Climate action posters from the United Nations - share widely!
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The current shortage in oil and gas is a threat to the Democrats because of the big jump in inflation. The continued use of fossil fuels is a major threat to our survival. Short-term economic pressures battle with long-term needs to find solutions. The annual meeting of the United Nations Climate Change Conference will be held in Egypt next month. Most nations have not kept their pledges nor provided the promised funds to address the issues. The Russian invasion of Ukraine created a crisis of its own.

Some wishful thinkers hope that technology may provide the solutions. It can help, but it cannot address the broad range of climate complexities we are already experiencing.

Fires and famines, droughts and floods, economic turbulence, sea water temperatures, mass immigration, etc. are just a few of the symptoms of climate change. We passed the red warning signs several years ago so now we are in a full-fledged crisis without the political will to address the needs. A lengthy feature in the NY Times on 10/26 titled “Beyond Catastrophe: A New Climate Reality is Coming into View” can be summarized as that national governments or international organizations have been ineffective in taking the actions need to stop the trends.

Demonstrations in Europe have kept the issues in the public eye more than in the US, where we continue to seem more concerned with short-term economic flip-flops. Electric vehicles, alternative power sources, and more efficient homes, offices, and factories won’t eliminate the continued need for fossil fuel in the near future to generate electricity. We cannot shift overnight. Nuclear power is clean, but it is too expensive to build and takes too long, and we don’t know how to get rid of the waste. We can’t seem to even stop the use of coal, the most grievous threat in the crisis.

Young people are in the lead on these issues, but business interests are reluctant to change or do anything that might impact their short-term profits. Al Gore warned us 20 years ago that the world’s climate was warming too fast, and we didn’t listen. The world-wide weather extremes the past couple of years seem to have at last gotten our attention. If we don’t take drastic measures now, it will be too late. We will have gone past the point of no return, and the earth may not be able to recover to where we will continue to have a livable planet.

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