Alan S. Austin
Arizona Playwright • Writer • Poet
  

The Birds (7/10)

Linda Valdez's editorial connecting politics and birds demonstrates the connection between birds and the health of our environment. Birds are the bellwethers of that health. Ecologically fragile environments like the Mojave nurture some of the most beautiful and rarest of our natural species. Any tipping of the balance easily destroys those environments. Ironically, birds are the children of the dinosaurs, creatures we now know were wiped out by dramatic environmental changes such as increased CO2 in the atmosphere.

My concern is how do we as parents and grandparents get this message across to the voting public before the problems become so extreme that our civilization is threatened? The withdrawal from the Paris Accord, the stripping of EPA protections, the abandonment of cleaner burning fuels can only quicken the process and bring more fires, more floods, more environmental damage and destruction. We know this, the scientists know this but how do you convince people generally that to care for our environment and the biosphere is to care ourselves, our future and the future of our children?