Noted scientist David Suzuki declared just last year that humanity has lost the battle to climate change.
Now, we are going to have to watch the full ramifications of this grim reality in the coming years and decades and centuries, always assuming we actually survive long enough to see it (which does not necessarily a given at this point).
The truth is that we have had plenty of warning. For decades, scientists have been warning humanity of the dangers of not addressing, much less taking seriously, the threat from climate change. Yet they were met either with skepticism and/or indifference.
And nowhere did this science meet with more cynicism and indifference than right here in the good ol' U. S. of A.
Seriously, this has been a long, long battle. I remember first hearing about climate change as a child, back in the late 1980's. It was through rock musician Sting, who was on a talk show (I think it was Donahue), talking about his experiences in the Amazon rainforest. It was the first that I had really heard of this issue, and I asked my father. He explained what it was and what the threat was. It seemed amazing to me that most people did not take this threat seriously. Back then, most people would literally laugh at the idea of global warming/ climate change. In fact, some mostly ignorant people are still laughing, or at least scoffing at the very idea.
Not sure if you could call me an environmental activist. However, I tried to become involved on a small level. I joined my high school's Environmental Club. With them, I went around collecting recyclables from each classroom each week, participated in a cleanup of the town streets one weekend, and even attended a United Nations Global Youth Forum in 1992. I followed the news at the time, and remember the George H. W. Bush presidency not signing on at the Rio Climate Conference, sympathizing with protesters who had posters reading "Your Embarrassing U.S."
In time, I also joined the Environmental Club at Bergen Community College. Was elected Secretary, then Vice-President, and eventually became the President. We engaged in a lot of activities, particularly Earth Day. While there, I met climate skeptics, who at that time were still laughing at the ridiculous idea that human beings might impact the climate.
When did people stop laughing?
Probably early in the 20th century. Right around the time of Hurricane Katrina, which was months after the enormous tsunami. We also began to see record hot stretches in places not used to it. That was just the beginning, but it seemed to me that people began to be swayed more towards believing that there might really be something to this "global warming" or "climate change" stuff.
Yet, it was not enough to get enough high-ranking government officials to take action. There were tons of skeptics still in the highest offices of the marbled halls of Washington. We Americans just kept voting these people in, time and time again. Maybe the polls showed that something like seventy percent of Americans believed in climate change, but you would never know it by who we elected into the most prominent national offices.
Now we have someone in the Oval Office who outright suggested that climate change is a Chinese hoax. He just gutted environmental protections that limited how much carbon gases could be released into the air, to the delight of big polluters. As if we needed still more carbon emissions to accelerate the process of global warming.
Meanwhile, China leapfrogged the United States as the biggest polluter in the world, and India has also caught up in a hurry. Other nations take relatively mild action, but it is not nearly enough. Indeed, I can believe it when David Suzuki suggests that humans have already lost the battle with climate change.
And now, with record hot years being the new trend, with mor extreme weather patterns and storms in some regions and record droughts in others also already being the new normal, it seems like we will have to sit and wait to see what all of this is going to ultimately lead to.
But one thing you can't say is that we were not warned. We just did not want to bother to listen while we still could.
Now, already a prominent scientist says it's too late. And I am afraid that he might be right.
I Didn't Want to Make This Video. by Astrum Earth
https://youtu.be/JLubu0orxPw?si=phnmFFBAanlLQOIH
https://www.youtube.com/watch?si=phnmFFBAanlLQOIH&v=JLubu0orxPw&feature=youtu.be
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