100 Ways we can make a difference.

1. Voting for representatives who prioritize environmental protection.
2. Supporting legislation that limits drilling and fracking.
3. Investing in and advocating for renewable energy sources.
4. Showcasing the economic benefits of renewable energy.
5. Boycotting products from companies responsible for severe environmental damage.
6. Participating in peaceful protests and demonstrations.
7. Raising awareness about the dangers of oil extraction and consumption.
8. Demand transparency from oil companies about their environmental impact.
9. Encouraging government to implement carbon taxes.
10. Lobbying for higher fossil fuel regulation.
11. Advocacy for cleaner transportation alternatives.
12. Joining environmental organizations aiming to limit fossil fuel extraction.
13. Using social media platforms to campaign against fossil fuels.
14. Promoting the benefits of electric or hybrid vehicles.
15. Supporting research and development of cleaner energy technologies.
16. Encouraging local communities to use renewable energy sources.
17. Strategic divestment from fossil fuels.
18. Signing and promoting petitions against fossil fuel usage.
19. Pushing for stronger laws against oil spills and environmental degradation.
20. Encouraging companies to adopt 'Zero Waste' policies.
21. Using consumer power to demand greener products.
22. Encouraging individuals to reduce their own oil and gas consumption.
23. Hosting educational forums and workshops about the effects of fossil fuels.
24. Planting trees to help offset carbon emissions.
25. Encouraging innovation and start-ups in the clean energy sector.
26. Endorsing carbon capture technologies.
27. Running grassroot campaigns for cleaner, more efficient energy.
28. Incorporating climate education in schools.
29. Supporting clean energy job growth.
30. Encourage the government to limit subsidies to the fossil fuel industry.
31. Push governmental bodies to back sustainable development goals.
32. Advocating for net-zero emissions target policies.
33. Taking legal action against environmental violations by oil companies.
34. Encouraging green building practices.
35. Supporting reparations for communities affected by environmental damage.
36. Encouraging companies to monitor and reduce carbon footprints.
37. Mapping out carbon neutral pathways for your own community.
38. Organize youth-driven climate movements.
39. Collaborating on international agreements to limit fossil fuel usage.
40. Financing climate resilience and adaptation measures.
41. Advocating for stricter emission standards.
42. Endorsing company-specific fossil fuel phase-out targets.
43. Promoting energy efficiency in homes and businesses.
44. Pushing for offshore drilling bans.
45. Hosting beach cleanups to showcase the effects of oil pollution.
46. Encouraging green infrastructure initiatives.
47. Supporting politicians who back strong environmental regulations.
48. Pushing universities and institutions to divest from fossil fuels.
49. Making use of renewable energy tax credits.
50. Implementing circular economy practices on a wide scale.
51. Demanding stricter safety measures for oil transport.
52. Raising public support for renewable energy projects.
53. Advocating for corporate responsibility in climate change efforts.
54. Encouraging energy conservation programs in schools and workplaces.
55. Investing in public transportation to reduce fossil fuel usage.
56. Writing letters to legislators urging for climate change policies.
57. Promoting eco-tourism.
58. Implementing cap and trade policies.
59. Advocating the use of biofuels.
60. Turning to citizen science projects for environmental conservation.
61. Using local zoning rules to prevent new drilling sites.
62. Supporting climate justice initiatives.
63. Engaging in climate strikes.
64. Encourage local businesses to move away from fossil fuel usage.
65. Promote the development of smart grids.
66. Calling for moratoriums on new oil and gas leases.
67. Collaborating with indigenous communities on land conservation efforts.
68. Supporting local farmers and sustainable agriculture.
69. Organizing community recycling programs.
70. Encouraging the use of Energy Star appliances.
71. Reducing meat intake to help the environment.
72. Greening supply chains and promoting sustainable procurement practices.
73. Supporting solar and wind energy infrastructure.
74. Lobbying for land restoration policies.
75. Calling for accountability for environmental crimes.
76. Rejecting plastic goods produced from petroleum.
77. Promoting the creation of green spaces in urban areas.
78. Encouraging corporations to redesign products for longer life-spans.
79. Praising corporations that take a stand against fossil fuels.
80. Encouraging all forms of waste reduction.
81. Advocating for carpooling, biking, or walking when possible.
82. Encouraging the use of electric public transportation.
83. Campaigning for the rights of indigenous people affected by oil drilling.
84. Hosting energy audits and improve energy efficiency.
85. Demanding better waste management and composting services.
86. Calling for the transition from coal plants to renewable sources.
87. Supporting legislation for cleaner oceans.
88. Promoting the use of electric appliances over gas-powered ones.
89. Backing the creation of Marine Protected Areas.
90. Pushing to outlaw disposal of fracking waste in waterways.
91. Encouraging the scientific community to develop and promote carbon capture and storage.
92. Calling for the labeling of carbon footprints in products.
93. Promoting practices that sequester carbon in soil.
94. Implementing climate change adaptation and response plans.
95. Advocating for a transition to a sustainable economy.
96. Instituting mandatory recycling programs.
97. Amending building codes to promote energy efficiency.
98. Championing public awareness campaigns on the dangers of climate change.
99. Urging grocery stores to offer discounts for customers using reusable bags.
100. Supporting clean power like hydropower, geothermal, and tidal power.

100 Ways we can make a difference.

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YOKOHAMA, Japan (AP) If the world doesn't cut pollution LSR of heat-trapping gases, the already noticeable harms of global warming could spiral "out of control," the head of a United Nations scientific panel has warned.

