What is needed now is a strong, sustained, and well-coordinated effort between governments at all levels, businesses, civic institutions, and individuals to adopt policies, programs, and practices that accelerate the adoption of clean, efficient energy choices. The costs of delay are high. For every year of delay in beginning significant emissions reductions, global concentrations of heat-trapping gases rise higher and the goal of avoiding dangerous climate change becomes more difficult and more costly to achieve.
From Confronting Climate Change in the U.S. Northeast [PDF 8MB], prepared by the Northeast Climate Impacts Assessment Synthesis Team. July 2007.
For more on the toll of global warming in the Northeast, visit our New York City page.
5 Comments
USA has 4% of the worlds poulation but contributes 22% of the greenhouse gases worldwide.
What are we/you doing individually and collectively?
Whether its solar or….. we all need to do something
solar_rental@yahoo.com
This quote is great. Our everyday choices are the things that affect our world. However, the government does have a lot of control over what we choose from.
If anyone is interested, evo.com is a good site for green commerce.
Maybe somebody should look at all the concrete that’s being poured day after day along with the blacktopping, if you put a thermeter into the pavement and check the temps during a 24 hour period you would find where the heat is coming from. All paved areas are heat sinks that are creating a gentle rise in temperatures. Brick, block and steel structures are doing the same. Store heat during the day and put it back into the atmosphere during the night.
Emissions from the top 10 active volcanoes in the world produce approximately 150,000 tons of sulpher dioxide per day. This is more than twice the total emissions from all global industrial sources. Mt st Helens let loose as much greenhouse gases in one explosion as the entire industrial revolution to that point in time. How are we going to stop these polluting beasts … damn wretched volcanoes … lets KILL THEM ALL.
Barry, volcanoes cannot account for the global warming we are seeing. We did a whole post about this, explaining why and showing hard data (with links to original sources). You can read it here:
Do Volcanoes Cause Global Warming?