Last week I was in Ulan Bator, Mongolia, the coldest capitol on earth. I had arrived there from Hong Kong that was experiencing an unseasonable and unusual cold spell. Watching and reading the news about the freezing cold fronts, flash floods, and mudslides in America, Europe and China, not to mention the numerous other countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America, I couldn’t help wonder why, in light of all the scientific research, findings and the unpredictable cold fronts and heat waves, there are still so many global warming deniers.
I have been acutely aware and vocal of the environmental degradation humans are inflicting on Mother Nature since the 70s. I started my climate change horseback protest rides on the streets of Los Angeles in 1979, wrote about it in my 2009 book Feasting Dragon Starving Eagle, and my February 28, 2014 blog Climate Vortex.
The U.S. Department of Defense has released reports warning us about the current threats and upcoming dangers of global warming. In a study commissioned and suppressed in 2005, the Pentagon warns us that:
“Major European cities will sink beneath rising seas and Britain
will be plunged into a ‘Siberian’ climate by 2020, just a decade
away. Nuclear conflicts, mega-droughts, famine and widespread
rioting will erupt across the world. This threat to global stability
vastly eclipses that of terrorism, say the few experts privy to the
report. ‘Disruption and conflict will be endemic features of life,’
concludes the Pentagon analysis. ‘Once again, warfare would define
human life’.”
The Paris Agreement goal of capping global warming at 1.5 degrees Celcius will slip beyond reach unless countries act now to slash carbon pollution, curb energy demand, and suck CO2 from the air, according to the latest draft report of the U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel for Climate Change.
From Atlantic frozen sharks served on America’s East Coast, to the frozen Yellow River that thunders over the Hukou Waterfall on the border of Shanxi and Shaanxi provinces, courtesy of the exceptionally cold weather — our earth is freezing!
Looking at the blanket of coal burning pollution covering Ulan Bator, and listening to the children who are inhaling the deadly pollutant particles into their developing lungs — hack and chock on their coughs — my belief in renewable natural energy sources was doubly reinforced. Thankfully, the Mongolian government recognizes the self-inflicted damage it is perpetuating on its children and is increasing the capacity of the country’s thermal and electric power plants, as they decrease coal burning plants.
China has taken the Climate Change front and center lead, leaving America chocking in the dust.
Mongolia like China is a signatory to the Paris Climate Agreement. America was. It is time it re-sign and rejoin before China hijacks the Climate Change debate and freezes America out in the cold — chocking.