global warming.
Serious people – climatologists not on the payroll of auto or energy firms – are talking about conditions on much of the planet changing so fast and so radically that it will be impossible for people to live. The word ‘extinction’ has been used by some. The unusual warmth in Europe we’ve seen this summer is consistent with climate models I reviewed 25 years ago. It’s not a pleasant thing to see these projections become reality.
People used to say ‘save mother earth’ but it seems to me that the earth will be fine. We’re the ones looking down the barrel of a gun.
So I’m wondering about priorities now. If we spend, for example, 40 years working to secure the rights of people of any sexuality to marry but pay no attention to the average temperature increase of 5 – 7 degrees across the globe that occurred over the same period have we achieved a victory onboard a sinking ship?
Merely an example. There are countless others available.
All struggles for greater economic and political democracy are necessary efforts but I wonder if, as we work on each of these individual fights, we should spare some collective energy for the massive effort it will take to change our way of life.
Aside from the old fear of nuclear annihilation, I used to dismiss any talk of the end of human civilization as dystopian fiction. But, as the late paleontologist Stephen J. Gould often stated, other species have withered away when the environmental conditions in which they thrived disappeared.
Since this time the changing conditions are the result of our habits and activities, I’m beginning to think that it is of surpassing importance to focus on modifying these habits and activities.
What does everyone else think?
DRM
__________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! SiteBuilder - Free, easy-to-use web site design software http://sitebuilder.yahoo.com