Denial of global warming should concern all
The great philosopher Yogi Berra once said, “It’s tough to make predictions, especially about the future.” But it’s hard not to worry anyway. Of all the problems we face today, there are two that present dire irreversible consequences: the specter of nuclear war and the active denial of global warming.
Because of Trump’s saber rattling, the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists has moved the hands of the doomsday clock by 30 minutes to 2 ½ minutes before midnight. This is as close as it’s been in 64 years. Waving nuclear warheads around as a solution to the world’s problems is an act of insanity. He has appointed a couple of reasonably sane people to his cabinet: Rex Tillerson as Secretary of State and James Mattis as Secretary of Defense. Our hope is that they will temper his atomic bombast and counter the destruction being whispered in the other ear by his adviser Steve Bannon.
The catastrophe of global warming bearing down on us is even scarier. The collapsing West Antarctic ice sheet doesn’t care if you believe the planet is getting warmer. The Arctic sea will soon be free of summer ice regardless of what you think. You can ignore the fact that much of the Great Barrier Reef off the coast of Australia is dead or dying. It doesn’t care, either. It is predicted that, in 30 or 40 years, more than half of all primates on earth will be extinct. In less than 100 years, the blink of a geologic eye, the shapes of the continents will be rearranged by rising seas.
Through global warming and the destruction of habitat through logging and industrial farming, many geologists think that we have ended the Holocene. We have initiated the sixth mass extinction and entered a new epoch called the Anthropocene. Any geologist who might still be around two million years from now would observe a change in sea levels and the disappearance of many species of animals in the record of the rocks. If temperatures continue to rise at the present rate, they say that much of life will disappear, including ourselves, so those geologists would have to be from Alpha Centauri.
There are things we can do. China is making great efforts to curb emissions and we would do well to emulate them. Placing a tax on carbon emissions would be a good first step. Even free market conservatives can agree on this. One thing is certain – doing nothing is assured destruction.
McCracken is a resident of Arroyo Hondo.
