*Okay, check out this glistening, rainbow scenario: I don't starve to death in a mass planetary famine in my old age, and by weather-turbulent home state of Texas is not reduced to climate-crisis nightmare of scary droughts broken by massive hurricanes, because the unleashed brilliant intellects at Google have come up with a workable, reasonable and even profitable energy-transition scenario that they've put on their big fake Wiki.
*Everybody reads this complex but quite thorough technocratic plan, and they do whatever Google wisely suggests, in a massive technical transition that spreads throughout the planet as quickly and peaceably as, uh, Google. By 2030 we don't even worry about the Greenhouse any more. I'm 76 years old and mostly I worry about my cane, my trifocals and my hearing-aid.
http://knol.google.com/k/-/-/15x31uzlqeo5n/1#
*Who do you s'pose has more raw ability to save our bacon: Google, or the
United Nations? You can't say the head of the UN obscures the issue.
http://www.un.org/apps/news/infocus/sgspeeches/statments_full.asp?statID=549
(...)
"Here, as elsewhere around the globe, I have seen the human face of climate change. Already, hundreds of millions of people are facing increased hardships.
"Three-quarters of all disasters globally are now climate related, up from half just a decade ago.
"In my travels in Africa, I have met families whose crops have been scorched by droughts.
"In Haiti and Latin America, I have visited those whose homes have been destroyed by floods and storms, and I have been deeply moved by their suffering.
"In a matter of years, climate change could usher in widespread chronic hunger and malnutrition across broad swathes of the developing world.
"Already, over one billion people go to bed hungry each night.
"Imagine what will happen when rains become more erratic and droughts intensify.
"Imagine, for a moment, that the glaciers of the Himalaya melt. The lives and livelihoods of a billion people will change across Asia.
"But we don't need to imagine.
"Reality is grim enough. Scientists say that by 2020, 75 to 250 million people in Africa will face growing shortages of water due to climate change.
"Yields from rain-fed agriculture could fall by half in some African countries over the next ten years.
"These are frightening scenarios.
"Even the world's richest nations are not immune. (((I'd like to find this "richest nation" that's immune to the sky. It's like trying to find the immune richest quarter in New Orleans.)))
"In the United States, the Energy Secretary has warned that California – the world's fifth largest economy – could see prime farm land reduced to a dustbowl, and major cities running out of water by the end of the century. (((Think faster, Google!)))
"Past and present emissions are already changing the climate. And the emissions are still increasing. The adverse impacts will increase.
"The point is clear: the climate is changing and so, therefore, must we.
"There is only one way forward. Together, we must transform our economies and embark on a lower emission, clean energy pathway.
"We must strengthen our ability to adapt to a changing climate.
"Adaptation is an essential investment in our common future.
"We must invest in making our communities more resilient and in reducing our vulnerability to natural disasters.
"And we must invest in the eco-systems that sustain us.
"Across the globe, we see that humankind is neglecting or destroying our environment at an accelerating rate.
"They include the fisheries and fields that feed people and drive economies.
"They include the wetlands that protect us from floods, and the forests that provide fresh air, clean water and livelihoods for 1.6 billion people.
"Ladies and Gentlemen,
"We must walk a different path..."
(((Of course, even rich Californians will be walking a path under a sky soiled by emissions for a least a century, unless Google releases a nifty webpage explaining how one sucks past emissions out of the sky and restores them under the earth.)))
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/aug/03/california-climate-change
(((Google AND the UN, battling the crisis together at last:)))
http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/un_and_google_create_climate_change_mapping_resour.php
