A lot of people tell me they are not going to worry about climate change because nobody knows how it will go down — and besides, it’s thousands of years in the future. But we do know how it goes down. We’ve known a growing number of the details for the last 50 years. And we are there right now.

We need only read the geologic record, and there it is — written in stone. We do know how, and how rapidly, a runaway warming climate radically de-oxygenates and stagnates ocean currents, suddenly transforming whole continents to desert, and reducing global diversity of life by 95 percent.

We can even track the daily local weather during the many previous wipe-outs by using technology such as isotopic carbon and ico core analysis.

Fossils and stratigraphy give us an accurate record of who won and who lost each of the hundreds of bouts this planet has had with climate change, both hot and cold. In mass extinctions, cyanobacteria do fine, but nothing bigger than a bread box survives.

Life after the change generally goes from near zero to achieving a comparable level of diversity within 15 to 30 million years. Guess that leaves us out.

This looming catastrophe is bigger than a paycheck, bigger than a lifestyle, bigger than Social Security. We need to understand that “jus’ puttin’ one foot in front of t’other” every day has walked us into a deadly trap. And drastic climatic change can happen fast

We are burnt toast unless we get the lead out.

Candy Davis

Cottage Grove

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