Let's entertain for a moment the notion that there is nothing strange going on in the atmosphere, and put aside for a moment the very grave implications of climate change as a massive, global governmental hoax [“Global Warming Is a False Belief,” Nov. 14 Xpress]. Is everything peachy now? Does my asthma go away? Does cancer disappear? Do all the extinct species and destroyed ecosystems? Do strip-mined mountains suddenly pop back up, and do our forests suddenly stop dying? Can we drink the water now? Do the oceans return from the edge of biological oblivion? Are the millions of mentally ill now healthy and happy? No?
I wish the climate deniers were right. It would be such a deep relief to know there was at least one less catastrophe facing life here on Earth. Then we would only have to worry about our numerous epidemics, our collapsing ecosystems, our nuclear waste, our trash mountains and islands, our rapidly disappearing sibling species, our diminishing resources.
You get the point. We don't need climate science to know something has gone profoundly awry and that it has everything to do with the way we live. Climate change, to those who choose to accept the overwhelming evidence that it is real and happening now, is just one of numerous reasons many of us are reconsidering whether the benefits of our way of life outweigh the costs, or if some other arrangement might be more beneficial.
Indeed, many of us are trying with passion and urgency and humility to pull from the rubble a way of living that acknowledges death, honors life and our ancestors and our future generations, and gives humans a positive role to play in the systems that support us. We do this not because scientists and politicians have us fooled. We do this for the love of life.
— Justin Holt
Asheville
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