Tag Archives: Climate Crisis

We Cannot Live Alone.

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Our lives are made possible by a delicate ecosystem. We rely on our forests and plants to create oxygen. We rely on bees and other creatures to pollinate the plants that produce our food. We rely on coral reefs to sustain our fish. On birds and bats to control insects. On wolves and other predators to control rodents. On glaciers to provide much of the water we drink.

We like to think of ourselves as stewards of the planet’s ecosystem. But instead, we are its greatest threat.

There are now more than 8 billion humans on planet Earth, all of which demand water, food, housing, and energy. More and more, they also demand a life of convenience, travel and recreation. One in which the niceties require resources. But after a single use, many of the products we use become disposable. As a result, we are rapidly destroying our oceans, our rainforests, and the air we breathe.

Obviously, this places our entire population at risk.

Scientists tell us that our lifestyle and our reliance on fossil fuels are heating the atmosphere. That they’re melting our glaciers at an astonishing rate. That they’re causing extreme wildfires and increasingly damaging storms. And that they will result in the extinction of more than a million species in the coming decades. The very species on which we rely to sustain life.

Yet our politicians, corporations, some religions, and many of our neighbors are in denial of the obvious dangers. They have placed political power over science. Short-term profits over the future. Ignorance and fantasy over reality.

This simply cannot continue. Scientists and activists have created a Climate Clock to show us the time to act is quickly running out. We can prevent the coming catastrophe if we treat climate change as the crisis it is. But once the ecosystem has been destroyed, we will not be able to fix it. And, contrary to the beliefs of some, we are unlikely to find planet B. Even if we could, we would not be able to transport more than a tiny fraction of our population to it. Moreover, we’d quickly destroy that planet, too. Better that we take care of the one we have.

Climate Change: The Future May Be Far Worse Than You Think.

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Today, Americans are facing a number of very real threats to our way of life. We are understandably transfixed by the very real threat to our democracy posed by Trump and his followers, by the theocrats who have taken hold of the court we once believed Supreme, by the still-ongoing pandemic, by the corporate price-gouging which has led to global inflation. But the greatest threat of all seems to have fallen off our radar: Climate change, the human-caused crisis that threatens to destroy our planet.

Having been homebound for much of the pandemic, most Americans have returned to their self-serving, planet-destroying ways.

They are taking long-delayed road trips, climbing aboard aircraft, and fueling-up their many motorized toys all the while bitching about the worldwide rise in gas prices. For many, the changing climate is an issue only future generations will face. For others, it’s little more than an inconvenience that has closed national parks due to flooding or forced them to detour around out-of-control wildfires.

Recent studies have found that only 35 percent of Americans believe they will be directly affected by climate change. And nearly half believe the threat is exaggerated despite warnings that, without an immediate and comprehensive change to our lifestyle, the destruction of our planet as we know it is all but assured.

According to a consensus of the world’s leading scientists, the current increase in devastating wildfires, extreme droughts, hurricanes, tornados, straight-line winds, and large hail are but a mere prelude of what’s to come.

They tell us that, if the climate crisis is not immediately addressed, we will see further thawing of the permafrost which will quickly accelerate the heating of our planet. That will, in turn, lead to a dramatic rise in sea levels making many of the world’s largest cities uninhabitable. Combined with drought-caused crop failures and famine, that will lead to mass migrations. And that’s just the predicted impact on the portion of our planet that is covered by dry land. The rise in global temperatures is having an even greater impact on the oceans that cover more than 70 percent of our planet’s surface. As the oceans warm, coral reefs are bleaching and dying – reefs that support the main source of food for 3.5 billion of the world’s population!

Still not worried? Then maybe you should consider that a United Nations’ review by about 15,000 scientific and government sources from 50 countries warns that, without fundamental change, up to one million species are at risk of becoming extinct within a few decades. Given that our planet is governed by an ecosystem with each species relying on others for sustenance, inevitably that means our own species is vulnerable to extinction.

