Climate Change Can Be Stopped By People Power, Not Corporate Corruption

The Alliance Party says a proposal by the Bush Administration to stop climate change by deflecting sunlight from Earth is lunacy.

Alliance Party climate change spokesperson Matthew Stephen says a new United Nations report on climate change shows that unless the international system of free market capitalism is dumped, then humankind faces catastrophe.

However the corporate-backed US Government are desperate to protect privilege by muddying the waters with crackpot solutions, he says.

"The reported plans to deflect sunlight include putting a giant screen into orbit, releasing thousands of tiny balloons, or pumping droplets into the atmosphere to mimic the cooling effects of a volcanic eruption – and would have about as much success as Dubya's new Iraq strategy."

Mr Stephen says the new report from the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) puts an end to the bogus debate over whether human-caused global warming is real.

"This report brings together the work of thousands of scientists and predicts the most likely global temperature increase to be around 3 degrees centigrade, although higher increases cannot be ruled out."

"The effects of this will be catastrophic: many Himalayan glaciers will disappear resulting in massive fresh water shortages, rising sea levels will threaten coastal cities, hundreds of millions would be forced to leave their homes, with extreme weather and mass species extinction other possibilities."

The time for relying on feel-good measures is rapidly coming to an end, says Mr Stephen.

"We need to change the whole system, because as long as there is money to be made from wrecking the environment, it will continue to be wrecked."

Mr Stephen says Alliance policies address the environmental crisis as well as helping people, especially those on low to middle incomes.

The Alliance stands for subsidized housing insulation, the introduction of a carbon tax, the creation of a top-quality fully integrated public transport system, and increased Government investment in research and provision of sustainable forms of energy.

"The unplanned chaos of the market system endangers life as we know it, and the Alliance has the answer – a socially planned economy and international solidarity on climate change."

ENDS

© Scoop Media