Each degree increase in global temperature adds 7 percent more moisture to the atmosphere and 12 percent more lighting strikes. Human-caused warming has added heat energy to the Earth equal to 3.2 billion Hiroshima atomic bombs since 1998, or 16 atomic bombs exploded for every square mile of the Earth’s surface, land and water. We’ve tripled the amount of heat-trapping methane in the atmosphere since pre-industrial times and CO2 levels are up 40 percent since 1950.

The result is exacerbated extreme weather: record-setting floods, droughts, crop failures, snow melt, ocean heatwaves, extreme temperature records, the drying up of major rivers including the Rhine, Loire, Po, Yangtze, and Colorado to name a few. We are witnessing increased wildfires, fire tornadoes, and pyrocumulus clouds five miles high. The Arctic is heating four times as fast as the rest of the Earth. Climate disasters costing $1 billion-plus have tripled in the past five years, compared to historical averages. Some animals are permanently moving in the direction of the poles. Species extinction is at a rate not seen since the last Great Extinction. The record of our failure continues.

All life is precious. Consciousness and love are likely not exclusive to humans. Scientists have found that spiders dream, and bees can learn and think abstractly. The blind thirst of fossil fuel companies for profit and the actions of deniers, paid and unpaid, are holding us back from changes that must be made. Why are we dragging our feet? Are we climatose? 

Peter Dragovich

Eugene

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