Climate Change-Causes, Costs, Current action

Climate Change:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/6324029.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/6098362.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/6096084.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/6321351.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/4269021.stm

Renewable Energy:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/scotland/edinburgh_and_east/5316946.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/scotland/5264364.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/6271773.stm
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070125/wl_nm/davos_climate_developing_dc_4


The Evidence, Causes, Effects
While evidence for Climate Change is consistently reported almost all around the world, the issue of whether it is happening or not has always been a controversial issue, with many scientists and economists taking sides. However the mainstream opinion is that Global warming is happening, and is certainly an adverse impact, but how much so is a matter of debate.

Many economists base much of their stand on their belief that the actions needed to mitigate Global warming shall damage economies, more than the damage climate change itself can deal. Indeed Australia and the US have rejected the Kyoto protocol based on such grounds. However there is ample evidence to prove the contrary. As in the above articles, the UK-sponsored Stern report on climate change estimates that up to 20% of Global GDP might be shaved off if there is a warming of around 5 C by 2100.

The effects of Global warming on such scales, is of course catastrophic. The many aspects of the effects, the most worrisome among them rising sea levels, extinctions of up to 40% of species, deficiencies in agricultural production, pestilence, permanent climate changes, freak weather events and also the possibility of stronger, more frequent hurricanes paint a environmental dystopia of the future, a feverish Earth with its systems gone wild.

Current Actions
While the future certainly seems bleak, it is not all gloom-and-doom. Many of the worlds developed nations, including the EU and America, are actively involved in actions to reduce the effects of global warming, the EU being highly active in particular.

Many of their efforts have been highly effective, the EU emissions trading scheme being one of them, and there is now a lively market of ‘carbon credit’ operating between big businesses around the world.

Enormous successes have been achieved in recent years by the Green energy industry, particularly the wind industry, especially in Europe and the American Midwest. These areas, among others, have proven their value as wind farms, with each wind turbine generating up to hundreds of megawatts of electricity. In these places they have become crucial to the energy grids. Biofuels, especially ethanol, have also achieved greater prominence in recent years, with the energy giant, Petrobras, instrumental in its worldwide commercial success.

Developing Nations
Developing nations have traditionally used their right to develop as a argument against taking action. However they are increasingly seeing the need to change, as, ironically, they will be the most affected by climate change. There is therefore much incentive for them to act. Indeed, China and India are working to wean themselves away from coal, and the former already has Wind farms operating in its western provinces, with large dams also under construction.

Final opinions
The fight against climate change ‘cannot wait’, as the effects are severely detrimental to human development on all levels. All nations therefore have to make a concerted effort to mitigate this threat, because its effects are not inevitable, and actions can be taken.

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Politics, Society and Religion – Some things about Extremism

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/in_depth/6369251.stm#al
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/in_depth/6369529.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/4802388.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/4204820.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/4204820.stm
The above articles tell us that most people believe that Islam is compatible with Western values of democracy and that the sides in the so-called “clash of civilizations” scenario are ultimately working towards integration, and not towards mutual annihilation. They also touch on the important issues concerning terrorism, and highlight the importance of knowledge, as opposed to political agendas and presuppositions, when dealing with terrorism.
However what these articles did best is to draw attention to extremists on both sides as the true proponents of terrorism, and that it is they that have helped create the “modern-day climate of mutual fear and suspicion" that has been so conductive to radicalism.
Islam has traditionally been a highly tolerant religion. Indeed, the earliest seventh-century Muslim communities in Arabia was well known as feminist, helpers of the poor and preachers of an open, liberal message. They filled in the gaps for a society, which the establishment, who were a powerful plutarchy of family clans continuously waging feudal wars against each other, could not fill.
Islam is also the world’s only large religion that recognizes the legitimacy of another religion. In fact, in the Koran Christians, Jews among others are referred to as ‘People of the Book’, who also knew the ‘God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob’.
It is ironic that today most people would never attribute the above characteristics to the Muslims, due to the group of clerics that are commonly referred to as ‘hijackers’ of Islam. True ‘fundamentalist’ Islam is therefore not the extremism we see today.
As one person puts it—“Devoid of the necessary skills and tools to decipher the religious texts, minions of chaos have side-stepped over 1,000 years of scholasticism and Koranic exegesis to create their own deluded Sharia - a new law couched in Islamic terminology established solely to be the antithesis of the West. Under this law, there is only hatred and rejection. Under this law, Muslims and non-Muslims alike are its victims”

On the other side, there are the controversial, ‘super-liberal’ critics of Islam in the West, and also some of the governments and even communities that have taken actions against Muslims that can best be described as inappropriate. These parties’ opinions and actions, while carrying a seed of truth, are inflammatory to Muslims and do not contribute positively to the process, and their stand that Islam cannot be reconciled with the West are counterproductive. They only serve to prove the Islamic extremists right in their assertion that Islam is under siege.
In conflicts like the Iraq war and The Palestinian war, and in terrorist attacks, along with controversies such as the Danish cartoon conflict, it is ultimately these extremists that gain support for themselves, and it is they who get the most people and resources, to generate the next round of conflict.
Therefore the thing to do to counter extremism in both sides is thus to keep an open mind about the other, and thus broaden the “middle ground” of the conflict.


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