[Click on the title above to hear the 9 minute podcast]

America is the largest single cause of climate change.

So says one of the government’s top scientists, James Hansen of NASA in a hard-hitting speech given February 20th in New York. The talk was arranged by the New York Academy of Sciences for the Architecture 2030 conference. But Hansen didn’t talk about building anything, other than a crisis movement to stop us from arriving at a “different” and “desolate” planet.

I know you are busy. Perhaps this system conspires to keep you busy every waking moment. If you don’t have time to listen to the full 34 minute speech, I’ve broken out some of the main quotes, and set them up with a bit of ear candy, to engage the whole mind. It’s a 9 minute podcast version you can listen to, pass along, or link to. Please – this man is at the top of his career, studying climate for the last 30 years. Let’s pass on what he has to say.

Once you’ve had a listen to the podcast, you can pass on this link to your blogs, email lists, whatever:

http://www.ecoshock.org/download/ecoshock/ES_070325_Hansen_Pod.mp3

That’s the 9 minute version.

For those who want the full 34 minute speech on global warming, go here:

http://www.ecoshock.org/downloads/climate_2007/Arch2030_070220_Hansen_INT.mp3

You can get more info, and the video of the presentation, here:

www.2010imperative.com

And still more info, here:

www.architecture2030.org

Hansen says we can’t wait even another year of two, until the next election. We had about ten years to act starting in 2006, he says. In that time frame, carbon emissions must level out to their year 2000 levels, and then start going down rapidly. We are already up by .8 degrees Celsius, and have another 2 degrees in the pipeline, due to carbon already up there, in the oceans, and the infrastructure we won’t tear down.

But if we go above 500 parts of carbon dioxide, a giant mechanism swings into place – one that has been happened several times before in Earth’s history – leading to a very different planet, with only a fraction of the species surviving. Yes, new life forms will eventually emerge, as we did, but that takes hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions of years. In other words, not in any time frame that humans can comprehend.

According to Hansen, some of the carbon we are throwing up now will last up to 500 years. We are making permanent changes, but if we act within the next 9 years, we can still leave a livable planet. He recommends Bill McKibben’s “Step It Up” action coming this April.

Is there anything more important than this? Have we got your attention yet?

Get Jim Hansen’s message out there!!!

Alex
Radio Ecoshock.
www.ecoshock.org