An Environmental Ethos

You would think that 50 years after the first Earth Day, we would have made progress toward making our home planet more livable. While there was progress at first, we've been backsliding of late, thanks to the current administration in the White House. To paraphrase Pogo, we have seen the enemy, and it is us.

As climate change makes the planet less livable, a mass migration has begun. Scientists can project such changes with precision, but until recently, little has been known about the human consequences of those changes. As their land fails them, hundreds of millions of people will choose between flight or death.

For most of human history, people have lived within a narrow range of temperatures, in places where the climate supported abundant food production. But as the planet warms, that band is suddenly shifting northward. According to the National Academy of Sciences, the planet could see a temperature increase of epic proportions.

According to a recent study, we could experience greater temperature increases in the next 50 years than in the last 6,000 years combined. By 2070, the kind of extremely hot zones that now cover less than one percent of the land surface could cover nearly 20 percent of the land. So what are we to do?

For one thing, we must vote in a national administration that is more sympathetic to the environment. The current administration clearly is not. We must also look to the future for solutions and energy from young climate activists who are taking up the cause, like Greta Thunburg and Jamie Margolin, a native of Seattle.

Both appeared at a joint hearing before congressional committees the Rayburn House Office Building in Washington, D.C. "The status quo (is) the climate crisis," Margolin said, noting that it is still frightening to think about the future. One thing is for sure, if we don't do something soon, we will end up like Bizarro World.