The real war is with climate change
Counties should maintain vigilance in reporting Covid numbers
By Ken Tingley
Ten years ago I wrote a column for my newspaper that joked that I was a fan of global warming. It was January and we were only halfway though another cold winter, so a little atmospheric warming was fine with me, I argued.
Ten years ago, any concern about the threat of global warning was met with derisive insults. Those sounding the alarm were ridiculed. Al Gore - a Nobel Prize winner for his work on climate change - was a political punch line for many.
At the time, I thought I might get people to pay attention if I had a little fun with the issue with my tongue in cheek humor. The soft sell didn’t work and many are still not convinced today that the threat is serious.
Over the past five years, I’ve been writing increasingly more alarming columns about the need to address climate change, not necessarily for me and my wife, but certainly for my son’s future.
Lost amidst the constant news from Ukraine last week was the latest report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. By now, we all should be familiar with this group, but I suspect most of us are not. The IPCC is a body of experts convened by the United Nations consisting of 270 researchers from 67 countries. It has been sounding an increasing desperate alarm about the need to address the earth’s warming.
It concluded this year that the dangers of climate change are increasing so rapidly that they could soon overwhelm the ability of both nature and humanity to adapt, creating a future where floods, fires and famine displace millions, species disappear and the planet is irreversibly damaged.
Part of President Biden’s platform when running for president was to finally get us moving to address climate change and head off the impending catastrophe. But inflation, including the recent spike in gas prices, is making it less likely that we will address the crisis. We will once again choose short term comfort over the long-term viability of the human race.
United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres said the report is “an atlas of human suffering and a damning indictment of failed climate leadership. With fact upon fact, this report reveals how people and the planet are getting clobbered by climate change.”
The United States is now considering banning imported oil and gas from Russia which could push energy prices even higher and make it less likely the politicians will agree to address climate change.
For the past 10 days, we have heard western countries explain why they cannot engage Russian forces directly because it could lead to World War III.
But by not addressing climate change, World War III is guaranteed.
The report concludes that nations across the globe are not doing enough to protect cities, farms and coastlines and that we are already seeing record droughts and rising oceans. It predicts that even greater disasters are in our future.
We are already seeing it.
As we watch the mass exodus from Ukraine, keep in mind that this will be the norm in the future. We will see the same scenarios repeated across the globe, not because of rockets and missiles, but because people can no longer survive in their homelands.
There is really only one issue for our governments to address - climate change.
The consequences of a war with Russia are probably mild compared to what we will experience from not addressing climate change.
Face of war
One of the journalism standards for most community newspapers is to never print a photo that shows a dead body. The belief is that we all should have compassion for family members.
But there are exceptions.
One of those exceptions was this weekend when the New York Times published a photograph on its front page that showed the immediate aftermath of a mortar strike in Ukraine that killed three members of a family - a mother and two children -while the father lay critically injured.
This was the face of war and we all needed to see that.
Keeping track of Covid
While Covid 19 continues to retreat, it appears that both Warren County and Washington County are becoming lax in reporting the latest data.
Neither county reported its latest Covid data over the weekend.
And on Tuesday, The Post-Star reported Washington County had not reported its latest statistics since Friday. That is being shortsighted.
Greenwich event
I will be speaking with WAMC host Joe Donahue at the Greenwich Public Library on Thursday at 5:30 p.m.
I was thrilled to hear that more than 40 people have already signed up for the event and that the library is filling up a wait list should anyone cancel.
Joe Donahue is one of those natural interviewers who always makes his subjects feel at ease. I’m looking forward to talking about the challenges that community journalism faces as well as my upcoming book “The Last American Newspaper.”
Vote for my story
My son and I made a 2,000-mile cross country journey to Texas in November, 2020 as he prepared to start a new job. I’ve chronicled the trip in a short story called “Moving Day.”
If you would like to see it published in an anthology of short stories by Something or Other Publishing, I ask you to click on the link below and vote for it. You just have to include your name and email to vote. Thanks again to all of you for all your support of my writing.
And one of the reasons climate change is not acted upon more is due to the fact that women have no say in politics matters. We need Womens equality internationally as well as the Equal Rights Amendment here.
Scary, but I agree totally for our 6 great grand children!!! Not an easy dilemma to solve!!!