Is raising awareness the key to overcoming anthropogenic global warming?

Question

According to one interviewee of environmental documentary "The 11th Hour" this is exactly what is needed. The problems (wo)mankind faces due to his/her own faults are at the root spiritual issues. That once this issues are addressed all else will naturally fall into place.

Answer 1

Nah, we're all going to die. Basically every dollar you spend hurts environment. If an average Chinese or Indian were consuming as much as a western person we'd need another plant earth already.

Answer 2

No awareness will not change anything.  We are aware of poverty, sickness,  and starvation,  we have not overcome those issues.

Answer 3

Unfortunately i think it goes a bit beyond that. Of course that's the first step, but (Wo)Men get easily used to an old idea and not always good intentions change things around. We are all aware that millions are dying by hunger, we are aware that smoking kills, we are aware that we're polluting the planet... it takes more than awareness. It takes the next step which is to act and to demand action from others.

Not to speak of the attempts to kill the initial phase - "global warming caused by men?? Noooooooo!" I really don't know how to answer for this one. It's not a simple connection to realize and see by ourselves, since climatic processes are such a complex thing but why don't we trust the majority of the scientists? Haven't we trust them about the ozone layer and CFC's?... Most probably they aren't but does it worths the risk that they might be mistaken???

Answer 4

Yes, absolutely.

Action against global warming will cost politically powerful fossil fuel companies billions of dollars.  Through contributions, they have massive influence with political leaders, which could prevent action.  Through a determined misinformation campaign, they are trying to stop public pressure to do something.

The counterbalance would be informed, massive public support for action, causing the political leaders to go against the wishes of the fossil fuel industry.

This is why the Nobel Prize was split between the scientists who have proved the reality of (mostly) man made global warming, and Gore, who has raised awareness, even if his facts aren't always perfect.

Answer 5

This is one of the serious issues I have with some environmentalists, pushing their Scientific Pantheism on others.  I didn't see the movie, but why am I not surprised Dr. D Suzuki is involved.

Scientology will tell you the same thing, if of course you buy enough of their programs.

Answer 6

Awareness is not the issue. Ask anyone in America if thwy have heard of global warming, and they'll say "yes." Ask people if they knew that some think that people have caused it, you'll get a similarly ubiquitous response.

The trouble is, you have to make people accept that, and whats more, make them CARE.

Answer 7

well raising awareness alone does nothing...but awareness and action, now that would be good, we also need to get a lever to get these people who are relying on technology to save us all off there buts and get there eyes open.

The real problem, here and in developing nations is we have become consumers, big tech slugs, leaving a snail trail of used, broken, easily repaired, obsolete "stuff" in our wakes as we move through life, we must always have the next big thing...oh shiny, "up grade" is one of our mantras. Do we really need a new car every 2 years?

   And developing country's see the big US in all of our gluttony, I'm just as guilty, sitting here with my bad *** PC, my Blue tooth, cell phone, ipod ect, and the developing country's try for imitation...

  

So is global awareness the key? yes and no, a necessary part though, definitely.

Answer 8

Yes.  Spread the word:  The sun warms the Earth.  We'll beat this AGW eventually, but it may take an Ice Age to do it.

Answer 9

dont think it will be that easy, but yes, changing the paradigm, how we think of our place in the world, is essential.

some 'deep greens' have named this 'the Great Turning'.

http://www.greatturningtimes.org/

Answer 10

Not just awareness but also a change of heart, a willingness to do with less, have fewer children, consider the impact of growth and development.

Unfortunately our value system is based upon exploiting nature for personal, family and community gain. We need to develop values which will lead to happiness that are not rooted in consumption and development. This is a very difficult problem.

Answer 11

That's why Al Gore made his movie. Unfortunately,some refuse to be enlightened.  Here is a link to a site that refutes ALL the false claims about global warming.

http://environment.newscientist.com/chan...

Answer 12

No, because there is no anthropogenic global warming.

Answer 13

We need more awareness of science and we need a population that is more educated.  They need to be educated on the failures of socialism.  I have been to socialists countries and seen the misery it caused first hand.  We have leftist who think it is cute and cool to push their socialism on everyone else.  It is about as cute as cancer. Gorbachev moved to the green movement for a reason.  I am sure there are people that think global warming is about saving the earth.  It is more about propagating socialism by exaggerating a relatively minor problem. .

Answer 14

No Abdul J, it would actually take 4 planet earths if others lived as American's do.

Answer 15

Absolutely. If an individual is not aware of the world around them, they will continue to be ignorant to the truth. We, as humanity, need to open our eyes to realise what is going on. Global warming was never a 'threat' in the past, but it is now.