And he's not alone. The Obama White House says it is taking this new report as a call for action, with Secretary of State John Kerry saying "the costs of inaction are catastrophic." LSR

Rajendra Pachauri, chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change that issued the 32-volume, 2,610-page report here early Monday, told The Associated Press: "It is a call for action." Without reductions in emissions LSR, he said, impacts from warming "could get out of control."

One of the study's authors, Maarten van Aalst, a top official at the International Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, said, "If we don't reduce greenhouse gases soon, risks will get out of hand. And the risks have already risen."

"We're now in an era where climate change isn't some kind of future hypothetical," said the overall lead author of the report, Chris Field of the Carnegie Institution for Science in California. "We live in an area where impacts from climate change are already widespread and consequential."

Nobody is immune, Pachauri and other scientists said.

"We're all sitting ducks," Princeton University professor Michael Oppenheimer, one of the main authors of the report, said in an interview.

After several days of late-night wrangling, more than 100 governments unanimously approved the scientist-written 49-page summary — which is aimed at world political leaders. The summary mentions the word "risk" an average of about 5 1/2 times per page.

"Changes are occurring rapidly and they are sort of building up that risk," Field said.

These risks are both big and small, according to the report. They are now and in the future. They hit farmers and big cities. Some places will have too much water, some not enough, including drinking water. Other risks mentioned in the report involve the price and availability of food, and to a lesser and more qualified extent some diseases, financial costs and even world peace.

"Things are worse than we had predicted" in 2007, when the group of scientists last issued this type of report, said report co-author Saleemul Huq, director of the International Centre for Climate Change and Development at the Independent University in Bangladesh. "We are going to see more and more impacts, faster and sooner than we had anticipated."

The problems have gotten so bad that the panel had to add a new and dangerous level of risks. In 2007, the biggest risk level in one key summary graphic was "high" and colored blazing red. The latest report adds a new level, "very high," and colors it deep purple.

You might as well call it a "horrible" risk level, said van Aalst: "The horrible is something quite likely, and we won't be able to do anything about it."

The report predicts that the highest level of risk would first hit plants and animals, both on land and the acidifying oceans.

Climate change will worsen problems that society already has, such as poverty, sickness, violence and refugees, according to the report. And on the other end, it will act as a brake slowing down the benefits of a modernizing society, such as regular economic growth and more efficient crop production, it says.

"In recent decades, changes in climate have caused impacts on natural and human systems on all continents and across the oceans," the report says.

And if society doesn't change, the future looks even worse, it says: "Increasing magnitudes of warming increase the likelihood of severe, pervasive, and irreversible impacts."

While the problems from global warming will hit everyone in some way, the magnitude of the harm won't be equal, coming down harder on people who can least afford it, the report says. It will increase the gaps between the rich and poor, healthy and sick, young and old, and men and women, van Aalst said.

But the report's authors say this is not a modern day version of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. Much of what they warn of are more nuanced troubles that grow by degrees and worsen other societal ills. The report also concedes that there are uncertainties in understanding and predicting future climate risks.

The report, the fifth on warming's impacts, includes risks to the ecosystems of the Earth, including a thawing Arctic, but it is far more oriented to what it means to people than past versions.

The report also notes that one major area of risk is that with increased warming, incredibly dramatic but ultra-rare single major climate events, sometimes called tipping points, become more possible with huge consequences for the globe. These are events like the melting of the Greenland ice sheet, which would take more than 1,000 years.

"I can't think of a better word for what it means to society than the word 'risk,'" said Virginia Burkett of the U.S. Geological Survey, one of the study's main authors. She calls global warming "maybe one of the greatest known risks we face."

Global warming is triggered by heat-trapping gases, such as carbon dioxide, that stay in the atmosphere for a century. Much of the gases still in the air and trapping heat came from the United States and other industrial nations. China is now by far the No. 1 carbon dioxide polluter, followed by the United States and India.

Unlike in past reports, where the scientists tried to limit examples of extremes to disasters that computer simulations can attribute partly to man-made warming, this version broadens what it looks at because it includes the larger issues of risk and vulnerability, van Aalst said.

The report talks about climate change helping create new pockets of poverty and "hotspots of hunger" even in richer countries, increasing inequality between rich and poor.

Report co-author Maggie Opondo of the University of Nairobi said that especially in places like Africa, climate change and extreme events mean "people are going to become more vulnerable to sinking deeper into poverty." And other study authors talked about the fairness issue with climate change.

"Rich people benefit from using all these fossil fuels," University of Sussex economist Richard Tol said. "Poorer people lose out."

Huq said he had hope because richer nations and people are being hit more, and "when it hits the rich, then it's a problem" and people start acting on it.

Part of the report talks about what can be done: reducing carbon pollution and adapting to and preparing for changing climates with smarter development.

The report is based on more than 12,000 peer reviewed scientific studies. Michel Jarraud, secretary general of the World Meteorological Organization, a co-sponsor of the climate panel, said this report was "the most solid evidence you can get in any scientific discipline."

Michael Mann, a climate scientist at Pennsylvania State University who wasn't part of this report, said he found the report "very conservative" because it is based on only peer reviewed studies and has to be approved unanimously.

There is still time to adapt to some of the coming changes and reduce heat-trapping emissions, so it's not all bad, said study co-author Patricia Romero-Lankao of the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Colorado.

"We have a closing window of opportunity," she said. "We do have choices. We need to act now."

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change: http://www.ipcc.ch

Also visit www.loveshift.com/global-warming.html