But don’t take my word for it. Or even that of scientists. Here are the actual numbers:

Change In CO2 Levels
Since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, human activities have increased atmospheric concentrations of CO2 by about 50 percent. From 1750 to 2010, CO2 levels increased from 280 to 388.44 parts per million. By the end of 2015, CO2 levels were 402.44 parts per million. (400 ppm had long been considered the tipping point and, until the late 1940s, it had never exceeded 300 ppm for more than 650,000 years.) At the end of 2019, CO2 levels were 412.71 ppm. At the end of 2021, CO2 levels were 417.44 ppm. As of June 2022, the current level of CO2 stands at 421.94 ppm and rising.

Change In Temperatures
Recent global temperatures are the hottest in more than 2,000 years. 2015 was the first year that global temperatures were 1 degree Celsius or more above the temperatures at start of the Industrial Revolution. Since 1910, the average global temperature has risen 1.28 degrees Celsius.

Change In Ice Sheets
Antarctic ice sheets have melted at the rate of 152 billion metric tons per year since 2002. And the Greenland ice sheets are disappearing even more rapidly, having lost 274 billion metric tons per year since 2002. Additionally, Arctic sea ice is declining at the rate of 13 percent per decade.

Changes In Oceans
From 1900 to 2019 sea levels have risen more than 200 mm (7.87 inches) – 3.97 inches just since 1993. In addition, ocean temperatures have climbed dramatically since record-keeping began in 1955. 2021 was the oceans’ warmest recorded year and saw the highest global sea level.

“What can I do?” you may ask. “I’m only one person. Why do I have to change my lifestyle? What about the people of China? What about India?” The answer to those questions is simple. Change has to start somewhere, and it needs to start now! It’s a global crisis. We all share this planet. Each of us can make an impact, no matter how large or small. And since Americans have done more than our share to cause the problem, we should do more than our share to help solve it.

To learn more, visit NASA’s Climate Change website. Or, to follow the destruction of our planet in real time, check out the Climate Clock.

Low Gas Prices? Or The Planet? Which Will You Choose?

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Fires raging in the West, excessive heat in many parts of the world, crop failures, flooding in Yellowstone, disappearing glaciers, severe storms in the Midwest, and the predicted surge of hurricanes are all indicators that we have waited far too long to address climate change. But most Americans seem willing to ignore all of that and focus, instead, on rising gas prices.

If we had taken climate change seriously when scientists first identified its cause decades ago, we wouldn’t be facing this oil-fueled economic crisis. We wouldn’t be at the mercy of the Russians and the Saudis or any of the world’s other oilygarchs. We wouldn’t be held hostage by the world’s five largest oil companies and their greedy CEOs.

We would be using renewable fuels, instead.

Nevertheless, here we are at a crossroads. Do we offer more subsidies and power to oil producers in hopes they’ll lower gas prices knowing that we’ll likely face the same problem another year or two down the road? Or, if it’s not already too late, do we finally do what we eventually must and invest in renewables that will help us avoid the most catastrophic consequences of climate change?

If we choose the latter, we may still avoid the flooding of all of the world’s populous coastal cities. We may yet avoid the displacement of hundreds of millions. We may avoid seeing millions dying from food shortages. We may avoid the predicted extinction of more than a million of our planet’s species. We may yet save ourselves, our children, and future generations from greater hardships and possible extinction.

Am I optimistic that we will choose the right path? No.

Unfortunately, the GOP (Does that stand for Greedy Old Plutocrats or Guns Over People?) is uniformly opposed to any measures that would come between oil companies and their billions in profits. So, too, is Democratic Senator Joe Manchin. As a result, Congress already squandered one opportunity to address the problem through Biden’s Build Back Better plan. And we’re unlikely to have another opportunity in the near future.

What makes this situation all the more frustrating is that the many billions of dollars in oil companies’ windfall profits could help pay for the changes needed to address the climate crisis. Combine that money with the trillions that will be spent on repairing the damage caused by increasingly intense storms, fires, and flooding, and we would have enough money to ensure the future of our species and the planet.

So, which path will you choose? This coming November will you vote for candidates who are serious about addressing the climate crisis? Or will you gamble on candidates who falsely claim they can lower gas prices and hope your family can survive on an increasingly dangerous and unlivable planet?

A Warning For Earth Day. And Every Day.

