Climate Reality And A Calling

The globe we live on is changing in ways that the human species has not experienced. Global temperatures have risen 1.3 degrees Fahrenheit in the past century and the emissions that are driving that increase further are continuing to increase to a point where positive feedback loops leading to a tipping point are now occurring. This is and will have consequences regarding the human species' ability to grow food, maintain biodiversity, preserve water sources and stave off diseases. And though there are interests that would have people believe this is either not happening, not pushed by man or made up to institute some worldwide tax slave state the reality and the facts behind climate science reveal that to be rhetoric contrived by a network of politically and ideologically slanted think tanks that deal in propaganda and misinformation in order to support their profit driven benefactors.

Since the 1930s scientists had begun questioning whether man's behavior and habits on this Earth post Industrial Revolution had amplified the natural carbon cycle and atmospheric composition of our planet. Thousands of studies and peer reviewed papers have been published with over 98% of climate scientists publishing stating and agreeing that humans are indeed changing the face of the Earth and pushing the natural processes that we have come to rely on for centuries to a place beyond their natural ability to sustain us. We do not live in a linear system and are now seeing clearly globally that pushing the natural variables of climate are now causing those systems to push back.

The question we should now be asking ourselves is just what are we prepared to do to deal with the changes taking place... The changes we have precipitated by continuing to remain closed off from reality listening only to those voices telling us everything is OK in order to preserve the status quo that benefits the few at the expense of the many. It surely may be hard to accept that man has such an influence on this planet, but ever since man began changing the face of Earth thousands of years ago through agriculture and deforestation we have been setting the scene for the future.

Climate had remained basically stable up to that point with interglacial and glacial periods happening on a time scale of thousands of years. What we are seeing now is a pace and severity of change faster than ever before due to the time lapse feedbacks of the concentration of greenhouse gases put up into the atmosphere by humans from this past century and even before that have pushed those natural cycles. Continuing this same behavior only increases exponentially the chances of our world being an even more unstable place for our children.

I say this because I love this planet and I care about its future: This is real and it is affecting places globally now with rapid melting of glaciers particularly in the Arctic where warming has been twice as fast as anywhere on the globe. Places worldwide are now seeing changes in weather patterns that due to this melting and other factors and forces on the atmosphere are jeopardizing their ability to farm, to maintain adequate and healthy water sources and to maintain health due to extreme drought, deluges and storms that are becoming more common and damaging. We can no longer afford to treat this as some distant event we do not have to worry about. It is a present danger to our way of life precipitated by us and the only way to address it is to look in the mirror.

And I have been doing that for a very long time. Since I was a young child the environment has been my life. I read Silent Spring (which is fifty years old this year) with my mom on our front porch swing and it changed my life and hers. Little did I know that in five years’ time after reading it she would leave me because cancer would take her at such a young age. Losing her, the sweetest woman I could ever know who was also my friend and my inspiration as well only intensified my focus on seeing a world where my child would not lose their mother at such a young age.

At that time pollution of our air and water had reached a crisis point. Only because of the endless work of people on all sides of the political aisle spurred by Rachel Carson's brilliant and relevant treatise on the state of humanity did the Clean Air Act, Clean Water Act and EPA come to fruition. I even wrote to then President Nixon to tell him of my concerns. I was surprised at the letter he sent me back. This man who bombed Cambodia sent me a letter written by a lemon farmer whose love of the environment was a true dichotomy to his presidential evils. It was surely an enigma to me how two such actions could diverge in one person. Nevertheless, we were making progress on an environment we had taken for granted in our zeal to see "progress." So from the time of my mother's death I then made a pledge that I would do what I could with my small voice, my pen and my passion to not see that progress slip away.

As a young woman I was involved in writing about the environment and participating in local initiatives. Then in the early nineties I came across a book called Earth In The Balance written by Senator Al Gore. That book like Silent Spring inspired and motivated me. Since then I have followed Mr. Gore's endeavors identifying with the passion he exuded on the pages he wrote because I know he felt the same as I do- that this Earth out of all the things we lose in this life that we love that we have no control over was something we could never let slip out of our grasp because we do have the ability to control it. After having my son in the early nineties I then knew even more how important this was.

This month I will be going to San Francisco after being selected by former Vice President Al Gore and The Climate Reality Project to meet with him and other experts on the truth of this crisis and to bring that truth back to share with others.
So, I am going there to honor the memory of my mother. I am going there because I love this Earth with all of my heart. I am going there because I love my son. I am going there because I made a pledge. And I am going there because the man who chairs this project is a man I have respected and loved for many years because he gets it. Because he sees what is truly at stake. Because the Reality of knowing that the progress we once attained is once again slipping away is morally reprehensible and as a citizen of this world and a woman who loves my child, to stand aside and let it happen is simply not an option.

We need to begin to pull together across partisan lines to call out political leaders to do what is right for our planet and us. Renewable energy, sustainable agriculture, reforestation and a new awareness and perception of our only home are imperative steps we now need to take in order to not have our children and grandchildren one day look at us and ask, ‘why didn’t you care when it mattered most?’ Please, those who read this, look beyond the political walls, ideological barriers and human frailties that in the past have inhibited us as a species from achieving our true potential. The current world situation is of our making and the good news of it all is that we do still have time to change it. Our children and theirs will remember our actions and choices made now. How do you wish to be remembered?