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It's Not All Doom and Gloom: What We Can Do Now for the Arctic by Richard Branson

Last week I was in New York, where policy makers and the public alike spoke out about climate change. None of us are strangers to the realities of climate change -- steadily climbing temperatures and carbon dioxide (CO2) levels, melting ice and rising sea levels. However, fewer people are aware of how they can help to tackle the problem.

While we often think about the effect of climate change on our lives and on the land we inhabit, it's also important to focus on the blue spaces that make up so much of the Earth.

The ocean covers two thirds of the planet, produces almost half of all the oxygen we breathe and sequesters more than a quarter of the CO2 we emit into the atmosphere. It is, in essence, the kidneys of our planet, keeping systems healthy, giving life -- and there is no way to put it on dialysis. 

The ability of this life system to continue to provide these essential ecosystem services is being compromised. As rising temperatures reduce the oxygen carrying capacity of the ocean and the amount of CO2 being absorbed causes acidification , marine organisms and ecosystems are suffering. Habitats are being destroyed, fish stocks are over exploited and marine predators are becoming extinct at an alarming rate.

In the Arctic, the problem is particularly clear: it's melting. Beyond the four million people living there who are affected every day by rising temperatures, we all face the consequences of the changes in the Arctic. Extreme weather, rising sea levels and food insecurity, particularly in the most impoverished parts of the world, are all growing problems. As the ice is melting, a new ocean is being born -- one that some may try to exploit through fishing and oil and gas drilling, which is fraught with uncertainty and has the potential for devastating harm.

So where do we go from here? There is an extraordinary opportunity to rescue this new ocean, 'refreeze' what we can by establishing structures to protect this beautiful place before it's even fully born and understood. Just as a healthy body is more resilient to disease, a healthy ocean is more resilient to harmful change.

The International Declaration on the Future of the Arctic is a charter for Arctic protection being spearheaded by our friends at Greenpeace. I have signed the declaration and look forward to working with the leaders of the Arctic States and representatives from the United Nations to ensure that the Arctic is fully protected before it's too late.

In this time where we feel paralyzed by messages of doom and gloom, let's remember that we can change things. We can make a difference and we have a responsibility to future generations to ensure that our actions today don't destroy their future.

Millions have already declared their support for protecting the Arctic. Join us - sign the pledge here.

Leonardo Di Caprio , UN Climate Summit Speech

Thank you, Mr. Secretary-General, your excellencies, ladies and gentleman, and distinguished guests. I’m honored to be here today, I stand before you not as an expert but as a concerned citizen, one of the 400,000 people who marched in the streets of New York on Sunday, and the billions of others around the world who want to solve our climate crisis. As an actor I pretend for a living. I play fictitious characters often solving fictitious problems. I believe humankind has looked at Climate Change in that same way: as if it were a fiction, happening to someone else’s planet, as if pretending that Climate Change wasn’t real would somehow make it go away. But I think we know better than that. Every week
, we’re seeing new and undeniable Climate Events, evidence that accelerated Climate Change is here now. We know that droughts are intensifying, our oceans are warming and acidifying, with methane plumes rising up from beneath the ocean floor. We are seeing extreme weather events, increased temperatures, and the West Antarctic and Greenland ice-sheets melting at unprecedented rates, decades ahead of scientific projections. None of this is rhetoric, and none of it is hysteria. It is fact. The scientific community knows it, Industry and Governments know it, even the United States military knows it. The Chief of the U.S. Navy’s Pacific Command, Admiral Samuel Locklear, recently said that Climate Change is our single greatest security threat. My Friends, this body - perhaps more than any other gathering in human history - now faces that difficult task. You can make history...or be vilified by it. To be clear, this is not about just telling people to change their light bulbs or to buy a hybrid car. This disaster has grown BEYOND the choices that individuals make. This is now about our industries, and governments around the world taking decisive, large-scale action. I am not a scientist, but I don't need to be. Because the world’s scientific community has spoken, and they have given us our prognosis, if we do not act together, we will surely perish. Now is our moment for action We need to put a price tag on carbon emissions, and eliminate government subsidies for coal, gas, and oil companies. We need to end the free ride that industrial polluters have been given in the name of a free-market economy, they don't deserve our tax dollars, they deserve our scrutiny. For the economy itself will die if our eco-systems collapse. The good news is that renewable energy is not only achievable but good economic policy. New research shows that by 2050 clean, renewable energy could supply 100% of the world’s energy needs using EXISTING TECHNOLOGIES, and it would create millions of jobs. This is not a partisan debate; it is a human one. Clean air and water, and a livable climate are inalienable human rights. And solving this crisis is not a question of politics. It is our moral obligation - if, admittedly, a daunting one… We only get one planet. Humankind must become accountable on a massive scale for the wanton destruction of our collective home. Protecting our future on this planet depends on the conscious evolution of our species. This is the most urgent of times, and the most urgent of messages. Honored delegates, leaders of the world, I pretend for a living. But you do not. The people made their voices heard on Sunday around the world and the momentum will not stop. And now it’s YOUR turn, the time to answer the greatest challenge of our existence on this planet... is now. I beg you to face it with courage. And honesty.
Thank you.

Overfishing

   Currently, one of the biggest issues on earth is overfishing. Most people on earth rely on the ocean for their daily live hoods. It is also a primary source of our protein. So marine creatures provide us protein and food to live our lives everyday. However, people overfish due to the lack of management and carelessness.
 
   First of all, overfishing is the act of fishing too much that the fish cannot sustain their population. The thing that is causing over fishing is that our fishing fleets are two or three times bigger than it should be. Reason that overfishing is such a big threat to us is because we are losing  species as well as our whole ecosystem. In addition, we are losing our precious food source.
 