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When I did the research for my current book, Truth Over Politics, I was astounded to see how much worse the climate crisis had become since writing my last book in 2016. Despite the brief respite caused by the pandemic, the damage will soon reach a crisis that will endanger us all. Following are but a few of the things we know about the climate crisis:

• 2019 was ranked as the second-hottest year on record, just behind 2016, which had previously replaced 2015 as the hottest year on record.
• 9 of 10 hottest years on record have occurred between 2005 and 2019.
• 2019 was the 43rd consecutive year with global land and ocean temperatures above average.
• The average global temperature in 2019 was 1.71° F (0.95° C) above the 20th century average. (Scientists have warned that an increase of 1° to 2° C over the 20th century average could be a tipping point.)
• In 2019, ocean heat content (the amount of heat stored in the upper levels of the ocean), which can contribute to sea-level rise, was the highest ever recorded.
• Atmospheric carbon dioxide is now 413 parts per million (ppm). (400 ppm has long been considered the climate tipping point and, until the late 1940s, it had never been above 300 ppm for 650,000 years.)
• Arctic sea ice has shrunk about 40 percent since 1979.
• The mass of Antarctic ice sheets has declined at the rate of 145 gigatons per year since 2003.
• The mass of Greenland ice sheets has declined at the rate of 283 gigatons per year.
• The thickness of 30 well-studied glaciers has decreased by more than 60 feet since 1980.
• The sea level has risen by 8-9 inches since 1880. (About one-third of the rise has come in the last 25 years.)
• 33 percent of the world’s coral reefs are threatened by warming oceans. (The reefs are home to more than a quarter of all marine life.)

The consequences of inaction is to invite more floods, more intense storms and hurricanes, more wildfires on the scale of Australia’s, more severe droughts leading to food and water scarcity, more unemployment, and more pandemics.

If all of that isn’t enough to alarm you, consider this: A 2019 report from the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) warned, “Nature is declining globally at rates unprecedented in human history – and the rate of species extinctions is accelerating, with grave impacts on people around the world now likely.” The report went on to state, “The health of ecosystems on which we and all other species depend is deteriorating more rapidly than ever.”

IPBES found that around one million animal and plant species are threatened with extinction – many of them within decades. The cause of the threat? Human activities resulting in (1) changes in land and sea use; (2) direct exploitation of organisms; (3) climate change; (4) pollution and (5) invasive alien species.

The sirens are sounding to warn us that we desperately need to change our relationship with the planet and its other inhabitants. And they’re warning us that we need to change now! The question is: Will we listen?

The Coming Crises.

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As we understandably worry about the constitutional crisis posed by Donald Trump and the threat he poses to our democracy, there are several other crises that should be getting our full attention. Indeed, each of them poses a tremendous threat to the future of the United States and our planet.

National Debt – As of today, our national debt stands at $23.16 trillion. Worse, we will add at least $1.1 trillion to it in FY 2020. Supposedly, the economy fueled tax cuts were intended to offset the growth in spending. Instead, the cuts merely reduced revenue. And the trade wars caused by Trump’s ill-conceived tariffs have only added to the problem by increasing the cost of goods for consumers and many manufacturers. That has resulted in less real income for workers and layoffs by manufacturers. If the trend continues, how will we pay to repair our aging infrastructure? How will we be able to continue to afford our bloated defense budget? How will we be able to afford reasonable safety nets? How will the US maintain its world leadership?

Automation – Technology experts say we are now in the midst of the 4th industrial revolution. We are losing jobs to automation at an alarming rate. And the revolution has only just begun. Recent studies predict that the US will lose 30 to 50 percent of existing jobs within the next few decades. For example, in the next few years, 2 to 3 million truck drivers are expected to lose their jobs to self-driving vehicles. In addition, that will lead to a loss of jobs related to truckers – at truck stops, motels, cafes, etc. – mostly in small towns and rural areas. And that’s only the start. In addition to truck drivers, there are another 7-8 million professional drivers for taxi companies, Uber, Lyft, UPS, FedEx, etc. who will lose their jobs.

Others who work in labor intensive and repetitive jobs will be replaced by automation. Even the so-called white collar workers will lose their jobs to automation. Paralegals, lawyers, medical technologists, even lawyers and film editors could soon be replaced by Artificial Intelligence (AI).

