CH4 and CO2 are greenhouse gases
From an Article by Andrea Germanos, Common Dreams, November 13, 2017
“Humanity is not taking the urgent steps needed to safeguard our imperiled biosphere,” over 15,000 scientists warned in a letter published November 13th.
Over 15,000 scientists hailing from more than 180 countries just issued a dire warning to humanity:
“Time is running out” to stop business as usual, as threats from rising greenhouse gases to biodiversity loss are pushing the biosphere to the brink.
The new warning was published in the international journal BioScience, and marks an update to the “World Scientists’ Warning to Humanity” issued by nearly 1,700 leading scientists 25 years ago.
The 1992 plea, which said Earth was on track to be “irretrievably mutilated” baring “fundamental change,” however, was largely unheeded.
“Some people might be tempted to dismiss this evidence and think we are just being alarmist,” said William Ripple, distinguished professor in the College of Forestry at Oregon State University, and lead author of the new warning. “Scientists are in the business of analyzing data and looking at the long-term consequences. Those who signed this second warning aren’t just raising a false alarm. They are acknowledging the obvious signs that we are heading down an unsustainable path.”
The new statement—a “Second Notice” to humanity—does acknowledge that there have been some positive steps forward, such as the drop in ozone depleters and advancements in reducing hunger since the 1992 warning. But, by and large, humanity has done a horrible job of making progress. In fact, key environmental threats that demanded urgent attention a quarter of a century ago are even worse now.
Among the “especially troubling” trends, they write, are rising greenhouse gas emissions, deforestation, agricultural production, and the sixth mass extinction event underway.
Taking a numerical look at how some of the threats have grown since 1992, the scientists note that there’s been a 26.1 percent loss in fresh water available per capita; a 75.3 percent increase in the number of “dead zones”; a 62.1 percent increase in CO2 emissions per year; and 35.5 percent rise in the human population.
“By failing to adequately limit population growth, reassess the role of an economy rooted in growth, reduce greenhouse gases, incentivize renewable energy, protect habitat, restore ecosystems, curb pollution, halt defaunation, and constrain invasive alien species, humanity is not taking the urgent steps needed to safeguard our imperiled biosphere,” they write.
Among the steps that could be taken to prevent catastrophe are promoting plant-based diets; reducing wealth inequality, stopping conversions of forests and grasslands; government interventions to rein in biodiversity loss via poaching and illicit trade; and “massively adopting renewable energy sources” while phasing out fossil fuel subsidies.
Taking such actions, they conclude, are necessary to avert “widespread misery and catastrophic biodiversity loss.” “Soon it will be too late to shift course away from our failing trajectory, and time is running out. ”
The goal of the paper, said Ripple, is to “ignite a wide-spread public debate about the global environment and climate.”
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Pope Francis: These 4 ‘Perverse Attitudes’ Could Push Earth to Its Brink
By Lorraine Chow, EcoWatch.com, November 17, 2017
Pope Francis issued a strong message to negotiators at the COP23* climate talks in Bonn, Germany on Thursday, warning them not to fall into “four perverse attitudes” regarding the future of the planet—”denial, indifference, resignation and trust in inadequate solutions.”
Francis, who has long pressed for strong climate action and wrote his 2015 encyclical on the environment, renewed his “urgent call” for renewed dialogue “on how we are building the future of the planet.”
“We need an exchange that unites us all,” he said, “because the environmental challenge we are experiencing, and its human roots, regards us all, and affects us all.”
The pontiff also said he hopes the COP23 talks would be “inspired by the same collaborative and prophetic spirit” of COP21, which led to the landmark signing of the Paris agreement to avoid global temperature rise well below 2°C.
“The Agreement indicates a clear path of transition to a low- or zero-carbon model of economic development, encouraging solidarity and leveraging the strong links between combating climate change and poverty,” Francis said.
Although the pope did not call any countries out by name, the U.S. is the only country not in support of the Paris agreement due to President Donald Trump’s declared withdrawal from the pact. Syria and Nicaragua, which were the only other holdouts, recently joined the accord.
Trump, who notoriously said global warming is a hoax, has filled his administration with lawmakers who question the science of climate change or reject mankind’s role in causing the global issue.
Francis has spoken against global warming skeptics several times before. In September, during an in-flight press conference from Colombia to Rome, the pope said that those who reject climate science remind him of a psalm from the Old Testament about stubbornness.
“Man is stupid, the Bible said. It’s like that, when you don’t want to see, you don’t see,” he said as the papal plane flew near Caribbean islands pummeled by Hurricane Irma. His statement was not addressed to any political leader in particular.
Meanwhile, the Trump administration used its only public forum at COP23 to promote coal.
According to the Associated Press, the top American representative at the talks told other delegates that the U.S. is still committed to reducing greenhouse gas even though the Trump wants to exit the Paris accord.
Dozens of nations have joined the Powering Past Coal Alliance, launched Thursday at the climate talks, to phase out the use of coal by 2030. The alliance involves more than 20 nations including Angola, Austria, Belgium, Britain, Canada, Costa Rica, Denmark, El Salvador, Fiji, Finland, France, Italy, Luxembourg, the Marshall Islands, Mexico, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Niue, Portugal and Switzerland, according to Reuters. The states of Oregon and Washington have also joined.
* – Note: COP23 is the 23rd “Congress of the Parties.”
Source: https://www.ecowatch.com/pope-francis-cop23-2510283678.html
Pope calls for the common good, plus ethical responsibility in science and technology
2017-11-18 Vatican Radio
“Science, like any other human activity, has its limits which should be observed for the good of humanity itself, and requires a sense of ethical responsibility,” Pope Francis said on Saturday.
“The true measure of progress, as Blessed Paul VI recalled, is that which is aimed at the good of each man and the whole man,” the Pope told some 83 participants in the plenary assembly of the Vatican’s Pontifical Council for Culture. The participants met the Pope at the conclusion of their Nov.15-18 assembly which discussed the theme, “The Future of Humanity: New Challenges to Anthropology.”
You can listen to our report in the original article.
Incredible advances
The Pope said, the Church wants to give the correct direction to man at the dawn of a new era marked by incredible advances in medicine, genetics, neuroscience and “autonomous” machines. Speaking about the incredible advances in genetics, he noted that diseases that were considered incurable until recently have been eradicated, and new possibilities have opened up to “programme” human beings with certain “qualities”.
Not all the answers
The Pope said that “science and technology have helped us to further the boundaries of knowledge of nature, especially of the human being,” but they alone are not enough to give all the answers. “Today,” he explained, “we increasingly realize that it is necessary to draw from the treasures of wisdom of religious traditions, popular wisdom, literature and the arts that touch the depths of the mystery of human existence, without forgetting, but rather by rediscovering those contained in philosophy and theology.”
Church teachings
In this regard, the Pope pointed to two principles of the Church’s teaching. The first is the “centrality of the human person, which is to be considered an end and not a means.” Man must be in harmony with creation, not as a despot about God’s inheritance, but as a loving guardian of the work of the Creator.
The second principle is the universal destination of goods, including that of knowledge and technology. Scientific and technological progress, the Pope explained, should serve the good of all humanity, and not just a few, and this will help avoid new inequalities in the future based on knowledge, and prevent widening of the gap between the rich and the poor. The Holy Father insisted that great decisions regarding the direction scientific research should take, and investment in it, should be taken together by the whole of society and should not be dictated solely by market rules or by the interests of a few.
And finally, the Pope said, one must keep in mind that not everything that is technically possible or feasible is ethically acceptable.
Source from Vatican Radio: http://www.news.va/en/news/pope-calls-for-common-good-ethical-responsibility