Loss of Arctic ice could cost trillions

The Pew Environmental Group in the USA has released a peer-reviewed report stating that damage from rising seas, floods and heat waves due to the loss of Arctic Sea ice will cost the sectors of agriculture, real estate and insurance up to US$24 trillion by 2050.

The report also estimates that heat waves, flooding and other factors are already resulting in hundreds of billions of dollars lost annually. Report author and resource economist Dr. Eban Goodstein stated, “The Arctic is the planet's air conditioner and it's starting to break down. Everybody around the world is going to bear these costs.”

During the December 2009 Copenhagen Climate Change Conference in Denmark, the Arctic Council announced new findings that the fastest way to halt the rapid melting of the Arctic is to reduce shorter-lived substances like methane, ground-level ozone and black carbon, and that the best way to ease ground-level ozone, the third most prevalent greenhouse gas, is to decrease methane.

Jonas Gahr Støre - Minister of Foreign Affairs, Norway, Arctic Council Leader (M): If there is one positive message from this report, it’s that doing something about that, if not easy, is manageable.

So while we wait for the results of curbing CO2 emissions, we need to address the issue of methane, ozone, black carbon, swiftly.

VOICE: With livestock accounting for 36% of human-caused methane, it is clear that decreasing animal agriculture is the fastest way to cool the planet and avoid catastrophe.

The Netherlands’ Environmental Assessment Agency has also calculated that global adoption of a vegan diet would reduce the costs of mitigating climate change a full 80% by 2050.

We appreciate this sobering report, Pew Environmental Group scientists. Let us all step toward the most rapid way to reduce costs and cool the Earth: the life-saving plant-based fare.

In a September 2009 videoconference in South Korea, Supreme Master Ching Hai highlighted as she has on previous occasions the need for quick action to restore Arctic ice and the planet as a whole.

Supreme Master Ching Hai: They call the Arctic ice the refrigerator of the planet, and without it, there will be more droughts and floods in other, even, faraway parts of the world.

The world’s leading climate scientists told us in television interviews that being vegetarian – meaning no animal products – is the single most effective thing an individual can do to stop global warming.

Meat is the number one cause of global warming. So, the number one solution is to stop producing it. So, we all have to be vegan. That is what the science is clearly telling us right now.

If the world’s people become vegan, one of the results is that the ice in the Arctic will be restored, and quickly, along with the repairing of nature in every corner of the planet

Isn’t that wonderful? This is the truth that I could promise you, but we all must act fast, like, yesterday.

http://planetark.org/enviro-news/item/56999
http://www.pewtrusts.org/uploadedFiles/wwwpewtrustsorg/Reports/Protecting_ocean_life...
http://www.pbl.nl/en/publications/2009/Climate-benefits-of-changing-diet.html

Heat wave claims numerous lives in Australia.

According to a recently released report by Victoria state’s Chief Medical Officer Dr. John Carnie, the state experienced a 62 percent increase in fatalities between January 26 and February 1 of this year. Within that one week, as many as 347 people are believed to have lost their lives to the unusual 15 degree Celsius above average temperatures during that period, with the highest temperature topping 45.1 degrees Celsius. The majority of the victims were elderly or chronically ill who were less capable of adapting to such sudden variations in weather. In response, the Victoria state government has announced expansion of a registry program to monitor and help ensure the well-being of the elderly living on their own.

We are sorrowed to hear of the lives lost due to the extreme climatic conditions of global warming. Our prayers for humanity’s caring stewardship of the planet to restore nature’s gentle stability.

In a videoconference with our Association members in Australia on August 17, 2008, Supreme Master Ching Hai conveyed once again the importance of an animal-free diet as a solution to global warming along with her optimism about its widespread adoption in time to save our planet.

Videoconference with Supreme Master Ching Hai
Sydney Center Australia August 17, 2008

Supreme Master Ching Hai: At the point of no return that would be rolling downhill then. No change can be taken place anymore. Nothing can help anymore at that time. And there may be nobody survives, or maybe very little, a handful of people survive because of their spiritual merit. But then will be also difficult for them to continue in this kind of condition. I don’t wish to have to teach you this. There is no need to talk about this right now because we still have time. Let’s hope we will change the course of the disaster. I really am hopeful. I’m feeling positive about it, I feel positive that people will change. Not only in Australia that we will avoid disaster, but everywhere in the world. That’s what I am positive about. I feel people will change; the majority of people will change. And I only need 2/3 of the population of the planet that change, then we can save the world and repair the planet.

Supreme Master Ching Hai: And the vegetarian people will live happily on the world full of abundance, loving and kind.