Now!

Climate change, you may have the feeling you know more about it than you want, that you know too much. The technicalities of how, by what tools, in what kind of toolbox, may not really interest you, but it should. Not for your or your neighbor's and friend's children or grandchildren's sake. No, climate change has not only long term implications or consequences in 50 years time. It's implications are here today. And we helped create it. Even President Bush recognized it twice in the last two weeks... It is also recognized by the leading experts and legisators that the action plans should be global and the seat for negotiations about who does what should be the United Nations. That was also said a few days ago by Condy... That after loosing years of time of not acknowledging that something is wrong. The consequences are felt already by millions of people. I could refer to the changing storm patterns, but also to the rise in food prices in China: 18 % in one year, because of bad harvests among other for rice and a shortage of pigmeat. I could speak about the high prizes in the grain market because there was an extreme drought in Australia, just there and at the moment the climate experts had predicted it. This means that millions of people are to pay more for their daily bread... Are there advantages in global warming? If you consider growing strawberries on the north pole, yeah, if you think that offsets the drying up of small mountain glaciers and the thread of having no water in vast regions in the South West of the US, in Southern Europe, in China, in Australia, and of course in Africa... The failing crop yields today are manifesting today all of Africa: today and tomorrow! Maps have to be redrawn because satellites show that great lakes are shrinking which leads to starvation and misery. Today climate change has 'security' implications. Don't we all love security issues for deciding policies... Expect floods of people, who are displaced, looking for a livable place... Thus we, the industrialized countries must lead by example and cut our emissions by 80 % by 2020. If we don't, well than we have lost a small window of opportunity to avoid the fatal tipping point in our climate when major coast lying cities will be flooded and Bangladesh and the small island states will disappear in the ocean. The legislators have to lay down a law with the goals and the means to realize them, creating opportunities for innovation and creativity and a decent life for all within an equitable global society. And please, switch off the light when you leave the room. The best energy is the energy that we are not using.