Hell on Earth: Warming Gone Wild

By FRANK LINGO

The Earth’s temperature has risen 2 degrees Fahrenheit in the last century or so, according to a new United Nations report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

If that doesn’t seem like much, consider how our health would be affected if our body temp went from 98.6 to 100.6 permanently. The comparison is apt because of similarities between the world in macrocosm and the human body in microcosm, including approximate percentage of water.

The New York Times outlined the report in an Aug. 9 article. Even if nations sharply cut emissions now (an unlikely event), more warming of at least 2 or 3 degrees is bound to happen within 2 decades. That’s the equivalent of our body temp going to about 103.

So scientists say our system is sick. Call it global warming (now out of favor), call it climate change (doesn’t express the dangers), or call it climate chaos (suggests problems), but it’s real and already happening with catastrophic consequences.

This is the most comprehensive report yet from the IPCC, and is based on more than 14,000 studies spanning the globe. The dramatic effects include stronger and more frequent hurricanes, longer droughts and devastating forest fires.

Less obvious problems include accelerated loss of plant and animal species, including massive die-offs of fish populations from damage to coral reefs that support them.

Given the selfish and narrow mindset of the human race, one wonders when this information will cut thru the denial of our destruction and inspire revolutionary reform of our wayward ways.

We have a bad record on this hope to cope. Many humans have displayed gymnastic agility to evade the facts, such as those using clueless reasoning to avoid vaccinations.

Maybe we need to realize our destructive behavior is an illness like addiction. We’re gasoholics. We’re methane heads. We’re animal-flesh fiends. We’re water wastrels. We’re plastic junkies.

That admitted, then we’ll need to get treatment and develop healthier habits. Recycling is kindergarten-level environmentalism but at least it’s a start. More impactful changes would have us installing solar panels, kicking the carbon from cars, minimizing meat consumption, getting cloth shopping bags, and watering lawns and gardens from rain barrels instead of from a faucet.

Personal responsibility should be accompanied by corporate responsibility. If they pollute, they must clean it up. If they make a product, they need to take it back for recycling.

Shocks can help jolt us out of complacency. A possible change that would shock people is a shift in ocean currents. The Gulf Stream, possibly discovered by Benjamin Franklin over 200 years ago, serves to keep Britain and Western Europe warmer than normal for such northern locations. Scientists surmise that the Gulf Stream could be diminished and plunge Europe into a deep freeze, an ironic effect of global warming.

Melting of the miles-deep ice sheets covering Greenland and Antarctica could cause sea levels to rise up to three more feet. That would be a disaster for many coastal cities. These aren’t just theories, they are projections based on scientific research of the changes already in evidence.

So that’s a lot of bad news.

The good news is that we are capable of taking action to help mitigate the damage. Our choice is do something or do nothing. Doing nothing or doing little is the course that has gotten us in trouble, so that seems like a poor choice.

We have personal habits to change and political policies to change. Like drug addicts, it’s going to take sustained serious action to save us from ourselves.

Frank Lingo, based in Lawrence, Kansas, is a former columnist for the Kansas City Star and author of the novel “Earth Vote.” See his new website Greenbeat.world. Email: lingofrank@gmail.com.

From The Progressive Populist, September 15, 2021

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