What can we, as individuals, do to stop the threat of global climate change?

Answer 1

Realise that long before the industrial revolution, invention of the combustion engine and 747's that global temperatures were on the increase since the last ice age, the earth has and always will be in constant state of change.

Holland is mainly reclaimed land from the oceans which means it was at one point under water and will be again one day. Sea levels were once so low you could walk from russia to the U.S

The U.K was once tropical rainforest

Global warming is something they can invent taxes for.

I agree we should sort out pollution, deforestation, drought & famine but the arguement of all the worlds problems are caused by CO2 is extremly short sighted

Answer 2

Why does anyone need an excuse to live more simply? Even if there was no climate change, is it OK for us Americans (5% othe the world population) to comsume 25% of the planet's natural resources and create 25% or more of the pollution and environmental degradtion? Is it ok to live in a 10,000 square foot house for two just because you can? Is it ok to have a second home when many will never own their own or have no home at all? How much is enough? Why do white collar professionals drive alone in huge freshly waxed four door SUVs and pick-up trucks when they never haul anything or go to a place where they need four wheel drive?

I must apologize... I thought I could add something to this discussion and I am just venting because of the frustration I feel with some of our fellow Americans that have so much more potential for good than they show here, and in their every day lives. No, I do not hate my country, I just wish we could get back on a good path into the future.

Many of us know what we can do, and we live it out everyday. But it wears on you over time when you do your best and have to see so much disregaurd for the truth and the positive efforts of others.

*Live simply, connect with nature by being outdoors as much as possible in a non-consumptive way.

*Shed materialism when ever and where ever you can.

*Stop being a comsumer, and become a producer of green products and life styles.

*Lead by example, become a path finder and don't be a follower of the old ways.

*Recreate your concepts of wealth and well being.

*Don't profit at the expense of other life forms and the well being of the planet.

*Stop thinking you are better than others and your life style is an entitlement.

*Go on a vission quest and be open to the answers the universe puts in your path.

Answer 3

I have been asking the same question? Here is what I have heard and started so far. Use Power strips and unplug electronics, lights, etc. They are still sucking up energy just being in the socket. But turning off the power strip with multiple items has the same effect as unplugging them, or so I have heard. Also use biodegradable products in every aspect of your lifestyle, from, household, to beauty, and health. Make sure they don't have any toxins research the company online before you buy, Carpool, think twice before jumping in the car(gas prices should help with this one) to go get a gallon of milk. Make a list first or can it wait till you need other stuff. Use incandescent light bulbs. You pay a couple more $$ upfront but can last for years uses a lot less energy. Of course recycle everything you can. Keep the landfills a little emptier. For more on healthy and certified all natural environmentally friendly products, for house health and beauty check out "gogreentogetclean.com"

Answer 4

well as climate change is changing, everyone under 30 needs to do their bit because the effects will take place with in fifty years and i wont be around then so for me frankly i agree with America on this one do jack sh1t. think about it bush has objected on every green issue going does any one now what to do does any one give a monkeys i certainly dont, i even got rid of my fridge the other day by chopping it up with the chain saw, and you know what the council took it away, they never even realised.

Answer 5

Climate change is a process that has gone on for millions of years. look at temperature graphs over thousands of years not the hundreds of years that All Gore shows.

Look at my link below, from that you will find a world of information against the "human cause" of global warming.

Answer 6

Lots. We can turn off lights as we leave a room, bike to close places instead of driving, using less energy, getting a hybrid, etc. Also, you can use calculators that get their energy from light.

Answer 7

Nothing. All warming is caused by the Sun. Any warming that the Earth experiences is caused by the Sun.

1998 was the hottest year in recent times. The Earth has been cooling since then.

Answer 8

Stop watching news that sperads hysteria about global warming. If there is no money to be made in global warming, it will go away.

Answer 9

That is a serious and complicated answer, it would take us all doing our part......I don't see that happening,,,,everyone thinks they can't make a difference...its like voting...everyone has to vote...but people think their one vote don't count....we all need to change ....or the earth will be destroyed......

