Facing Climate Reality (It's Real, It's Bad, It's Us)

This is a blog about global warming/climate change by Eureka resident, Larry Lazar

Six Flags no longer has the only roller coaster in town:

For the past two years, water levels in the Mississippi, Missouri and Meramac Rivers have been rising and plunging in a way that is neither natural nor normal. But this ride – from record highs to near-record lows and back to record highs again – isn’t a harmless one, and it doesn’t end until we take ourselves off the track caused by man-made emissions.

“With knowledge comes responsibility”

Like everyone reading this, I can see climate change with my own eyes.  Hardly anyone is blind enough to actually deny climate change anymore.  We can all see and feel the deadly wildfires, oppressive heat waves, disastrous floods and costly storms.

Still, most people remain unaware of the size and scope of the challenge that climate change presents.  It’s a whopper of a problem, but it’s also very solvable – if we face the reality that It’s Real, It’s Bad and It’s Us. 

It’s not difficult to understand.  Scientists have been warning us about this problem for decades now. 

Carbon dioxide (CO2) in the atmosphere traps heat – acting like a blanket over the earth.  Humans put it there by burning fossil fuels.  More CO2 equals higher temps. Higher temps equal more weird weather. The result is a fundamental impact on our climate and civilization. 

The solution is to stop dumping CO2 pollution into the atmosphere. 

How to stop doing that is the very difficult problem that we will likely spend the rest of our lives trying to solve.

Am I alarmed?  Yes, but not for the reason you might think.

It’s not the size of the problem that has me worried.  Global warming is a fixable problem and we have the money, capacity and technological knowhow to implement the solutions.  Rather, I’m alarmed because we are not facing reality, and therefore doing little or nothing to implement the needed changes.  We have a responsibility to do so – now.

Our parents and grandparents didn’t know what they were doing to the climate so they can be excused.  Our generation has no such defense. My view is that those who do understand climate change in any depth have a duty to speak up strongly – because with knowledge comes responsibility and an ethical obligation to our children and society. 

Choosing to be silent or being "too busy" to take a stand on this IS making a choice – that is, one of indifference.  Personally, I don’t see that as an option – which is why I am writing. I am convinced that if more people understood climate change we would be taking action to prevent future damage.

I follow the issue of human made global warming/climate change very closely.  While I’m not a scientist (biology, physics and chemistry classes were much too difficult for me so I went into business instead), I have read literally hundreds of books, magazines, articles, reports and blogs about climate change over the last 10 years.  I have also been very fortunate to get to know several prominent climate change scientists. My interest in climate change has convinced me that it is the greatest challenge facing humankind.  

Hence, this blog.

Together, we can put the brakes on roller coaster weather. But first, we need to open our eyes to Climate Reality. By reading this post, and sharing it with others, you’ve taken an important first step toward carefully considering this issue, and for that, I am grateful.

Next week’s post will provide perspective on the President’s recently released Climate Action Plan.