   Overfishing is also a huge problem because there is a huge imbalance in the marine life. There will not be enough breeds, which will decrease the amount of fish in the ocean. Overfishing doesn’t only kill the fish that are targeted for food but also other sea animals as well. For example, dolphins or sea birds have been caught in the fishing gear and got killed. Most of them are when they are catching shrimp. So for every one kilogram of shrimp, up to nine kilograms of other marine animals are caught. In the last 60 years, the fish stocks as fallen by 90% due to overfishing. The scientist says that we are facing the collapse of all types of fish. In 2008, fishing limits where defined for the highly prized blue fin tuna. The scientists recommended a fishing limit of 10,000 tons. However, they ended up catching 60,000 tons of tuna, which is 6 times more than the scientists’ limit. So the amount of fish in the ocean is decreasing at a very fast rate due to overfishing.

   We should try our best to prevent it from happening. How we can do this is that our politicians have the responsibility to make the decisions. We citizens have the rights to persuade them to make these decisions happen.

The video below descriptively tells us why overfishing is such a big problem and how it is affecting our lives today. 
  

       Video: Ending Overfishing from OCEAN2012 on Vimeo

In the past few days, heavy rain has caused flash flooding and structural damage here in the North-Eastern corner of the United States. The storm system, that has also been responsible for the unusually destructive weather in the Mid-West, has both wreaked havoc and confused inhabitants. Heavy rains aren’t usually supposed to come in the early fall when the air is dry. The 14-year long drought of the Colorado River Basin has likely amplified the effects of the storm.

Why do such weather abnormalities occur with increasing frequency? One article from National Geographic blames greenhouse gases and aerosol emissions. Most notably, the study, carried out by various research groups in the US and China, pointed out that aerosol emissions from rapidly growing economies in Asia are a major factor that contribute to the worsening severity of storms. Sulfate, for example, is released into the air from burning coal and, once in the air, allows more water droplets to form within clouds by increasing the surface area droplets can form on. As a result, we see larger storm clouds and heavier rains. Realizing that the economic activities of a developing nation can affect countries around the world may be key to reducing air emissions.

Hawaii, the Green Island

I have talked about the green efforts of Jeju Island, the biggest island of S.Korea, in E-gen couple of times. Today, I would like to introduce the biggest island of the U.S., Hawaii's green efforts to reduce the carbon foot prints. Hawaii has proclaimed that the islands will reach 40 percent renewable power by 2030. Not just that, the islands have tripled renewable energy capacity since 2005, while leading in creating renewable jobs. Most new homes in Hawaii have solar water heaters as well. The Hawaii's renewable energy sources are from Sun, Wind, Sea and Land.  The Sun's plentiful heat and light provide great source of energy. The most applicable sun related technologies adopted in the Hawaiian islands are photovoltaic systems, solar hot water and passive solar design and daylighting. These technologies have applied to homes and commercial buildings which result in huge savings in operation cost. Wind plays an important role in reaching the goal of 70% clean energy in Hawaii. Hawaiians say they have endless wind supply. Lanai and Molokai islands have the best wind levels in the country, and wind is available 40% of time there. Among the many benefits the wind energy can give, a lower impact of wind turbines on birds and other wildlife sets importance in the islands. Geothermal energy excavation had not started until 1960's. However, since its first drilling, geothermal energy makes up 20% of Hawaii's big island energy consumption.  Hawaii also explores the use of biomass energy from variety of sources. H-Power(Honolulu Project of Waste Energy Recovery), the city and county of Honolulu's "garbage to energy" plant burns refuse-derived fuel to provide electricity. Kaunai and Maui islands' sugar plantations produce biomass fuel for automobiles which is made from ethanol by sugarcane molasses mixing with gasoline. Today, the state Public utilities commission announced four rulings which push Hawaiian electric companies to reduce electricity costs and generate vast amount of renewable energy. While the states in mainland are struggling and fighting to reduce carbon foot prints, Hawaii moves ahead in executing green bills and applying green systems. Image: Google image Source: Hawaii govt. projects, U.S. Department of Energy, etc.

"Do we have a good plan to fight climate change that's as good as the plan we had for HIV?"

Jim Yong Kim, the former president of Dartmouth college and current leader of the World bank had an interview with the Guardian.  In the interview, he said that battles over water and food will erupt within the next five to ten years as a result of climate change.  He urged scientists to join together to come up with a solution to fight the climate change as activists and scientists did for 15 years to develop a treatment for HIV. He threw a question to the climate change community, " Do we have a plan that's as good as the plan we had for HIV? " The answer is no at current unfortunately. President Kim mentioned that there was not enough basic science research going into renewable energy. There have not been ways of taking discoveries made in universities and quickly moving them into industry. There have not been ways to test innovative ideas. He added that the climate change community kept saying what he meant by a plan. His answer was a plan that is equal to the challenge and will convince anyone that climate change community are really serious about the issue. President kim said that there were four fields that the World bank could help specifically regarding the fight against the global warming: Finding a stable price for carbon, removing fuel subsidies, investing in cleaner cities and developing climate-smart agriculture.  He also predicted that since the water issue was critically related to climate change and carbon is the currency of climate change, fights over water and food would be the most significant direct impacts of climate change in the next five to ten years. His interview with the Guardian reflects general people's disappointment over the climate change community's results over treating the issue. Though people are really committed on the issue, the slow change and the cooperation among the scientists overall lead the kind of interview the World bank president gave to the british paper. I hope his challenge and urge to the climate change community will refresh people's commitment over the issue and also remind ordinary people how the danger is close and imminent. Image: Google image Source: the Guardian, the climate change project, youtube etc.