Only Societal Mindset Change and Action Will Put the Brakes on Climate Change.
Global Warming is now “global overheating” with abundantly clear consequences, while societal understanding of the science and the need to act remains insufficient. It is imperative to shift focus away from the noise of performative politics, culture wars and exaggerated threats that network news and politicians thrust in our faces daily to this existential, but longer-developing, threat.
Destructive weather events driven by increasing ocean temperatures are hitting more locations, more frequently. The implications of sea level rise from diminishing Arctic and Antarctic ice sheets should be clear by now. Air quality alerts from intense wildfires are on the rise hundreds of miles downwind of those fires. Less developed countries and the poor and elderly here during heat waves and “natural” disasters are already suffering. That price will be increasingly paid by successive generations, and countless plant and animal species. This is simply the way the chips will fall if we don’t take significant action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
Unfortunately, acceptance that our own long reliance on fossil fuels is driving our deteriorating climate seems to be too tough a pill to swallow. The big changes needed at this point will only come from a major societal mindset change. We have the ability in western democracies to choose policy makers who understand the threats and put government resources toward mitigating those threats. All of us can adapt our habits of energy and consumer goods consumption.
As more Americans understand climate deterioration and vote and act accordingly, so governments and corporations will follow. Once more of our citizens accept collective responsibility, we can undertake, and promote, the necessary solutions to preserve a habitable climate for our descendants and the nature they should be able to enjoy.
Published in Colorado Springs Independent, 5 September 2024 (lightly updated Jan 2025)
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