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I’m a grandfather, 81 years old. Sometimes I can’t believe I got this old. I’m part of that bubble of old folks moving through – now retired and watching our world, this world I love.
As Willy Nelson says, “It’s all going to pot.” Not by the stuff we used to smoke, but by all those fossil fuels we’re burning, pumping tons of CO2 up into our own clear blue sky.
I look to my children and grandchildren and wonder to the good Lord, what kind of a world am I leaving them, as storms wreak havoc across the country and globe?
I know sure as shit, climate change is happening right now.
You should know that CO2 now measurers 415ppm. Some guy, cleverer than I, said, ‘Don’t let it get above 400.’ Well, I guess we blew that and unbelievably, it’s still growing at about 5% each year, while our government ignores this growing threat. This is unconscionable, but it’s our fault – we gotta stop voting for them.
Is it too late to stop an irreversible climate change? I hope not. I know that most of us old fuddy-duddies won’t be around to experience the worst of it, but our children and grandchildren will as glaciers melt, cities fall under water and heat rises.
Will we continue to let ourselves be led by politicians who owe their reelection to the fossil fuel lobby, while they obfuscate confusing us with issues of social division?
We Americans have always been smarter than that, maybe a little slow to catch on at the start, but we get there. Like you, we want our children to survive and thrive.
We want what America has always done best, that is to lead the world out of a crisis. I use the word ‘crisis’ just in case you don’t know it yet – this is really a threat, right now.
A few facts worth chewing on:
- Thawing the great swaths of arctic tundra will likely release trillions of tons of global warming methane into the atmosphere. It’s already happening. In April this year it was 87 degrees in a town on the arctic edge. So forget the cows. If it continues it could be pretty much unstoppable.
- One degree of increased temperature in the oceans increases the amount of moisture in the air by 5%. As you might have noticed, it has to fall somewhere, as our farmers are discovering in the midwest. Hotter water and humidity feeds energy to greater cyclones, tornadoes, and hurricanes, as we are already seeing across the world.
The youth of the world have realized what is happening and are motivated to action, but it’ll take all of us. So I’m asking you, my fellow older Americans, to get off the couch and join with the youth and vote in only those who support releasing the great American ability to innovate and solve this growing global threat. The answers are there, it just takes a political will.
I’ve always thought that Venus, that planet that rises brightly in the morning sky, with a CO2 atmosphere of 90% and a temp of 450 degrees was put there to remind us of the consequence of burning all our fossil fuel. I hope, like Cassandra, her warning won’t be ignored.
It’s still not too late. Join me in demanding political candidates that will frontally address climate change, because it is real and very dangerous. Wouldn’t it be nice to leave a still-cool planet behind us for our kids rather than a new Venus?
Please share this with everyone you know.
-John Poignand
Chatham, MA
