By George Shears
Ross Gelbspan, former reporter and editor for The Boston Globe, as well as a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist, has been a tireless leader in spreading the word about global climate change for over a decade. A highly articulate and knowledgeable spokesman on this urgently important topic, he has authored two outstanding books.
The first of these, The Heat Is On: The Climate Crisis, The Cover-Up, The Prescription, was published in 1998.
His second book, published in 2005, is entitled, Boiling Point: How Politicians, Big Oil and Coal, Journalists, and Activists Have Fueled a Climate Crisis—And What We Can Do to Avert Disaster.
The respective titles of these two books accurately summarize their major themes, which he has also addressed vigorously and repeatedly in numerous live presentations. He has also updated this information continuously on his highly informative website.
A large number of his presentations are also available as online videos. Unfortunately, given the dire importance of this information for all of us, many of them have received only a small fraction of the attention that they rightfully deserve.
This is consonant with the fact that a large segment of the world’s population (especially in the U.S.) continues to be oblivious to, unbelieving, or in denial about, the impending climate catastrophe, which is by far the greatest emergency that humanity has ever faced. This is somewhat like hundreds of millions of people continuing to lounge on the beach in spite of repeated warnings that a huge tsumami is rapidly approaching.
The following highly informative video by Ross Gelbspan offers a quick overview of the major facts about this crisis. Although a great deal of additional evidence of global climate change has been adduced since this video was made, sadly many of the impediments to implementing effective solutions remain largely unchanged.
Unless you’re already fully aware of the potentially catastrophic effects of global climate change—including the very destruction of civilization as we know it—and also have a clear understanding of what actions you can take to help avert it, I strongly urge you to take about 10 minutes of your precious time to hear the urgent message and call to action that Ross Gelbspan imparts masterfully in this video.
As he emphasizes strongly toward the end of this video, only an extremely strong grassroots movement will suffice to induce legislators and institutional bodies to implement the bold actions that are necessary to shift from carbon-based to renewable energy sources.
Fortunately, since early 2007 when this video was produced, a number of excellent citizen action organizations have sprung up. They provide one very effective means for ordinary people to contribute to the rapid and, hopefully, massive expansion of the support that will be needed to move forward with this crucially-important agenda.
Here are the websites of four outstanding examples of these organizations:
http://www.climateprotect.org/ (The Alliance for Climate Protection, whose main mission is to “persuade the American people—and people elsewhere in the world—of the importance and urgency of adopting and implementing effective and comprehensive solutions for the climate crisis.”)
http://www.repoweramerica.org/ (Repower America - This group, created by The Alliance for Climate Protection, “is the bold clean energy plan to ‘repower’ our country with 100% clean electricity within 10 years.”)
http://www.350.org (This global group aims specifically to mobilize people to stop the climate crisis by organizing local rallies on October 24, 2009 to call for a fair climate treaty when the nations of the world meet in Copenhagen in December of this year.)
http://www.1sky.org (This political action group “unites scores of groups and individuals in a collaborative campaign with a single purpose: Shifting federal policy in the United States towards the prosperity of a sustainable low-carbon economy.”)
Help save the environment while you
also save greatly on your online shopping at
http://healthylifefoundation.wordpress.com
