The UN recently issued a direct report that climate change is irreversible. The oceans are warming, polar ice is melting, storms are getting more powerful and frequent, wildfires are burning everywhere, and the Gulf Stream is getting weaker and could even cease altogether.
In other words, we’re f####d.
Or are we?
It may be too late to avert some of climate change’s effects, but there may still be time to avert total calamity. We will have to face rising seas, fiercer hurricanes, more wildfires, and possibly new and nasty diseases; but that doesn’t mean civilization is doomed. Disasters will certainly disrupt society, but they won’t necessarily cause everything to break down. We need to prepare for the worst while doing all that we can to mitigate global warming. Even if we have passed a tipping point – thanks a lot, President [sic] Trump! – we can still survive, and avoid worse tipping points. Areas around the equator may be uninhabitable for part of the year, if not all.
Meanwhile, some countries and regions will benefit. Canada and Russia will have longer growing seasons so they will become the new global breadbaskets. The Great Lakes area and the Nordic countries will enjoy milder winters, according to some projections. Being the tough and resourceful critters we are, we’ll find new places to grow such vital crops as coffee, wine grapes and cacao.
We all need to do what we can – use public transit when feasible, bike or walk more, combine trips, eat less meat (better still, none at all), stop buying stuff we don’t need, purchase items such as clothes that will last, donate or Freecycle usable items instead of throwing them away, recycle (and make sure what we put in that special bin actually gets recycled!), use less water, and so on. Also, we need to lean on our elected officials to pass laws and regulations that help the environment and reduce waste, as well as wean us off limited, polluting fossil fuels.
The next several decades are going to be tough. Remember, tough times don’t last, but tough people do. So do tough societies.
Just to be on the safe side, though, let’s start assembling Knowledge Arks.
7 Responses to “Sound Off! 8/21/21 – The Climate, It’s A-Changin’”
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Sometime this year some Talibangelical made a remark to the effect that sometimes God just takes a wole lot of people out (implying that’s perfectly OK.) He was referring to CoViD, but I’m sure he’d apply the same logic to climate change (he’s unlikely to bellieve it to be man-made.) It uccurred to me that this may not be the “Rapture” they expected, but it may very well be the “Rapture” they’ll get. God/Karma/the universe does have a sense of humor.
At76 I’m not expecting to be around for the worst of it, and my heart goes out to all of you who will. Many of you have done everything tha you possib;y could but were thwarted at every point by those who can’t even consider a little inconvenience – the true snowflakes.
Thank you for this honest and timely summing up.
Great post, Freya.
Yes, Climate Change has been a subject that has been ignored by many for years. We’ve had politicians and their aides being warned about Climate Change and all some of them have done is push it aside and call it Fake News.
For many years here in San Diego, ours has changed so much. We use to have decent rains when I was younger and now we’ve been suffering with drought conditions and that goes for many cities throughout California.
I started doing my part of helping to prevent it from happening many years ago, I’m talking about over 45 years ago when I got connected with many sites that spoke about Climate Change and helping our Planet.
To this day, I’m still trying to do my part to the fullest.
I’m hoping that with President Biden in office now, we will see more positive moves to finding solutions to help slow it down and get some sort of control over it.
Thanks again, Freya
Wonderful article! I liked your suggestions on how we can help. And was pleasantly surprised how many I’m actually doing! Other than underclothing, a few political T-shirts promoting a candidate/cause I like and a new suit for Mom’s funeral – I haven’t bought any new clothes in literally a couple decades!
(I’m not sure I should be admitting that – but it’s true! Of course, being retired really helps.)
And I couldn’t agree with you more WRT your list of “vital crops such as coffee, wine grapes and cacao”!
Wonderful post, Freya.
Having moved to the most backward Western country where climate-change action is concerned, I sometimes regret us coming to Australia and living in a rural/bush area where climate change still is a dirty concept. I’ve always lived environmentally conscious and had taken the steps the Dutch government had taken to at least safeguard the environment and towards climate-change preparedness for granted.
Coming here has been a climate-change wake-up call and though I can do little more to do my personal bit for the planet and try convincing my friends and acquaintances to do the same, I feel that every bit helps.
Fighting fires can’t hurt.
Thanks Freya–a timely choice as just now about a third of the members of my church have been evacuated with more under warnings to be ready to leave from our local fire just a week old (Caldor) grown to over 90,000 acres with 0% containment and Air Quality numbers (carbon released for greenhouse warming) holding at 100 to 600 in the AQ numbers where 50 is the start of unhealthy for sensitive people and Harvard just released a study confirming that wildfire smoke exposure increases risk of Covid as Delta variant keeps surging.
I just fired off a letter to the local school board because I walk past two schools in the morning and get angry, seeing the condition left by the students. There’s no doubt that climate change is due, in part, to pollution by humans, be it trash on land, in rivers, in oceans, etc. And it’s very obvious that teaching students to be aware of their impact is critical. BUT…I’ve asked many kids to tell me about their lessons on this subject and every one of them gave me a blank stare. None of them care because nobody’s taught them…not parents, not teachers.
I also sent the letter to two local newspapers. Let’s see if they print it.
SIGH!