I get this thing called The Real News Network in my email several times a day it seems. I don't know how I got on their subscriber list, and the very name "Real News Network" makes me suspicious since I mentally equate something called "Real News" as having to be "Fake News". After all, isn't misnaming something the opposite of what it really is politically fashionable today? I usually disregard the email without even opening it, but the title of this email caught my attention because first, it's about climate change, and second having lived in the west for 40 years of my life, working 7 summers for the Forest Service on the fire crew and knowing how fearsome and destructive Western forest fires can be, I naturally felt compelled to read it.
http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=74&jumival=19616Part of what I found interesting, I already understand, but this expert believes we still have time to act and that it wouldn't be as hard to take appropriate action as we have been led to believe.
Without any expert knowledge about reversing the effects of climate change, I've believed, possibly incorrectly, that it's too late to reverse the tremendous inertia of climate change. I think we can affect it, but the inertia, now that the train is gathering speed, will take hundreds of years to even experience a slow down, and by that time our own extinction will be well on the way. We may not wipe humanity out, but for all practical purposes, we will have ruined civilization as we know it.
This guy still has hope, as some others do. I hope he's right. And don't think for a minute that I don't think we should do anything about the problem. I think we should, although for many others, the idea that it's too late to do anything will be the next big excuse to do nothing and will be the next bumper sticker pedaled by Corporate America and the oil and gas interests.