Help Cool the World

Sure you care enough for the environment youthe Royal Society in London.
segregate your wastes at home, teach your kidsAs well as the threat posed by the worlds 27,000
not to litter candy wrappers just anywhere,nuclear weapons, the scientists pointed to global
make sure your cars emission parts are in goodwarming as a new and serious contributor to
condition. But what will you say when respectedpotential apocalypse.
scientists are now saying that apocalypse is atThe dangers posed by climate change are nearly
hand?as dire as those posed by nuclear weapons. The
According to the website which aims to approacheffects may be less dramatic in the short term
the challenge of climate change with a positivethan the destruction that could be wrought by
and informative attitude, the apocalypse is beingnuclear explosions, but over the next three to
heralded not by lunatics in white robes, but byfour decades climate change could cause
sober and respected scientists.irremediable harm to the habitats upon which
An article at the website reports that membershuman societies depend for survival, the
of the Bulletin Of Atomic Scientists have todaystatement from the BAS read.
moved the minute hand of their Doomsday ClockSo what are the facts? Every year, according to
two minutes closer to the midnight Moment OfGlobal Cool, over 26.5 billion tonnes of CO2 is
Doom, with climate change being cited as a majoremitted around the world. Add an annual increase
cause of their pessimism.of 0.5 billion tonnes, and it is predicted that we are
In 1947 the symbolic clock was set up to warnfast approaching the point at which the global
the world how close it was to self-destructionclimate will become irreversibly unstable.
during the then Cold War, with midnight being theThe scary thing is that the general consensus
moment of global atomic conflict. The clockamongst scientists is that we are now only a
started at seven minutes to midnight, and has gotdecade away from this point with salvation
as close as two minutes to in 1953. There havecoming in the form of a seemingly impossible
been 17 alterations since the clock was founded.reduction of our CO2 emissions by a minimum of
The decision to move the minute hand to 11.55one billion tonnes per year. And that isnt even a
was taken by the BAS board of directors andpermanent reprieve but only a buy out time for
sponsors, which includes no less than 18 Nobelus to develop long-term solutions to the problem.
Laureates, and was announced at a joint newsWhat to do? Maybe a visit to sites like Global Cool
conference at both the Association for thewould help.
Advancement of Science in Washington DC, and