Watching the World Burn and Getting Angry

Climate change is preventable.

It’s not make-believe. Wildfires popping up around the globe, polar bears starving in the Artic as the ice caps melt and crazy droughts followed by flooding provides concrete evidence.

Our health is being affected. Not only the immediate deaths that occur due to fires and floods. Rising temperatures have been linked to a rise in heart disease. Besides the fact that fracking releases methane into the atmosphere, a study has found that children born near fracking wells have a higher rate of leukemia.

We as individuals can do our part to help combat this, mostly by pressuring governments. Kudos to the Biden administration and the U.S. Congress for the new Climate and Health Law. But it’s just a first step. All governments, internationally and on the local level, need to do more.

The biggest sector that can slow and even reverse what we’re already experiencing is business. Particularly those who have become billionaires because of those companies and corporations. Instead of funding a “treasure hunt” for battery components as Greenland’s ice melts, they could fund solutions that will stop the melting.

Yes, the batteries are for electric cars. But one better use of those funds would be to redesign and remodel cities, towns and other communities globally so that they utilize our resources in environmentally friendly ways. Another way is to keep improving the designs of renewable energy sources–like improving wind turbines so that they don’t kill birds. Neither of these ideas will turn a profit like the “treasure hunt,” but they’re already BILLIONAIRES!

There was a series of television public service announcements when I was growing up called Keep America Beautiful. The tag lines were, “People start pollution. People can stop it.” The truth of those words! Current evidence shows not only that we don’t care enough for our children and future generations, but also that we don’t care enough about ourselves to do what it takes to stop the madness. Which makes me very angry!