Have you made the choice to reproduce? If so, you owe it to your current and future offspring to find out about climate change. And by that I mean, research it from all sides and try to form an independent opinion.
I’ve been trying to educate myself over the last few weeks, in crash-course fashion. If you’ve crossed my path out there in the real world, I apologize for my glazed expression. So much to absorb.
Climate change has become stridently partisan. Political pundits predict (I wasn’t even trying for alliteration there) it will be a defining issue in the 2020 national election. A simple question – How hot is it? – can really make people hot.
If you’re in the mood for a rumble, fill a room with Republicans, Democrats and independents and bring up climate change.
A tempest will ensue, and there’ll be no teapot in sight.
Polling finds Democrats in a 90 percent lockstep: The world is getting disastrously hotter and humans’ thoughtless emission of greenhouse gases is to blame. The Dems want us to DO something.
Republicans (two-thirds or so) disbelieve, according to Gallup. Some talking points: IF the world is warming up, it is a cyclical and natural phenomenon that humans did not cause and cannot control. Other countries are cheating on their carbon dioxide-reduction pledges, so why should America, which has done a good job at reduction so far, hurt its own bottom line in a pointless campaign?
I couldn’t find specific poll results for independents, but true to the definition, some probably line up behind Door No. 1, some behind Door No. 2, and some behind a window they hope to jiggle open.
A nearly 1,700-page National Climate Assessment put out by 13 federal agencies and the White House on Nov. 23 backs Door No. 1.
Although the report, based on more than 1,000 previous research studies, makes no policy recommendations, it says climate change is real, is tied to greenhouse gases, is already harming Americans, and is on course to devastate our economy and people in years to come.
President Donald Trump debunks the report (you know, the one with the “White House” stamp on it). As the federal government’s Alpha Citizen, he has called dire climate-change warnings a “hoax,” and on Nov. 27 said his “very high level of intelligence” makes him disbelieve that humans are culpable.
This incredulity led him to start the three-year process in 2017 to pull the U.S. out of the 195-nation Paris climate agreement, which calls for a global assault on greenhouse gases; to propose freezing federal fuel-efficiency standards for cars and light trucks built after 2020; to incentivize the production of fossil fuels and coal mining; and to roll back several other Obama-era regulations aimed at curtailing emissions.
Most recently, he has aligned with Russia, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait in thumbing their noses at scary analyses being aired right now at a global climate summit in Poland.
Our own country’s report notes that worsening extreme-weather conditions, tied to a warming earth, has cost America nearly $400 billion since 2015 – and will slam the Midwest’s agricultural community, too, in the years ahead. “Worst-ever” fires, hurricanes, droughts and floods have been laying scourge to our country, and around the world.
Hogwash, says Trump. His lips are moving, but I think it’s those polls doing the talking.
One thing Trump’s supporters really like – and why wouldn’t they? – he sticks like glue to his base: folks who largely abhor government regulation and overreach, and are skeptical about scientific conclusions.
Science has earned some skepticism, hasn’t it? Consider Pluto. Scientists said it was a planet, then said it wasn’t a planet, then said it was a dwarf planet, then said it should be planet again. Stay tuned.
And don’t even get me started on whether drinking coffee will kill you or make you live three times as long as a well-maintained coffee plant (for a total of 120 years).
If Trump’s fans think science is a moving target, it’s hard to disagree.
My hope, however, is that all humans, regardless of partisan stripe, will read up on the climate debate, and then let their elected representatives – and this includes Trump, of course – know what they think.
You knew you were going to get my take.
Scientists got us to the moon, landed a high-tech probe on Mars just last month, and invented Pringles. They’ve convinced me on climate change. You may come to a different conclusion, but please make it an informed one.
Points that impressed me over the last few weeks:
■ The World Meteorological Organization reports that the 20 warmest years on record have been in the past 22 years, with 2015-2018 making up the top four.
■ Ninety-seven percent of scientists across wide-ranging fields of study back a strategy of urgent greenhouse gas intervention.
■ Around the globe, scientists blame the rising temperature for extreme weather and cite evidence that the increasing carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is causing accelerating warmth.
■ They warn that our generation is the last one with a chance to protect future generations from climate calamity.
■ Individuals can help by reducing their own dependence on fossil fuels, eating less meat, taking trains instead of planes, and working to influence government policy.
Projections of what’s to come focus on years 2050 and 2100. Trump – and many of us – will have gone on to our reward by then.
But our progeny will still be around.
If a bear is chasing you in the woods, does it do any good to convince yourself the bear is an imaginary threat? Not if the bear has real teeth.
Our kids and grandkids need us to get this right.
