the measures can be brought into place at any time - the sooner the better. It is my contention that they should be, by every democratic government worthy of the name. This is not Kyoto - Kyoto may well be too little too late, and in any case has been undermined by the decision of the US Congress to refuse to ratify it, along with active, oil-powered opposition from the Whitehouse. (see this)

I hope that you, as an individual, can support these ideas, and promote them to your friends. All it will take is for the people of the world to speak, one individual at a time adding their voice to the multitude, until all sixty million of us are saying DO IT and then weh have the power to change the world in a positive way.

If we don't, our children will, rightly, curse our memories as they struggle to survive the armageddon we forsaw and didn't think important enough to get in the way of our petty concerns over money, religion and political philosophy.