Do you agree with the so-called Paris Agreement? I don’t. Apparently I’m in good company. James Hansen, adjunct professor in the Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences at Columbia University and former head of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies says it’s just “bovine excrement.” (my rendition of his more colloquial descriptor) The 196 signers of the agreement promise they will limit global warming to 2 degrees celsius and work real hard to get it down to the 1.5 degrees necessary to preserve our existence. But it’s all entirely voluntary and there is absolutely no enforcement mechanism. As in none. We know, in order to reach that 1.5 degree level, 80% of the known oil reserves will have to stay in the ground. What are the chances that’s going to happen? I’m very serious here … when all we have at this point are promises from the very people who stand to make trillions over extracting as much of those reserves as they can! The Paris accord says absolutely nothing about reducing production–now or at any time in the future. All it says is that the signatories will do everything they can to reduce emissions. Maybe most telling is the fact that nowhere does the agreement say we will stop exploring for new reserves. I hope you’ll agree this is definitely a problem.
I think it’s just another example of the Corporate State’s power and leverage over most everything that matters these days. (Please click on The Corporate State on the subject line above if that’s a new term to you.) No where in the agreement will you find even the mention of the major threat to the future of our planet, fossil fuels. And the giant corporations (they are people you know) those who will benefit from ever-increasing use of fossil fuels? All of them were well represented. Of course they were. The nation states that devour the insane wealth that comes from their oil reserves were actually seated at the table. Yes. I’m talking about Saudi Arabia, and others. The real advocates for change, read that “those who really do want to save the planet” were kept outside. The best they could do was carry signs and chant pleas for sanity in this whole sordid affair.

“We have all the knowledge, we have the technology to make the changes necessary. The only problem is to gain the social and political higher ground to implement the tools” says Williams. Yes. That is definitely a problem. It may be such a big problem that we cannot solve it. But we cannot afford not to!

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