The World's Worst Cooks
(republishing, copying, no restrictions)
By: Father Shay Cullen
Anyone who has cooked a dinner or baked a cake knows that the slightest increase in oven temperature can spell ruin. That's exactly what is happening to the planet earth, the wasteful wicked ways of the present generation is causing climate warming, and irreversible environmental ruin. We are the world's worst cooks. All of us have to change our habits and above all governments have to take the lead and stop the production and release of more carbon dioxide (CO2) into the atmosphere. World Earth Day is here again and we have done little to stop the over cooking of the planet earth.
The sun's rays have shone on the earth since the formation of the solar system, stimulating life and reflected back into space by the ice at the poles. Two hundred years of pumping industrial fumes and CO2 gas into the sky has formed a seal between earth and space. The sun's heat comes in but can't escape, as if the earth were enclosed in a greenhouse, consequently temperatures everywhere are rising. The ice caps are melting away and instead of reflecting the sun's rays back into space the oceans absorb them.
The report on the state of the world's climate presented to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) presented in Brussels last Good Friday is so shocking that we ought to be deeply concerned. It is based on the work of 2,500 scientists backed up with powerful computer projections. The report says the poorest in the developing world will be the first to suffer and die in greater number than ever before from the effects of global warming. They are; rising sea levels, less water, more destructive storms, floods, heat waves, insect infestation, less food production and much more will result on an ever increasing scale.
The highly industrialized economies bear the most responsibility of global warming. Most CO2 emissions come from power generating stations and factories and oil refineries that are concentrated on the Western and Eastern seaboards of the United States, in North Western Europe, Eastern Europe, China, India and Japan. They produce 60% of CO2 that causes global warming.
There are no acts of God to blame just grossly irresponsible decisions and omissions by powerful people who could have made a difference but did not. Sadly too many politicians serve more the rich oil conglomerates and electrical power companies who got them elected instead of the common good. They don't see the bodies of the flood victims floating to the sea or the starvation in the drought stricken African plains. They feel nothing for the loss of thousands of species of plants and animals. We need leaders with understanding of the issue and with a concern for the environment.
It is hard to believe that the human species, with the most developed brain, great knowledge, intelligence and the greatest technological capability ever known, could let this happen. When we see the damage we are doing to our own habitat, destroying our environment and poisoning and contaminating our own sources of food it would appear that we are brainless and immensely foolish to do such harm to ourselves and our children and their children. We will pass them on a poisoned planet.
The report recommends the deployment of new technology to capture and safely store below ground or process CO2. New strictly implemented laws will be needed. This is one way to reduce global warming but there are things that can be done with political will and people's initiatives.
We need to promote healthier eating habits that depends less on beef. Millions of hectares of rain forests are being destroyed to make cattle ranches. Billions of cattle produce massive amounts of methane an even worse greenhouse gas. The logging of rain forests must be stopped.
We have to pressure politicians to implement positive alternatives and all of us can live simpler lives. It's not too late to halt the runaway global warming. We can promote solar and wind power, produce ethanol for cars. Imagine the impact of millions of people going organic, recycling products, planting millions of trees, saving the Amazon and the last of the Philippine rain forest.
We can do our bit by insulating houses, reducing
electric power consumption, and save on heating oil, these and many more
changes can make this a cleaner and cooler world.
