Al Gore & Brundtland/Greenland Ice melting fast
With COP15 in Copenhagen in its final stages, many important ideas are being discussed, and I want to touch on a few here.
Al Gore and Gro Harlem
Brundtland (who released the landmark 1987 Brundtland report) were in Copenhagen to lend their strong voices to the discussion and announce the release of the report: Greenland
Ice Sheet – Melting Snow and Ice: Calls for Action. The world-renowned scientist Dorthe
Dahl-Jensen, the Danish Foreign Minister Per Stig Moeller, Norwegian
Foreign Minister Jonas Stoere, and Greenland Premier Kuupik Kleist were among the other prominent presenters. Mr. Gore was reported by the Guardian to have announced that Mexico was prepared to host a deal-making summit.
The best synopsis of the presentations that I've found is on Michael Cote's blog, where he says: "Ms. Dahl-Jensen’s take home message is recognition that we have awoken
the giants. The Greenland and Artic ice sheets are literally melting in
front of our eyes (she shows a dramatic 3 minute video documenting
this); second, SLR is accelerating beyond anything imaginable. The IPCC
AP4 report was relatively modest in its predictions; and third, (voice
cracking) the scientists who wrote the paper are calling for nations to
act now."
If you have time, please read Michael's blog so you can get up to date on the latest on Greenland's ice melting and what the heavyweights are up to in Copenhagen.
You may also want to check out Newsweek's article about Mr. Gore: Evolution of an Eco-Prophet. One of the things he's suggesting would be really helpful for farmers: paying farmers to use soil as a carbon sink.
He writes that soils could sequester an additional 15 percent of annual
global CO2 emissions from fossil fuels. That could cut 50 parts per
million of CO2 from the atmosphere over the next 50 years. (We are now
at 387, up from 280 before the industrial era, with 450 ppm or even less
a dangerous level.) To encourage changes in agriculture that would
foster carbon sequestration, Gore advocates moving away from price
supports and toward paying farmers for "how much carbon they can put
into and keep in their soil," he says. Paying farmers to sequester
carbon might jump-start the use of biochar, which Gore calls "one of the
most exciting new strategies for restoring carbon to depleted soils,
and sequestering significant amounts of CO2."
Yesterday, Corrina and I also participated with youth around the world in Mass Dialogues, a discussion amongst youth from around the world organized by David Noble from 2degreesC and Moussa Sinon from Organisation Internationale de la Francophonie. Sadly, they've had to cancel today's discussion due to limited accessibility to and protests outside of the
Bella Centre, the site of the climate negotiations and the mass
dialogues. We enjoyed hearing live from Copenhagen what is happening, and it's a treat to be able to ask questions and get them answered.
I can't wait for the internet ClimateTV channel that Peter, Nick & I have been working on to go live in a few weeks! (We'll fill you in soon!)
The times they are-a-changin'...it's time for us to change!