Skip to main content
June 22, 2009 – I had hoped to discuss the toxicity of warfare in today’s post, but I’ve been trying for the last hour, and it seems I inevitably wind up writing about it on a sociological, rather than an environmental, level. Of course, climate change IS a sociological problem. In fact, now that I think about it, climate change produces some of the same results as warfare.
- It makes people afraid; so afraid, in fact, that people won’t even talk about it.
- It causes dislocation of people.
- It will cause panic, which reduces the ability of people to respond in a reasoned manner.
- It will cause people to have to fight for their survival, if they have
done nothing to plan for the inescapable problems.
- It could very well cause wars between groups of people, probably over clean water.
What would be the best way of avoiding panic? By planning for climate change now.
What would be the best way of assuring people’s survival? By planning for climate change now.
What would be the best way of avoiding wars? By planning for climate
change now.
What would be the best way of planning for climate change? Start today.
What would be the next best way of planning for climate change? Start reducing population growth today.
What would be the next essential step in planning for climate change? Agreeing that all international disputes would be settled by the International Courts at The Hague.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Greenland: A State of Rapid Collapse

 September 1, 2020 The good news, such as it is, goes like this: the suspense is over. No need to guess about whether sea level rise will be life-altering by the end of this century or not. It will, at least for the 40 percent of humankind which lives on or near a coastline. That's because all the ice on Greenland is going to melt, according to researchers at Ohio State University (yes, yes, I know - it's THE Ohio State University. Get over yourselves.) Their research appeared in the journal Nature Communications Earth and Environment in August. Total meltdown will take 10,000 years, but enough will have melted by 2100 to cause sea level rise of approximately three feet. That will cover a lot of coastal property, a loss made worse by storms and hurricanes. How have researchers reached this conclusion? By studying almost 40 years of satellite data. Glaciers on Greenland have shrunk so much since the year 2000 that even if global warming came to a complete stop, they would contin...

The Environmental Polluting Agency

April 17, 2020 Under cover of an historic pandemic, the EPA has announced it will suspend enforcement of environmental laws. You read that right. The agency is hoping we're all so distracted that no one will notice. Why would they do this, you ask. It will come as no surprise that a number of industries, including oil, have asked for the suspension. In the words of EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler: EPA "recognizes challenges resulting from efforts to protect workers and the public from COVID 19 may directly impact the ability of regulated facilities to meet all federal regulatory requirements." Critics of the hiatus concede exceptions to regulations could be made on a case-by-case basis, for example, if companies are short-staffed because employees are working from home. But those industries deemed essential and continuing to operate should be expected to comply with the law. In fact, because COVID 19 is exacerbated by air pollution, leading to higher death rates, pol...