The question is: What will the displaced workers do for income? Still think presidential candidate Andrew Yang’s proposed guaranteed annual income is a radical idea?

Overpopulation – Current world population is 7.7 billion and we added 81 million in 2019. The population is growing at more than 1 percent per year. At this rate, the population is expected to reach 11.2 billion by the end of the century. Given the onset of automation, how will they sustain themselves? How will we feed them?

Environment – For decades, corporations have used our streams and oceans as landfills. They have spilled millions of barrels of oil into the seas. They have used factory fishing trawlers to deplete our oceans of fish. They have used our forests and our lands as a sort of supermarket of resources. They have poured toxic chemicals onto our farmlands – their runoff creating dead zones in our oceans. They have filled our atmosphere with carbon from the burning of fossil fuels and with methane from our insatiable appetite for beef. They have created inhumane factory farms that drown our lands in excrement. And they have polluted aquifers through fracking and mining.

Despite all of this, the Trump administration has relaxed most of our environmental regulations and encouraged even more of this destructive behavior from corporations. At the same time, the administration has cut their taxes – revenue that could be used to help clean up their messes.

Species Extinction – Over human history, the normal extinction rate for other species has averaged 1 to 5 species per year. However, scientists say that the current extinction rate is 1,000 times normal. We are now losing dozens of species per day! At this rate, we will lose 30 to 50 percent of all species by mid-century. In other words, we are now in the midst of the 6th mass extinction mostly as a result of human encroachment on wildlife habitat and human-caused pollution.

Climate Crisis – Last, but certainly not least, is the climate crisis caused almost entirely by the burning of fossil fuels. As I write this, virtually the entire continent of Australia is on fire resulting in the loss of millions of animals and thousands of homes. California, too, has faced disastrous wildfires, albeit on a smaller scale. Each year, we see more extreme weather events, such as hurricanes, cyclones and tornados. The damage from these climate-related disasters for 2019 was estimated at more than $140 billion BEFORE the wildfires in Australia. And scientists tell us that the crisis is only going to get worse.

Each year, the reports of melting glaciers and ice caps exceed previous predictions. Though the situation is dire, most Americans have yet to recognize the effects of climate change. But they have been affected nonetheless. Taxes that could be used to rebuild our infrastructure or to reduce the cost of health care are used to fight wildfires or to repair the damage following hurricanes. Moreover, many of the refugees at our southern border are fleeing violence and starvation, much of it caused by drought.

And, in the future, it’s predicted that we will see much more climate-caused migration from droughts and rising sea levels.

Of course, none of this is good news. Contrary to the tradition of looking forward to the new year, if we don’t address these crises soon, we may well greet each new year with fear and trepidation of the events to come. Nevertheless, I wish you all a very happy New Year celebration! Enjoy it while you can.

Why We Must Have A Green New Deal Now!

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The courageous and determined teenager, Greta Thunberg, is only the latest and most visible advocate for combating climate change. Then-President George H.W. Bush spoke out about the need to address global warming as early as 1988. Al Gore championed the issue following his defeat in the 2000 election. And many other US politicians of both parties have called for addressing the growing threat in years since. The most recent and most visible is Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

Unfortunately, many Republican politicians financed by the oily Koch brothers pilloried her. So, too, have conservative pundits. They ridiculed her Green New Deal as “taking away our meat, ending air travel, and forcing us to give up cars.”

Meanwhile, the scientific evidence of a real and present danger keeps mounting. The world’s scientists are nearly unanimous that the consequences of inaction are increasingly dire. They tell us that more than a million species will be forced into extinction, that sea levels could rise as much as 23 feet displacing tens of millions of the world’s population and drowning many of the world’s largest cities. They warn of increasingly more intense and deadly storms. They tell us that, as the ice melts and the permafrost thaws, the effects of climate change will accelerate. They tell us that our oceans could soon be fished clean of species and turned into a worldwide dead zone, that much of our most productive farmland will be devastated by droughts.

If none of that matters to you, consider this: They tell us that, If we don’t act fast, the cost to taxpayers will climb into the tens of trillions of dollars!