On a spiritual level, I believe ignorance is responsible for many of the earth's woes. As you probably know, I am a firm believer in the doctrine of Karma. Karma translates as 'action' or 'deed', and what we do affects the world around us. Bad karma is the flame that follows the fool. So, we can increase the good karma in the world simply by being more *aware* and doing good deeds that will have a positive impact in future or a good repercussion.

Raising awareness is great, but we need to be both *aware* and *involved*. I do happen to be aware of Global Warming, which is why I recycle and plant trees in the garden. Also I don't eat meat, as you know, because of the waste of energy and resources resulting from the meat industry.  We can all contribute for the good of the planet by doing simple things such as tree planting.

Even if you are capable of planting only one tree to help the earth, you are making a positive difference.

Thanks for letting me share this with you ;)

Answer 16

Unfortunately, knowing when the 11th hour is depends on having a reliable clock.  Human are the most adaptable species in the history of the planet.  We have been to the bottom of the ocean, the moon and even the most in-hospitable places on the planet.  We modify our environment to meet our needs.  We will survive easily with climate change.  To be cruel, some will die that can adjust, but the species is not in direct danger from a 1 or 2 degree increase in temperature. The 11th hour for humans may be a little past midnight for other species.

Simple question - why do we care about other species?  Other species indicate how healthy our ecosystems are, and they are all intertwined in ways we don't understand.  They clean our air, water, soil to provide food, shelter and clothing for people.  If enough fail, we have to engineer ways to deal with "cleaning" our home.  Many will be very costly and won't work as well.  Our lifestyle and our childrens' lifestyles will suffer.  Diversity and adequate numbers of species indicates a health system and an easier time providing relative to what could happen.

Answer 17

Awareness that it is unproven theory and not based on empirical fact would certainly help.

Answer 18

Awareness and education go hand in hand, and yes, the way you phrased the question, it is the key.

Awareness among the general public.  

Among business & technology.

Awareness, as one responder pointed out, with action, by the governments of the world.

Living a sustainable life based on the fact that this is the only planet we've got will not only allow us a perfectly wonderful lifestyle, it will ensure that future generations enjoy the same.  Awareness and education can help us achieve this sooner than later.

Answer 19

It's a start, but nothing done in any one country or culture can possibly be effective against this global problem.  Both developed and developing countries must be on board any solution.  This is why the United States is holding back.  Holding out until the developing countries "get it" is a logical strategy to bring others into the solution, as noted by this report from MIT:

"Our results confirm the well-known fact of global climate change: to meet temperature or concentration goals requires concerted efforts from much of the world over a substantial period of time. With rapid growth in developing countries, failure to control their emissions could lead to a substantial increase in global temperature even if the U.S. and other developed countries pursue stringent policies.

It is useful to evaluate the global costs and global benefits of achieving such targets, as difficult as that is to do. However, it is not possible to connect specific U.S. policy targets with a particular global concentration or temperature target, and therefore the avoided damages, because any climate gains depend on efforts in the rest of the world. And unfortunately, absent a global agreement a country’s best strategy in terms of its own self-interest is to do little and freeride on the actions of others. Of course, if all behave in this way very little mitigation will be achieved. If a cooperative solution is at all possible, therefore, a major strategic consideration in setting U.S. policy targets should be their value in leading other major countries to take on similar efforts."

http://web.mit.edu/globalchange/www/MITJ...

For CO2 the United States must bring at least China, India and Russia into an agreement, for black carbon all of Asia must be included, and for deforestation Brazil is the key player.  Educational efforts must start ASAP in those countries, or we can simply wait until they feel enough pain (after their governments are overturned by angry mobs perhaps) to voluntarily enter into agreements.

Adding spiritual discussions into the mix endangers the survival of our species.  We may have passed the point where our lifeboat can carry 6.6 billions souls through the coming storm, and trying to pile them all in may simply be the way to sink us all the fastest.

For example, what have the feel-good attempts to solve world hunger brought us?  More people to have 7 children per couple (the developing nation average), 80 billion people added per year, a rate of 1 billion added per decade.  It has brought us a world population that exceeds the environment's ability to sustain us, and there's no end to that growth in sight.  It's driving the planet towards global genocide.  If you want to feel good about helping people, simply stop the population boom and let population settle around 3-4 billion.  That will resolve hunger, global warming, mitigate the peak oil issue until we can replace transportation technologies, etc..  If we don't choose that route, when resources get tight enough wars will do the overpopulation mitigation job for us.  They always have, always will.