The whole way home from my hike in Mt. Rainier National Park last week, I drove through smoke. Southern Oregon was especially bad. Those fires again. And hot as blazes again. The sun is a red ball of fire in a steel-gray sky. Apocalyptic images.
As I drove I listened to the New York Times's radio program, "The Daily." The discussion was about the United Nations' latest report on climate change. The reporter made three points:
(1) The report states definitively that the earth is growing hotter (fairly obvious to everyone on earth by now, I should think) and that the increased temperature is human-caused, that we have fouled our own nest.
(2) Even if we stopped all carbon emissions immediately, we are stuck with the effects of climate change for thirty years—the fires, floods, hurricanes, droughts, and other extreme weather events that have so horrified us for the past decades. That means that for the rest of my life I'll see these unbearably hot summers at my home and these raging wildfires that stink up the air and destroy our forests and our homes. I have probably already seen the last of the heavy snows at my house (and how I loved that snow!), and it will become increasingly hard to find good skiing within a couple hours' drive. This summer's drought will be repeated, year after year. I'm afraid that the world as I knew and loved it is already over.
(3) However, if we stopped all carbon emissions tomorrow (yesterday), we could turn things around after those thirty years. That is to say, there is a chance for my granddaughter to eventually experience a better world, in spite of the apocalyptic conditions my generation, and those before it, have brought to her.
Do we have the "political will" to make that change? Ask me personally: you bet! I'll do whatever it takes to renew our world in thirty years. Driving less, certainly. Maybe no more hiking in the Dolomites, as I would so love to do. Finding a way to take the bus—maybe there would be a service with a stop in the Applegate. Maybe we'll be given carbon rations—if you bicycle to work every day, you'll save enough carbon tickets to be able to drive to the beach on Saturday. Inconvenient, yes, but I'm willing. I'll do whatever is asked of me, to make those kinds of sacrifices to compensate for the selfishness I have indulged in, without knowing the harm I was causing, by my normal living.
The hitch is that we all have to be willing to make those sacrifices. Mine are meaningless unless they are matched by everyone else's. And I'm afraid the COVID pandemic has shown that many people in our country have very little concept of doing something for the common good. If people won't even get vaccinated, when the results are so immediate and so obvious, what will it take to get them to change drastically their way of life for results they'll never see, for a better life for the children's children they don't even know? If they won't even accept the government's efforts to make us wear masks to keep us safe—much less to shut things down for the same reasons—how will they ever accept restrictions on our use of carbon?
We could avoid the collapse of all civilization, but are we willing to do what it takes?
I am.
And you?
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