Science tells us that this is no longer a distant threat we can ignore. We have now passed the point where ending deforestation and replanting trees can absorb enough CO2 to head off the damage. We must take more drastic action. We must drastically change our collective lifestyles. And we have a very short time to do it. The most recent estimate is that we have about 11 years to prevent a complete disaster!

But, if we act now and we make significant changes, there is reason to hope.

Dealing with climate change will not only positively affect the climate. By changing from fossil fuels to renewable energy, we can reduce many chronic diseases such as asthma. Such a change will also boost the economy, create high-paying jobs, improve infrastructure and cut energy costs. By reducing our reliance on oil, it will cut funding to some of the world’s worst tyrants and corporations. And, since most recent wars have been fought over oil, it could reduce international conflicts.

Addressing the climate crisis with urgency and in a serious way is not just a win-win. It’s a win-win-win-win-win-win!

Destruction Of The US. (Part One – The Climate Crisis)

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There are those who say that the US can withstand the damage done by Trump; that the Constitution will prevail; that people will come to their senses. I wish I could be that certain. In the coming weeks, I will be examining the damage done to our nation and our planet by this rogue presidency beginning with what is arguably our greatest threat: The Climate Crisis.

You may remember some of the progress made during the Obama administration: It embraced the UN’s Agenda 21 – a non-binding plan that emerged from the UN Conference on Environment and Development in 1992 that set goals for combating poverty, promoting human health, promoting sustainable development, protecting the atmosphere, combating deforestation, managing fragile ecosystems, conserving biological diversity and more. It created incentives for the manufacture and use of sustainable energy alternatives. It created more stringent standards for coal-fired generating plants. It protected sensitive lands and endangered species from oil exploration and mining interests. It pushed to end factory fishing and created a national monument to protect a sensitive coral reef.

Under the Obama administration, the Navy began to plan for the sea level rise predicted by most of the world’s climate scientists. And the military began to power some of its installations with sustainable energy.

Most importantly, the Obama administration not only signed the Paris Climate Accords. It helped to create the agreement. Indeed, President Obama called it “the best chance to save the planet.”

Then along came Trump.

The racist, anti-Obama chief executive quickly withdrew our nation from the Paris agreement making the US now the only nation on the planet that is not a signatory. (Even Syria signed the pact.) He ordered his administration to relax standards for carbon emissions, in addition to deregulating some of the worst polluters. He ordered government agencies such as the EPA, NASA, NOAA, and others to remove any mention of climate change and its effects. He appointed political hacks and climate change deniers to cabinet positions and numerous other positions of power. He eliminated many regulations on coal mining and oil drilling to encourage further development of climate-changing fossil fuels. And his Interior Department began selling mineral rights on federal lands to the highest bidders. His administration even cut the Bears Ears National Monument – a place of great spiritual significance to Native Americans and of archeological importance – in half in order to make its mineral rights available.

In addition, the Trump administration plans to open the Arctic – a region already suffering from the severe impact of the climate crisis – to more oil exploration.

Worst of all, Trump has cut incentives for the manufacture of solar panels and wind turbines thereby ceding their manufacture to foreign companies. He has proposed rolling back emission standards for American-made vehicles. He has cut incentives for the purchase of solar panels and electric-powered cars. And he has abandoned virtually all government research into ways to mitigate the climate crisis.

Do Trump and his supporters not live on the same planet we do? Have they not read the mounting evidence of a true global catastrophe? Have they not heard the warnings of extreme temperatures and rising sea levels? Have they not read reports of dying coral reefs and the extinction of species? Have they not experienced the anguish of watching another community torn apart by an extraordinary storm fueled by extreme temperatures? Do they not understand that one reason for the immigration crisis at our border is climate change? And that mass migration from climate change will only grow?

The world’s climate scientists say that we only have a decade or less to act in order to head off the worst effects of the climate crisis. And every few months, they announce that the climate is spiraling out of control even more quickly than their worst-case scenarios. The climate crisis is not a hoax! In fact, it is all too real. Indeed, the only questions left are: Will we act in time? Will our actions be enough? Will Trump be re-elected.

If the latter happens, it will almost certainly be game over.