Climate change is an emergency as far as humanity is concerned. We also have a global environmental disaster manifesting all around us. The climate emergency and the environmental disaster are related, but they are not the same thing.
Yet, the phrases “climate emergency” and “environmental disaster” are misleading. Not wrong; we are facing a climate emergency and a global environmental disaster. They’re misleading because “Climate” and “Environment” are just the names of a couple of the horses. The riders, the “horsemen” if you will, are coming for our civilizations, our infrastructure, and our children, and theirs. It is not about climate or the environment; it is about our future; our survival.
The stakes could not be higher. The world is becoming hotter, wetter, stormier, and more violent. Increasing disruption to our homes, water and food supply tell us of a future more torn by loss, disease, hunger, conflict, war, and large scale human migrations. Carbon pollution, the cause of the climate emergency, has got to stop.
The catastrophe also extends to the natural world that we rely on for sustenance. Changes in weather patterns and habitat destruction are combining to wipe out wide swaths of nature. A mass extinction is under way, with many species vanishing. More every day. Gone forever. An environmental disaster is unfolding right in front of us. We need to stop abusing our fragile environment.
Today we have the technical means to slow down the pace of destruction, and we can put more effort into finding ways further reduce the harm. These are humanity’s top priorities. Instead we find ourselves distracted by fights about class, culture, religion and the morality of complete strangers. We cannot afford to be distracted any longer.
We have run out of time. If we are going to blunt the onrushing destruction we must act now, and we must give it everything we’ve got. Now. This is where we decide what kind of world we leave to our children – our legacy. Meeting the challenges won’t be easy, or cheap, but the alternatives are brutal and terrible. There really is no choice, we must take action.#
Some of this is our personal choice, and we should all do our best to reduce our climate and environmental footprints. But a great deal of it is public policy, driven by governments and people in power.
We need to feel outrage at inaction and delay, and we need to make sure that people in power feel the outrage and the urgency. Whoever you are, wherever you are, it is your job to make sure that the people around you and in power understand the urgency, the need to act and create policy that turns us away from our suicidal track. It is your duty, you owe it to your children and future generations.
There is not a moment to lose.