Answer 10

By ARTHUR MAX, Associated Press Writer 1 hour, 27 minutes ago (it is now Nov 17 22:27)

VALENCIA, Spain - Global warming is "unequivocal" and carbon dioxide already in the atmosphere commits the world to sea levels rising an average of up to 4.6 feet, the world's top climate experts warned Saturday in their most authoritative report to date.


"Only urgent, global action will do," said U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon, calling on the United States and China — the world's two biggest polluters — to do more to slow global climate change.

"I look forward to seeing the U.S. and China playing a more constructive role," Ban told reporters. "Both countries can lead in their own way."

Ban, however, advised against assigning blame.

Climate change imperils "the most precious treasures of our planet," he said, and the effects are "so severe and so sweeping that only urgent global action will do. We are all in this together. We must work together."

According to the U.N. panel of scientists, whose latest report is a synthesis of three previous ones, enough carbon dioxide already has built up that it imperils islands, coastlines and a fifth to two-thirds of the world's species.

As early as 2020, 75 million to 250 million people in Africa will suffer water shortages, residents of Asia's large cities will be at great risk of river and coastal flooding, according to the report.

Europeans can expect extensive species loss, and North Americans will experience longer and hotter heat waves and greater competition for water, says the report from the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which shared the Nobel Prize with Al Gore this year.

The panel portrays the Earth hurtling toward a warmer climate at a quickening pace and warns of inevitable human suffering. It says emissions of carbon, mainly from fossil fuels, must stabilize by 2015 and go down after that.

In the best-case scenario, temperatures will keep rising from carbon already in the atmosphere, the report said. Even if factories were shut down today and cars taken off the roads, the average sea level will reach as high as 4.6 feet above that in the preindustrial period, or about 1850.

"We have already committed the world to sea level rise," the panel's chairman, Rajendra Pachauri, said. But if the Greenland ice sheet melts, the scientists said, they could not predict by how many feet the seas will rise, drowning coastal cities.

Climate change is here, they said, as witnessed by melting snow and glaciers, higher average temperatures and rising sea levels. If unchecked, global warming will spread hunger and disease, put further stress on water resources, cause fiercer storms and more frequent droughts, and could drive up to 70 percent of plant and animal species to extinction, according to the panel's report.

The report was adopted after five days of sometimes tense negotiations among 140 national delegations. It lays out blueprints for avoiding the worst catastrophes — and various possible outcomes, depending on how quickly and decisively action is taken.

"The world's scientists have spoken clearly and with one voice," Ban said, looking ahead to an important climate conference in Bali, Indonesia, next month. "I expect the world's policy makers to do the same."

The report is intended to both set the stage and serve as a guide for the conference, at which world leaders will begin discussing a global climate change treaty to replace the 1997 Kyoto Protocol.

That treaty, which expires in 2012, required industrial nations to reduce greenhouse gases and a smooth transition to a new treaty is needed to avoid upsetting the fledgling carbon markets.

"This report will have an incredible political impact," Yvo de Boer, the U.N.'s top climate change official, told The Associated Press. "It's a signal that politicians cannot afford to ignore."

The United States opted out of Kyoto in 2001, arguing that the science was unproven and that the burden of mandatory emission cuts was unfair since it excluded fast-growing China and India.

Chief U.S. delegate Sharon Hays said doubts have been dispelled. "What's changed since 2001 is the scientific certainty that this is happening," she said in a conference call late Friday. She did not indicate that Washington would abandon its policy of voluntary emission cuts.

China and India have said any measures impinging on their development and efforts to lift their people from poverty were unacceptable — a point likely to be heeded at the Bali talks.

The report offered dozens of measures for avoiding the worst catastrophes if taken together — at a cost of less than 0.12 percent of the global economy annually until 2050. They ranged from switching to nuclear and gas-fired power stations, developing hybrid cars, using more efficient electrical appliances and managing cropland to store more carbon.

Ban said a new agreement should provide funding to help poor countries develop clean energy resources, adapt to climate conditions and give them the technology to help themselves.

He said he witnessed the devastation of climate change in disappearing glaciers of Antarctica, the deforested Amazon and under the ozone hole in Chile.

"These scenes are as frightening as a science fiction movie," said Ban. "But they are even more terrifying because they are real."