For most of my life the average summertime temperature for southern Wisconsin has been 67 degrees. By the time I am 70 it is predicted to be 72 degrees. By the time my son is 70, that average temperature will be pushing 77 degrees. A temperature more at home in southern Tennessee, or Northern Georgia.
The argument over whether climate change is happening is moot at this point, and we are already seeing the impacts: wetter weather in some areas of the country, wildfires ripping across the west, and larger, and stronger hurricanes. The deniers are still at it though.
The latest thing out of the mouths of the deniers is:
Something’s happening [with the climate] and it’ll change back again … I don’t know that it’s manmade. — Donald Trump
Or,
how much of [climate change] is manmade, how much of it is solar, how much of it is oceanic, how much of it is rain forest and other issues? I think we’re still exploring all of that. — Larry Kudlow
and then this nonsense,
I can’t tell you to what percentage of [climate change] is due to human activity — Marco Rubio
Climate change is real, and it is manmade. The current generation of leadership in the U.S. and around the world have just been sticking their heads in the sand, not wanting to confront an issue that is going to dramatically reshape the world we live in. Mass extinctions, extreme weather, loss of permafrost, ocean acidification, which will release methane, sea level rise, and god help us all, no more beer.
The earliest theories of climate change were presented in the late 19th century. The evidence for manmade climate change has been growing stronger since the 1970s. We have had decades to solve this problem and make the world a better place.
In 1969, John F. Kennedy challenged all Americans to go to the moon before the decade was out.
We choose to go to the moon. We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win, and the others, too.
While he did not see Neil Armstrong walk on the moon in 1969, we did do it. We did it in 1969, in a time where computers were the size of buildings, and men with flattops, white shirts, and skinny ties were doing calculations on slide rules. In seven years the United States was able to put a man on the moon with less computing power that I have in my phone.
No problem is unsolvable, there is a solution to climate change. What we do not have is the will to solve the problem. What we do have is a bunch of money grubbing corporations who refuse to sacrifice their profits for the greater good of the world. We have politicians who care more about pleasing their corporate masters than about their constituents.
My son will be forty in 2040, he may not have the joy of taking his children sledding, skiing, or ice skating on the Tenney Park Lagoon because Wisconsin may not have winter as we know it today anymore.
We can still fix this, it is not yet too late. But what we do need is a leader, and a Congress that will make a commitment to solving the problem. To paraphrase President Kennedy:
We choose to solve climate change. We choose to solve climate change in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win, and the others, too.
We need to solve the problem of climate change, not for us, but for our children, and future generations. This is one hell of a lot more important than worrying about the national debt.