The picture above is of a breathtaking sunrise in the mountains rising above St. Mary’s Lake in Montana’s Glacier National Park in the US. When the park was created in 1910, it had 150 glaciers. Now it has 30 glaciers, significantly reduced in size.

The global warming and climate change is taking place at such an alarming rate, that more than 200 internationally acclaimed Climate Scientists issued a declaration at the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Bali recently, urging politicians to chalk out proper plans and targets to tackle climate change. Gas and carbon emissions must be reduced by at least 50%, by 2050, according to the declaration. For comparison, the Kyoto Protocol aims for a reduction in developed nations of at least 5% below 1990 levels by 2012.

Drawing on data from the 2007 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report, the scientists note that to achieve this, greenhouse-gas concentration need to be stabilized at a level well below the present level. But they also state that even aiming at this level could mean that we are giving ourselves a slim chance to curb and arrest the temperature rise.

The scientists also discussed that though these facts and numbers have been discussed before, there is still a lot of uncertainty when it comes to understanding what level of greenhouse-gas cuts would lead to what level of climate change. They also maintain that the targets given in the declaration will be insufficient to avoid dangerous consequences.

In fact, some researchers have doubted the entire process and questioned the astuteness of setting fixed targets for greenhouse-gas levels. According to them, it would be more useful to continually adjust targets as time passes and the consequences of the cuts become apparent.

Whatever it may be, it is evident that environmental campaigning and ecological conferences should focus not only upon what is easy, but rather take principled long-term positions regarding what is necessary to achieve global ecological sustainability.

Via-Intenational Herald Tribune