From the article:

How dire is the climate situation? Consider what Rajendra Pachauri, the head of the United Nations’ prestigious Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), said last month: “If there’s no action before 2012, that’s too late. What we do in the next two to three years will determine our future. This is the defining moment.” Pachauri has the distinction, or misfortune, of being both an engineer and an economist, two professions not known for overheated rhetoric.

In fact, far from being an alarmist, Pachauri was specifically chosen as IPCC chair in 2002 after the Bush administration waged a successful campaign to have him replace the outspoken Dr. Robert Watson, who was opposed by fossil fuel companies like ExxonMobil. So why is a normally low-key scientist getting more desperate in his efforts to spur the planet to action?

Part of the answer is the most recent IPCC assessment report. For the first time in six years, more than 2,000 of the world’s top scientists reviewed and synthesized all of the scientific knowledge about global warming. The Fourth Assessment Report makes clear that the accelerating emissions of human-generated heat-trapping gases has brought the planet close to crossing a threshold that will lead to irreversible catastrophe. Yet like Cassandra’s warning about the Trojan horse, the IPCC report has fallen on deaf ears, especially those of conservative politicians, even as its findings are the most grave to date.

The article goes on to describe the scary realities we will face if action isn’t taken in the next few years to drastically reduce our emissions.

I don’t think many people, Americans especially, really understand the level of climate chaos we are facing and the drastic changes in lifestyle that will be required just for the survival of our own civilization, let alone the survival of the thousands of other species sharing space with us on this planet. The changes only get more drastic the longer we wait to address the problem.

What these reports don’t often consider, though, are the consequences of the fossil fuel depletion that we may now be witnessing. Today, there is practically no political will in Washington to do anything serious about climate change. The IPCC says we need to make drastic emission cuts before 2012. 2011-2012 is also the date range that many peak oil models are converging on. So, after that time (if not sooner), our available fossil fuel supplies will only decrease, year after year. at least for oil. Unfortunately, if the status quo continues, not only will we have passed the point of no return on climate change by then, but if we are short on oil, we’ll have to resort to massive increases in the use of coal to keep civilization running. That would basically guarantee that the planet is uninhabitable by the end of the century.

I get that politicians don’t want to talk about sacrifice or significant lifestyle changes. I understand that people don’t like hearing that they may need to give up the “American” lifestyle in many significant ways. But, the sacrifices that will have to be made in 2012 will be orders of magnitude worse than those we make now, which are already orders of magnitude worse than the sacrifices we would have had to make if we paid attention decades ago.

I have grown up hearing stories about the so-called, “Greatest Generation”, while people all around me and in the media constantly bemoaned the supposed apathy of the current younger generations. Well, the climate/energy crisis is our generation’s great challenge. Again, we sit at a precipitous moment in history. As Al Gore elegantly put it in his Nobel acceptance speech:

The future is knocking at our door right now. Make no mistake, the next generation will ask us one of two questions. Either they will ask: “What were you thinking; why didn’t you act?”

Or they will ask instead: “How did you find the moral courage to rise and successfully resolve a crisis that so many said was impossible to solve?”

We have everything we need to get started, save perhaps political will, but political will is a renewable resource.

So let us renew it, and say together: “We have a purpose. We are many. For this purpose we will rise, and we will act.”

The time for debate is over. The time for action is now. I implore you to join 1Sky or another climate action group and become part of, if not the solution, than the best chance we have.

I visited the aquarium in Baltimore, walked the boardwalk in Wildwood, NJ, saw Dinosaur fossils at the Natural History Museum in NYC, and even checked out more local sites in Philadelphia, like the Franklin Institute. I even caught the awful, Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer movie. Luckily, it was only $5.00.

Tomorrow, I go back to work and I am trying to line up a series of more substantial posts on a few topics that interest me. One series will be my much belated look at the themes in Al Gore’s, The Assault on Reason, which I still haven’t finished. Who knew a vacation could keep one so busy?

I also have some still not yet fully coalesced ideas for some more technical and philosophical posts to keep with the theme of this blog. After Sicko is released in my area, there will definitely be at least one post about it. Finally, I think I should really get around to rebuilding the main Alterzone.net site that has languished in oblivion for years now. My plan is to include a Subversion repository of ongoing projects, create a portfolio of sorts of my technical and other work, and basically create a play area for any experimental Web development or other digital artifacts that I typically just leave strewn about my various computers. Now that I think about it, maybe the development of the new site can itself be a series of blog entries!

It looks like I have given myself a lot of work to do, but by announcing it publicly, maybe I’ll now have the motivation to actually get it done.

I have been thinking for a long time now, myself, that progress is never going to be made on any of the issues I am concerned about like IP, energy, global warming, etc. until the fundamental problem described quite thoroughly in The Assault on Reason, is addressed. I, too, am looking for a way to focus my energies and skills in addressing the problem, but haven’t quite figured out what to do yet. I’m glad Lessig is joining the fight. He was and continues to be an inspiration to me and a major influencer of my views on IP issues and I have no doubt that he will continue to be so on these new issues.

I hope to have some more detailed analysis of the book’s content as I continue reading.  But, I suggest that anyone out there concerned about America’s future and dismayed by the anti-intellectualism that seems to have become dominant during this new century check out the book.  It is well worth a read, even if you don’t agree with Gore’s conclusions.  I think you’ll at least find in it a refreshing example of how political discourse and debate could be in this country, but sadly isn’t.