There’s some hope amid the latest grim report:

Delivering the latest stark news about climate change on Sunday, a United Nations panel warned that governments are not doing enough to avert profound risks in coming decades. But the experts found a silver lining: Not only is there still time to head off the worst, but the political will to do so seems to be rising around the world.

In a report unveiled here, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change found that decades of foot-dragging by political leaders had propelled humanity into a critical situation, with greenhouse emissions rising faster than ever. Though it remains technically possible to keep planetary warming to a tolerable level, only an intensive push over the next 15 years to bring those emissions under control can achieve the goal, the committee found.

“We cannot afford to lose another decade,” said Ottmar Edenhofer, a German economist and co-chairman of the committee that wrote the report.

We could not afford to lose the last decade, either. Or the one before that. Americans, on the whole, have been unconcerned about climate change since at least 1989, and show no real signs of getting more concerned. But, if political will is indeed “rising around the world,” that is good.

Eli Sanders is The Stranger's associate editor. His book, "While the City Slept," was a finalist for the Washington State Book Award and the Dayton Literary Peace Prize. He once did this and once won this,...

3 replies on “No More Lost Decades on Climate Change?”

  1. The IPCC has been caught lying so many times, from the climategate documents that Wikileaks exposed them on, to that “95% certain that humans are causing climate change” line from last year, where they just assigned an arbitrary number decided on in closed door meetings between the report authors, it’s a wonder anyone takes them seriously anymore. They’re a political organization whose only goal is to soften the public up for more government centralization.

  3. There is both hope and even good news regarding CO2. The best course of action is to repurpose CO2 from it’s harmful form into a better form. We have done this by replenishing and restoring a large ocean pasture in the N. Pacific in 2012.

    Last falls largest catch of salmon in Alaska history near to our project proves it just works. Our work repurposed millions of tonnes of CO2 into hundreds of millions of salmon. A small part of that bountiful catch has now been purchased by US Food Aid programs and is on the way to feed hungry children. Here’s a link to learn more http://russgeorge.net/2014/04/09/usda-buys-pasture-fed-alaska-salmon-hungry-kids/

    The same methods can replenish and restore the ocean pastures off the Oregon coast repurposing millions of tonnes of CO2 to bring hundreds of millions of fish into the nets of that nations fishermen and into the mouths of its people.

    Around the world ocean pastures can be restored repurposing a billion tonnes of CO2 into a billion fish to feed the worlds hungry. http://russgeorge.net/2014/04/11/bring-back-fish-everywhere/

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