University of California President Janet Napolitano attended a two-day climate change summit at UC San Diego where she stated that reducing the human carbon footprint is a “moral imperative.”
Addressing these challenges and reducing our carbon footprint is a moral imperative.
Napolitano vowed to turn 10 campuses into living laboratories to discover solutions for climate change that be scaled up to state, national, and global levels, reports The Associated Press.
Researchers at the UC Summit on Carbon and Climate Neutrality discussed actions they say the world should be undertaking to tackle the problem of global warming. Their blueprint for action includes reducing the carbon footprint of the wealthiest 1 billion people in the world.
UC officials presented data that shows global warming could be slowed drastically by reducing greenhouse gases by 50 percent and black carbon by 90 percent over the next 15 years, reports CBS8. This includes the wealthy cutting back, as well as making green energy available to the poorest 3 billion people.
By reducing carbon dioxide emission by 80 percent by 2050, the world could slow the disastrous impacts of climate change by 25 years, said the UC researchers.
Governor Jerry Brown, keynote speaker at the summit on Tuesday, stated the problem requires moving our nation away from it’s reliance on fossil fuels.
Brown indicated that fighting climate change is a challenge because many people have a hard time understanding the issue. “Climate change doesn’t have a face, it doesn’t have a national identity,” he said.
Climate change doesn’t have a face, it doesn’t have a national identity and it’s not located in any one spot. It’s diffuse, it’s global and that makes it difficult.
