Thursday, October 20, 2011

Global politics and current environmental condition

If we look at the current environmental condition of our planet there are only a handful of good things while on the other hand there is a bunch of different environmental issues that are constantly growing in size such as climate change and biodiversity loss.

Climate change is usually described by environmentalists as the No.1 environmental threat of our time. The magnitude and the global character of climate change are certainly two key things that give climate change the edge over other environmental issues. Not only that, ever-increasing climate change impact is also worsening other environmental issues such as pollution and biodiversity loss.

World leaders are apparently still convinced that the best solution to tackle climate change is to remain ignorant about it. How else could you explain constant talks without any real step forward in agreeing the new climate deal? By individual interests perhaps? Well, isn't a fight against climate change global interest since climate change affects our entire planet? Not according to the world leaders and their difference in opinion.

It certainly looks like the world leaders are all blinded by the money, economy and politics. Or perhaps they do not want to look at our environment because they primarily associate green color with money instead of nature.

The economy still heavily outweighs ecology. The best proof to this is the constant growth of carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions. The countries are promising major cuts in emissions but so far we are seeing very little of it. The transition to renewable energy is very slow because fossil fuel lobbies still have too much power over politics.

Couple of years back when Obama was elected many people all across the globe expected the "green revolution" led by United States and new climate deal. The years are passing by but there is still no green revolution and there is also still no sign of new climate deal. The political promises have so far done very little for ecology and our environment in general.

Can we expect more “green politics” in years to come? The way things are currently going we could see more green politics only when climate change totally runs out of control. By then it will likely be too late for any political decision that could save us from total environmental disaster.

The fact that politics determines the destiny of our environment is a sad fact indeed but hey it is a sad world we live in.

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