Ecomunicipality.com

James Hansen is widely considered the pre-eminent scientist when it comes to understanding the potential for global climate change and human contributions to the problem.

He recently presented testimony to Congress on the 20th anniversary of his initial insights into the reality that climate change was likely underway in 1988.

I give you Dr. James Hansen of NASA:

Wisconsin is one of the leaders in the United States when it comes to municipal action to fight global climate change. There have been 16 communities, at last count, to stand up and take a stand by declaring themselves ecomunicipalities.

Hopefully, Amery will be the 17th next month when the resolution below goes before the city council. I am publishing this on the Web so that other individuals and communities can begin, or complete, the process of introducing their own resolutions. Steal as much or as little as you want.

Or, leave some comments and feedback. This is an open-source website afterall, with over 30 members, so presumably, there are minds out there ready and willing to engage.

 
(Apologies about the formatting;  not sure why it won't paste in decently.)

Between Peak Oil and global climate change, most clear thinking people in the U.S. realize that we are caught between a rock and a hard place, and that"change" is coming to our current way of life. 

What that change is and how it happens are the parts that are hard to pin down.

Presently, there are many nascent initiatives trying to get a handle on shaping and birthing these changes in basic living so that we can transition to a more sustainable economy.

Between terms like "green", "sustainability", "ecomunicipality" -- there is a similar scramble to create a language that best captures the spirit of the change that is necessary.

A leading contender for that new language is "Transition Towns".  These are towns (municipalities) that have embraced two essential goals in one simple paragraph:  

It may seem ridiculous, but there are a lot of people who do not know where their food comes from.

Do you?  Do you look to see a product's origin?  Or, what it contains?

This may seem like small potatoes in terms of sustainability, but more and more, a product's origin is crucial to its affordability, its overall cost to us as a society and also its quality. 

The NYTimes is out with a piece detailing our predilection, nay, our dependence, on food from distant corners of the planet, and the increasing toll such fancies have on the environment.

Dr. James Hansen,
preeminent climate researcher, told the world today that scientists
have grossly underestimated the severity of the effects of carbon
dioxide emissions.

The European Union (EU) has set the boldest CO2 reduction plans in
the world with a target cap of 550 parts per million (ppm) CO2. Today,
James Hansen of NASA told the EU that much deeper cuts to 350 ppm CO2
would be required to stabilize the climate at near present conditions.Hansen
based the target of 350 ppm on recent paleoclimate research which has
showed that earth's climate is much more sensitive to CO2 increases
than was previously recognized.

"If you leave us at 450ppm for long enough it will probably melt all
the ice - that's a sea rise of 75 metres. What we have found is that
the target we have all been aiming for is a disaster - a guaranteed
disaster," Hansen told the Guardian.

So, here's where things get personal.

There are hundreds of millions of people cognizant of global climate change.  There are tens of millions promoting responsible policies trying to reduce human consumption of fossil fuels.  There are even some millions willing to change their own habits and practices to find a global solution.

And then there is global air travel.

Despite the fact that the burning of highly refined jet fuel is one of the greatest contributors to atmospheric carbon loading, there remains a steadily expanding number of people who want to fly on airplanes--in the United States, in Asia, and even in the leading climate change fighting countries of Europe.

This must be the month for collapses: first, it was Bear Stearns, the cowboy capitalist investment house in New York. Then it was the Chinook Salmon fishery in the Sacramento River watershed. And, now it is a piece of the Antarctic ice shelf about the size of Connecticut.

You can watch a video of the ice shelf collapse by clicking on the link below.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r_k2Vbhza9o&eurl=http://www.dailykos.com/...

I'm not big on the "end times" phenomenon, nor the self-centered concerns that our generation will be the one to see the collapse of human civilization. Nearly every society has had its share of wackos who projected their own passing onto the whole of the planet.

People are fearing the worst this week over one of the biggest collapses in recent memory.

No, I'm not talking about Bear Stearns and America's financial sector meltdown.  Those people had it coming for a long time.  They come and go like a bad flu.

I'm talking about one of the great salmon fisheries of the west coast.  It seems that the fall Chinook Salmon has all but disappeared from the Sacramento River watershed.

The Chinook salmon that swim upstream to spawn in the fall, the most
robust run in the Sacramento River, have disappeared. The almost
complete collapse of the richest and most dependable source of Chinook
salmon south of Alaska left gloomy fisheries experts struggling for
reliable explanations — and coming up dry.

More mornings than not this winter, my trip to the woodpile, which includes a quick glance at the thermometer nearby, resulted in muttering to myself: "Could sure use some global warming about now."

Yes, it has been a cold winter. Apparently "La Nina" impacts in the Pacific have provided this part of North America with a good old-fashioned winter for a change, the first since 1996.

It has also opened the door to every climate change skeptic to claim that, in fact, global climate change is not happening and that it is one of the great hoaxes of all time.

Oh, how much I wish that were true! I would dance naked in the street to know that the earth is not facing dire consequences.  But brute physics have a way of charting their own course....

Yet another sad sign of the times...

Citing a warming climate
and sprawling development, officials with the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog
Race said they were implementing permanent logistical changes that in
recent years have become the norm for the March event.

The ceremonial start for the race in Anchorage, Alaska will go only
11 miles-- seven miles shorter than it usually is--and according to the
Los Angeles Times, will be done on trucked in snow.

The trucking in of the snow is kinda funny if you think about it.
Using a dwindling precious resource to truck in another dwindling
resource, the cause of which is the dwindling resource used to truck in
the dwindling resource.