When Will We Learn?

It is difficult to pick the worst problem in the world today, at least it should be. The cost of living grows out of control, the inequity of the rich and the poor widens, people are starving, wars rage, and in many cases the people who aren’t being killed can’t leave, they have no place to go, and they can’t stay because it is an unlivable hell. Which is worst?

And then you realize we are walking toward an extinction event of our own making. Climate change, and the end of humanity. Our world is warming, the proof is undeniable. And yet we still have people who deny it. Remember when Trump used the theory that climate change was a hoax by the Chinese to great effect? All the while the world got warmer.

As it warms more of that warmth is absorbed by the oceans. More than 90% of the heat is absorbed by the oceans, leading to melting polar ice, and rising sea levels. But, it also serves to keep the temperature climbing. Which leads to the release of carbon dioxide as the permafrost thaws.

More greenhouse gas traps more warmth in the atmosphere. The temperature continues to rise and the atmosphere becomes increasingly unstable. Storms become more frequent and severe, death tolls climb and the cost to rebuild becomes unsustainable.

Warmer temperatures bring tropical diseases farther north. Malaria, dengue fever are both moving north.

But, it is agriculture that will suffer the most. While the growing season will be longer, the droughts, radical weather changes and shrinking water table will doom most crops. If they survive the extreme weather the pests and diseases once held in check by the cold winters will almost certainly lay them to waste.

A clear picture begins to form. I could go on, but it probably isn’t necessary, if you are not worried by now nothing I could add will convince you. It is easy, after all to pick out the biggest problem, but, it is also the most easily ignored, because to solve the problem, if that is still possible, will be so difficult.

So, in the words of the Grateful Dead

“We can leave this place an empty stone,
Or the shining ball we can call our home.”

—

Previously Published on Life, Explained

—

Shutterstock image