As far as the scientific community is concerned the evidence for man-made global climate change (commonly called global warming) is overwhelming -- so much so that it is accepted as fact by more than 95% of all scientists, and more than 98% of all climate scientists. And these scientists have issued a clear warning. They say that action must be taken to reduce the warming to a maximum of 2 degrees Celsius (or 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit), because a rise in average temperature above that level would result in serious and devastating climate changes.Unfortunately, the corporate interests and too many national leaders lack the will to take the necessary action. In fact, this lack of will is actually allowing the situation to grow worse each year. And it has now reached the point where many scientists no longer believe the warming can be limited to the desired goal of 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit). They say significant action would have to be taken immediately to stick to those goals. Obviously, that is not going to happen.
Just look at the latest figures. According to the journal Nature Climate Change, the amount of new CO2 released into the worldwide atmosphere increased by 3% last year, or about 1 billion pounds more than the previous year. That means that all nations combined pumped about 38.2 billion pounds of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere last year (or about 2.4 million pounds every second) -- and there's no reason to believe it won't pump even more into the atmosphere this year. To say that nothing is being done to curtail global climate change would be an understatement.
To his credit, President Obama is trying to get something done (through actions like the EPA restricting cross-state pollution, and the increase in fuel efficiency requirements for vehicles). His administration's actions are responsible for the U.S. registering a small decrease in the amount of CO2 it is releasing (one of only two countries showing a decrease -- the other being Germany, which is aggressively moving toward clean and renewable energy sources). But congressional Republicans still deny the fact of global climate change, and still block attempts by the administration to take significant action to reduce CO2 emissions.
And corporate propaganda questioning climate science has caused the American public to be very slow in recognizing the seriousness of this problem. Although a majority of Americans finally believe that global warming is real, too many still doubt that it is man-made. This gives political cover to the congressional climate-deniers, and allows the corporations to continue polluting without any real penalties (or having to pay to clean up their own mess).
Unfortunately, this means that very little will be done worldwide. Since the United States is one of the biggest users of energy and abusers of fossil fuels to create that energy (with only China being worse), other nations will not be compelled to take action until the United States (and China) do so. Like it or not, this is one area in which the United States must take a leadership role, because if it doesn't the world will move inexorably toward disaster an an increasing rate. The best case scenario for our grandchildren and great-grandchildren would be a serious decline in the standard of living, and the worst case would be a world incapable of sustaining human life.
Here are the 10 worst offenders, and the amount of CO2 pollution each pumped into the atmosphere last year:
1. China...........10 billion tons
2. United States..........5.9 billion tons
3. India..........2.5 billion tons
4. Russia..........1.8 billion tons
5. Japan..........1.3 billion tons
6. Germany..........0.8 billion tons
7. Iran..........0.7 billion tons
8. South Korea..........0.6 billion tons
9. Canada..........0.6 billion tons
10. South Africa..........0.6 billion tons
