[This article is reposted from the DuPage County Green Party website.]
Posted on December 12, 2011 by Steve Alesch
A crime of unthinkable proportions was perpetrated by the Obama administration and the other developed countries during the last two weeks in Durban, South Africa, at the latest UN Global Warming conference, which concluded Friday.
At that conference, a deal was struck that put profit over people resulting in the escalation of global warming deaths that are currently occurring at the rate of tens of thousands per year worldwide and are now, based on this deal, estimated to exceed hundreds of thousands of deaths per year by the end of the decade. Global warming apartheid is disproportionally impacting Africa because of their tropical climate. Scientists measure that for every 1 degree global temperature increase, Africa’s temperature increases 1.5 degrees.
Predictably, the US media, of which 80% is controlled by 5 CEOs, is filling the echo chamber with stories indicating that an agreement was reached that is the next step in the previous Kyoto agreement and that the world’s government, including the US, are working together to deal with Global Warming by 2020. This fabrication is also being echoed by the BBC and other worldwide news sources.
The reality is that what has been agreed to, as a result of strong arm tactics by the US and other developed countries, much to the resistance by and detriment to poorer countries, is a deal that allows global warming causing polluters to continue polluting at current or higher levels until 2018, which is when the first binding global warming reduction requirements take affect per this agreement.
World scientists have reached consensus that the 1990 global warming pollution levels need to be reduced by 40% by 2020 to insure that the global temperature does not exceed 2 degrees Celsius by 2020. With this agreement which delays enforcement another 7 years, global warming pollution is expected to actually exceed current levels by 2020, resulting in a 4 to 5 degrees Celsius increase, meaning a 6 to 8 degree increase in Africa.
Fortunately we still do have news sources outside the tenacles of those 5 CEOs. The majority of today’s DemocracyNow.org’s one hour news broadcast is devoted to describing the details about this crime that just went down. Note that, if you are reading this after Dec. 12, 2011, you will need to go to the show archives and search for the Monday, December 12, 2011 show.
Further compounding the harm done to the 99% by this unfair deal, due to the US presidential debate monopoly created by the Democratic and Republican Party controlled Presidential Debate Corporation, Green Party and independent presidential candidates will be kept off the debate stage once again in 2012, resulting in little or no discussion regarding the looming catastrophic global warming crisis during the upcoming 2012 presidential campaign, which may be our last chance before we hit the tipping point, when all the money in the world won’t be able to reverse massive human extinction.
The 99% have much work to do. This is yet another reason why I Occupy.
Steve Alesch
DuPage County Green Party, Chair, IL, USA
Occupy Naperville, Occupier since October 22, 2011
