Olympic Peninsula Environmental News

Finally the veil is being dropped on whether we are going to actually save ourselves from the climate change fiasco. Author Jonathan Frazen has stated what many in the environmental movements inner circle have been discussing behind closed doors,  not wanted to talk about, because of it’s “negative” influence on members and donations to the ongoing feel good aspect of doing work that is not directly related to fixing climate change.  The elephant in the room is that none of that is going to save us from our addiction to fossil fuels. Read this and take action, while we can. Let’s stop pretending that we are not going to end up with major consequences. Maybe all the environmental agencies and NGOs on the Peninsula and the State can band together into something that can start to raise the red flag. Governor Inslee staked his campaign on it. Why he lost has a bit to do with his on stage personality, but more to do with the lack of connection most people have to this issue. The 70,000 people in the Bahamas, who became the most recent climate refugees, paying the price for our coal, natural gas and gasoline engine addiction, are fully aware of who causes this and who pays. We may have already run out of time to do anything of substance. The answer is in strengthening our systems, including our democracy from the upcoming onslaught of fear and tribalism. We have a head start here in Port Townsend and on the North Olympic Peninsula, but the recent tribal (and I don’t mean Native American tribal but the tribal like response of the local non-tribal people) backlash in Sequim to even the notion of a drug rehab location shows how much more work that needs to be done.

What can you do? Can you fly just a bit less? Vacation here rather than Mexico or Hawaii just for one time? Drive just a bit less? Put off that trip to Sequim’s big box stores for another week or so? Eat less meat? One night a week? No one is asking you to give it up (though that would be a much bigger help!), but just taking actions on your own, right now is what is needed. Sorry, you won’t see a positive result, you will see a slightly less negative one! And you might find yourself slightly less stressed out.

To survive rising temperatures, every system, whether of the natural world or of the human world, will need to be as strong and healthy as we can make it.

The climate apocalypse is coming. To prepare for it, we need to admit that we can’t prevent it.

The goal has been clear for thirty years, and despite earnest efforts we’ve made essentially no progress toward reaching it. Today, the scientific evidence verges on irrefutable. If you’re younger than sixty, you have a good chance of witnessing the radical destabilization of life on earth—massive crop failures, apocalyptic fires, imploding economies, epic flooding, hundreds of millions of refugees fleeing regions made uninhabitable by extreme heat or permanent drought. If you’re under thirty, you’re all but guaranteed to witness it.

https://www.newyorker.com/culture/cultural-comment/what-if-we-stopped-pretending

Filed under: Environmental Activism |