Activists, led by the tea party, are attacking the landmark global agreement reached at the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro in June 1992. It’s called Agenda 21.
They claim global warming is a farce and view Agenda 21 as a conspiracy by the U.N. to deprive citizens of their individual property rights.
With numerous wildfires fueled by lightning and record drought conditions, one would hope that those who still believe in the Republicans’ self-indulgent, erroneous claim â€" our part in global warming is a mere drop in the bucket â€" would think again.
Annually, our worldly dribble of carbon dioxide is 29 gigatons, far more than our natural atmospheric cycle can absorb. It accumulates and decreases our planet’s ability to cool, and warming oceans are losing their ability to act as heat sinks.
In 1998, scientists retrieved the 3,623-meter-long Vostok ice core in Antarctica that contained approximately 420,000 years of past climate information. The concentrations of CO2 steadfastly fluctuated between 180 and 280 parts per million, which always coincided with a warming event, quickly followed by an ice event. We surpassed 280 ppm in 1850.
Continuous rise
Since that fateful day, atmospheric concentrations continue to accumulate. We reached 310 ppm by 1960, 337 ppm in 1980 and 369 ppm in 2000. This past May, cumulative concentrations of CO2 in our atmosphere reached 397 ppm by volume.
For the last decade, oil and natural gas companies have been â€" and continue â€" securing short-term leases from financially struggling landowners for hydrofracturing, the high-pressure induction into shale of sand, 750 chemicals and millions of gallons of fresh water.
The result is polluted groundwater, farmland and billions of gallons of toxic freshwater that we can’t drink, use to irrigate crops, bathe, fish or even use to extinguish fires.
I believe the anti-Agenda 21 activists have formed an alliance with the “drill baby drill†coalition to stop the expansion of protected lands and eliminate environmental regulations while 1 billion people â€" and growing â€" lack access to safe drinking water, electricity or food.
Most of the world’s ecosystems are in decline. Population growth, on top of climate change, is predicted to exacerbate the challenges.
Agenda 21 is an effort to secure a better environmental, economic and social future for all.
Is this what’s under attack?
John Foster Way, of Norwich, can be reached through his blog at JohnFosterWay.com.
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