PUTNEY — Slowing and eventually reversing the fast moving effects of climate destruction is the existential challenge of the 21st century.
It is early days of the summer of 2021, and yet we have already witnessed prolonged, intense heat that nobody, including climatologists, thought would even be possible in the Pacific Northwest.
When four of us went to northern Minnesota, in an area with a similar climate to Duluth and Fargo, N.D., for the four days we were there, the temperatures were in the high 90s, down to maybe 80 to 85 at night. And we were there in early June.
We in Vermont have had two nasty heat spells before July.
According to a National Public Radio report in mid-June, 28,000 wildfires had occurred in the west this season, with more every day.
Like many sane Americans, I have witnessed with horror the Trump cult creating an ever-greater accomplishment of lies, of illogical, antiscience, and anti-critical thinking - and, most importantly, convincing these cult followers that their own perceptions are wrong. This was highlighted when Trump went rogue over the size of his inaugural crowd - even when photos clearly showed him standing in front of almost-empty bleachers.
So is this training to believe the lies of perceived strong men instead of our own bodies and minds part of why we are not seeing millions of Americans rise up to say “enough”? How many people, animals, plant species will we lose?
Every American has been touched by this heat, by floods, by fires. It is time for people to listen to their senses: These conditions are not compatible with life; our lives and those of every living thing on the planet are under threat. I just suffered from heat exhaustion for the first time. It may not be the last.
We will survive, and even possibly thrive, only if we make a true U-turn, which can happen only when we leave the fossil fuels in the ground, especially coal and the filthy oil like tar sands from Alberta, when we stop building infrastructure such as pipelines and export terminals, and when we get serious about a living planet in the future.
We cannot be stopped by the oil and gas industries and their well-paid friends in high places who distract people from the real, severe, and lasting results of industrial civilization.