Climate problems are all around us, around the world
In March 13’s Tribune, letter writer Mr. Tom Harris of Ottawa, Canada, is very thoughtful to focus his attention on adapting to climate change. Of course this is important, but adapting is a temporary and ultimately futile effort if we don’t work at solutions to our climate problem.
We must squarely face the big picture that we need to not only reduce our CO2 emissions, but also to reduce deforestation, overfishing, overconsumption, destruction of our precious soil and other contributions to our carbon footprint.
His statement that “climate problems may or may not someday happen” is a blindness to reality that is beyond belief. Climate problems are all around us, all over the world, and addressing these problems is the most important challenge we have ever faced.
Currently, rising levels of manmade CO2 are heating the planet and leading to a range of climate impacts, from rising seas to melting glaciers. Citizens’ Climate Lobby has a proposal for a revenue-neutral carbon fee and dividend that would steadily reduce CO2 and create new jobs by transitioning us to a clean-energy economy. We owe it to our forests, oceans, soils and our future generations to take this action now.
Elaine Townsend, San Luis Obispo
This story was originally published March 20, 2016 at 12:17 PM with the headline "Climate problems are all around us, around the world."