Green Round Table

Good, informative answers. But:

Re. verifiable proofs:

There's also a good bit of biological evidence: movement of certain species towards the poles, increased winter survival rates among e.g. ticks and pine beetles, strains on certain animal populations, changing tree lines, coral bleaching...

Re. question 5:

To my mind, climate change will necessitate changes and sacrifices, also because resources are becoming scarcer and the future world will not be able to sustain the number of humans that are alive today. As agriculture is a major contributor to climate change, our agricultural practices and thus our eating habits will have to change. Our transportation systems will have to rely less on heavy boxes that generally move one plus a fraction of a person at a time, and more on less resource consuming options such as walking, bikes and mass transit. In many cases, this means that our neighborhoods will have to change. Our Western use and throw out mentality, which is becoming more widespread, will have to change, as will the entire commercial ideology that product ownership = happiness. We will have to produce fewer, more durable things. In cases where individual ownership doesn't make sense – it makes sense for everyone to have his or her own toothbrush, but does every household need an electric drill that will only see limited use – more social ownership forms might be better. Economic change will be possible. Economic growth will not.

Some changes can occur relatively painlessly. In Denmark 39% of our 2014 electricity consumption came from wind turbines*, and this is about twice as much as a decade ago. The system doesn't function optimally yet, and some of the electricity is wasted. But this is new territory, and the experts seem to know what can be done (better integration of heat pumps into our CHP system, increased electrification of our transportation), and our policy makers seem to be willing to listen. If everything goes according to plan, wind will be up to 50% in 2020. In other words, the stories you've heard about renewable energy having an upper limit of around 20% aren't true. With capable engineers, well-informed voters, and policy makers who don't run away from responsibility proclaiming “I'm not a scientist,” or “I'm not a pope,” an energy system based on renewables is possible.

*Not made by magic or with technological soup stones.

Greg:

Hello, I am based near Ft. Lauderdale, FL. I am in the process of creating a new website that will be a hub or directory of eco-tour companies globally and the destinations they support. To this end, I've launched a crowdfunding campaign on the site RocketHub, and I wanted to let you know about it. I have 17 eco-tour companies so far that have agreed to be in my test site which I hope to launch this summer! We shall see how it goes. Some of these companies are based here in the USA, some are from Canada, some from the UK, and a few from overseas companies.

Destinations covered in the test site will include: Vancouver Island-Canada, Scotland-UK, Mexico, Costa Rica, Chile, Morocco, Tanzania, Sri Lanka, and more.

Perhaps you or eco-concerned travelers you know might want to help fund this campaign so that I can get the site up and running as soon as possible! Here's the link below. Feel free to pass it on!

Thanks!

Sincerely,

Deborah Regen
coderegen@hotmail.com
Cell: (954) 263-5711

http://www.rockethub.com/projects/56889-eco-tour-directory-online