Congress Tackles Fate of Planet Earth
What will the planet Earth look like in 100 years? Al Gore testified before congress yesterday on the global warming crisis. Video below.
He presents some information from the latest studies. One shows that the methane trapped in frozen tundra is 23 times more potent at global warming than carbon emissions. If it melts, there's no way to undo it in any timeframe that matters to humans. Another shows the artic ice is capable of melting much more quickly than previously thought. We could be looking at ice-less polar caps in summers within 34 years, meaning most of Florida would be underwater, billions of displaced refugees world wide.
In the last third he outlines some specific things the congress needs to do. He basically says we need to link enviromental impacts to our markets and proposes some interesting ways to do that: a revenue-neutral tax shift from employment-related taxes to polution-related taxes; an immediate ban on new coal-fired power plants.
I also discovered that Nancy Pelosi posts to YouTube. Cool. She posted Gore's testimony.