Alan S. Austin
Arizona Playwright • Writer • Poet
  

CLIMATE STUDY (8/12)

Great article on how global warming will hit the world's poor and how the poor who can no longer survive will move to try to save their lives. Sadly you ignore how that will be a longstanding problem for Arizona. Phoenix is getting hotter so survival is going to be problematic. Our wall will not keep desperate people out. Not all the air-conditioning in the world will stop the process whereby our carbon dioxide-rich atmosphere will continue to heat and continue to melt the very elements that keep our climate stable... the polar ice caps and the glaciers. They are melting. Now. Faster and faster. Their melting is and will be the driving force behind the heating up of the planet. Think of when you defrost the fridge. The problem? There's no switch to put the icemaker back on. Even if you started now, today, stopped burning fossil fuels, stopped consuming, that process is already underway and will take many years to reverse. The heat is coming. If you think the pandemic has put your life and that of your children under threat, wait till you get to problems we will face because of climate change. This is only the beginning. Remember this moment. It could actually be a good one.