Pushing the Panic Button

AUGUST WAS THE SECOND HOTTEST MONTH on record. It came in just behind july, which took over the number one spot. Where I live, the heat all summer was brutal, merciless,and I can foresee a future within my lifetime, within five years, in which every day of every summer month features high temperatures above one hundred, like Phoenix. The scientists, in case anyone is listening, now say that not only are they shocked by the rapidity of the advance of climate change, but that their recent calculations indicate that complete climate collapse is imminent. Human civilization has scarcely listened to scientific experts heretofore, why start now? Or, those who listen are not listened to. Organized international programs to reverse climate change by reducing the amount of carbon in the atmosphere continue to lag far behind what is needed to prevent runaway greenhouse effect from ensuing within a few years. Meanwhile, a moron posted on facebook that the added carbon has increased the growth of green plants by fifteen percent. Indeed, the vegetation in my yard seems to grow more rapidly and abundantly than ever. Maybe other people have noticed this. But this observation, while maybe true, is like fiddling while Rome burns. It misses the point. Meanwhile,conservative ostriches keep up their usual drumbeat of denial; the climate will change back, it isn't changing, it would change no matter what - all the usual drivel. Not only must we stop polluting the atemosphere with billions of tons of added carbon each year, we must remove much of what we have previously put there. The big fuel companies and the entire fossil fuel industry is salivating with joy at the prospect of our being capable of removing so much carbon from the atmosphere and storing it in the forms of coal and diamonds that their businesses can go right on ahead digging coal and oil out of the land, and profiting from it. Hell, take the cargon gas out of the air,turn it back into coal nd oil, dig it up again, and burn it again! Why not? They too are missing the point, fiddling while Rome burns. A category five hurricane churns its way up the east coast of the United States, fueled by an ocean that is hotter than ever. Fish are swimming where they have never swum before. Millions of species of plants and animals are going extinct. All these trends are not going to reverse themselves. There is now a company in business for the purpose of removing carbon from the astmosphere.It is building a plant in Texas for that purpose. Similar enterprises will soon be up and running. They will initially remove enough carbon from the atmosphere in one year to compensate for what humanity places there in about fifteen minutes,only by expending a great amount energy. This new industry, ominously, is being subsidized to a great extent by the fossil fuel industry. But, hey, its a start. Like all new businesses and industries the efficiency and production will improve, probably at a rapid rate. Solar energy will get in on the act,and who knows? Within a few decades the atmosphere may have been cleaned up, and ocean levels may have returned to something approaching normal, by a massive desalination project, a poject which will at once green up the planet,greatly increase global agricultural output, and maybe, just,maybe, turn the Earth back into the natural paradise it was meant to be and once was. Yes, it sounds fantastic,and unrealistic, but hey, what's wrong with dreaming?