Letter: Climate is our real crisis; nothing else comes close

Posted 2/27/19

To the editor: 

While there are many worthwhile issues and causes out there — including ones that could be considered true "national emergencies" — none compare to climate change and the …

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Letter: Climate is our real crisis; nothing else comes close

Posted

To the editor: 

While there are many worthwhile issues and causes out there — including ones that could be considered true "national emergencies" — none compare to climate change and the devastation that has and will continue to happen at alarming rates.

Catastrophic changes to life as we know it are upon our doorstep. In October 2018, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) released their “Global Warming of 1.5 Degrees Celsius” report, which in a nutshell gave a timeline of around 12 years if humans are to have any chance of keeping the global warming trend to less than 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial levels. (Spoiler: We’re already at 1.0 degree Celsius above that level now.) It’s not a matter of avoiding any impacts as a result of climate change, but rather avoiding the worse of what is yet to come.

Anthropocentric, or human-driven, activities and climate change have already resulted in: The start of the Earth’s sixth mass extinction event with severe declines in thousands of species of plants and animals; rising sea levels at a greater rate than previously predicted; loss of topsoil and arable land to grow food; loss or poisoning of fresh water; the first waves of climate change refugees across the globe. The list goes on.

Humans have set in motion not only our own likely demise in the years to come, but the annihilation of so many forms of life we share this planet with. It's incredibly sad to contemplate. It’s difficult to look at my kids — and all of yours — and not be brought to my knees knowing what lies ahead for them and us.

Life is a sacred gift. Yet, we treat it like a commodity, a thing only for unchecked consumption and squandering, ignorant and oblivious to everything else that shares this home with us. Western, "first-world" people MUST start living in a drastically different way, one that is simpler from a material perspective, but greater in our capacity to commune with each other, all that lives around us, and Mother Earth herself.

Unchecked capitalism and the mechanisms of destruction it wields must be stopped and dismantled. The political and economic structures that enable and support it must crumble and be replaced with ones that put this sacredness of life at its center.

A glimmer of hope exists though. People throughout the world are rising and taking a stand. They are saying “enough” to the politicians, governments, and companies that maintain the status quo of inaction and ineptitude. Non-violent direct action has made history before – and it will again. Together we must rise as a single “Earth Community” and bring about the change necessary. Borders, nationalities, religious and political affiliations – all are moot on a lifeless planet. Humans must be stewards for all life on Earth. Our future – and that of generations to come – utterly depends on it.

Bill Gerlach

Co-Facilitator, Sustainable Sakonnet

Tiverton

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