Global warming is the mother of all issues
I’m dead tired. Wrapping up the draft of environmental standards that just might set the bar a little higher when it comes time to determine what direction green building should go in this town. And Firefox just ate my first attempt to write this rant, so you’ll be spared the original vitriol. I’ll leave you with this one small comparison to ponder:
A gradual climate shift, of 5-9 degrees Fahrenheit, was all it took to melt the mile-thick glacier over New York City 15,000 years ago. Scientists are predicting a climate increase of 3-10 degrees by 2100. What do you think such a drastic, rapid shift is going to do to our ecosystems?
I am beginning to understand Al Gore’s warning for vigilance against despair. The Washington City Paper ran an interesting review of local activist and author Mike Tidwell’s The Ravaging Tide: Strange Weather, Future Katrinas, and the Coming Death of America’s Coastal Cities that articulates our helplessness even as it offers a narrow path out of the hell we are creating:
For The Ravaging Tide is not some witty, heartfelt anecdotal romp in exotic environments, nor is it a dispassionate sifting of the science. Rather, Tide is a scream of protest against planetary suicide, a grief-stricken cry about the passivity of individual and social responses to the human-caused destruction of the earth, a sermon and personal vouching for what an individual joining with others can do to try to stave off the most catastrophic consequences of the global warming now underway.
There lies our hope. Individuals, acting individually and in groups to effect change. From the recycling bins in your kitchen to the green roof over your heads, every little bit is going to turn the tide. Don’t support Big Oil. Ride your bike to work. Live in the same city where you work, or work in your town. Understand the consequences of your choices, your actions, or your lack thereof. We don’t have much time.
I could go on, but instead I’m going to go home.
Tags: climate-change, environmental-responsibility, global-warming, green-building, green-initiatives, single-mom, single-mommy, single-motherRelated Stories
POSTED IN: activism
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