Remember Arctic Ice? There's less of it every year.
Extraordinary words coming from our Secretary of State who seems to be hitting his stride. He seems born to the job and his passion for the mitigation of climate change is evident. In an interview with the Washington Post on the eve of the Arctic Summit, Kerry was brutally honest.
Acknowledging that governments may not be moving fast enough to avert a climate disaster, Secretary of State John F. Kerry is pushing for a bigger role for cities, universities and other institutions in achieving rapid cuts in greenhouse-gas emissions.
Unusual for a politician, Kerry is not spinning his remarks about the prospects for the climate talks coming up in Paris later this year. He doesn't seem confident that the talks will accomplish the needed remedies to avert disaster but, says they will begin the process - the rest is up to us.
The goal of the talks is to slow the growth of carbon in the atmosphere to keep Earth’s temperature from rising more than two degrees Celsius — 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit — above the global average for the past century. Kerry in the past has expressed his pessimism about the willingness of governments to agree to the kinds of cuts in fossil-fuel burning needed to keep temperatures from soaring beyond the two-degree mark.
“We’re not meeting that goal, and it bothers me immensely,” Kerry said in the interview. At best, he said, any climate pact reached in Paris would be a “down payment” toward a solution that protects Earth’s climate. But, he added, a strong agreement could create momentum by sending a signal to energy markets and corporations to accelerate the shift to climate-friendly technologies.
So as we continue to advocate for policy solutions, we should also get busy in our communities to help develop resiliency plans and adaptations at the local level. Part of those plans must be transitioning our personal
carbon footprints to become a part of the solution to mitigating the worst effects of climate change.