Humans are the Cause & Solution
Dear Friends,
I received an invitation to take the very new climate stewardship course taught by Dr. Barrows, an ecologist with University of California Riverside, Palm Desert. It looked interesting so I joined and immersed myself in a fast paced course about anthropogenic climate change.
The course quickly got the point that humans have caused climate change because of rampant CO2 in the atmosphere. Rampant CO2 is different from normal CO2 that is the building blocks for our atmosphere. Rampant CO2 is caused by burning fossil fuel for energy. Too much is released into the atmosphere, forming a thick blanket around earth, and trapping too much heat.
Nature is doing what it can to sequester Rampant CO2. Oceans are absorbing more than ever but it it causing the water to acidify. We can think of that as osteoporosis of the ocean because coral reefs and exoskeleton animals are less and less likely to be able to form their carbon structures. Just like humans with osteoporosis, body chemistry is too acidic and bones weaken.
Along with other students in my class, I became very depressed learning in detail the extent to which we have degraded our natural systems for an unsustainable lifestyle. I was even sadder when I watched videos and read stories of scientists who are deeply depressed. They have been telling us about the problem and offering solutions only to have their pleas fall on deaf ears. For decades they have monitored the acceleration of climate change, asking governments to implement broad solutions.
The hard truth is that we as individuals must do the work. And we can not wait for someone in power to tell us what to do. We have to take the initiative, and make all the choices that are going to do the most good now. Because if we continue to wait, it will be too late for future generations. Humans are the cause of climate change but we are also the solution.