Earth Day 2021 by Loren Johnson

Earth Day 2021 finds a country overwhelmed by interconnecting crises.   A worldwide pandemic, an economic disaster, racial discord, and overarching all of this is a climate crisis that exacerbates all of the above.  We are experiencing a crisis within a crisis.

 We have just learned that CO2 levels in the atmosphere are the highest they’ve been in over 3 million years, that they are rising 100 times faster than normal, and that our global average temperature is rising 10 times faster than in the last 65 million years.   Earth Day 2021 reminds us that the climate is not  Earth Day 2021  

Earth Day 2021 finds a country overwhelmed by interconnecting crises.   A worldwide pandemic, an economic disaster, racial discord, and overarching all of this is a climate crisis that exacerbates all of the above.  We are experiencing a crisis within a crisis.

 We have just learned that CO2 levels in the atmosphere are the highest they’ve been in over 3 million years, that they are rising 100 times faster than normal, and that our global average temperature is rising 10 times faster than in the last 65 million years.   Earth Day 2021 reminds us that the climate is not standing still. Nature keeps upping the ante.  What was an acceptable response is no longer adequate. The gap between what needs to be done and what is actually being done is widening. But the climate crisis is more than just numbers, it’s about people and the foresight to avoid needless suffering. It’s about unfamiliar weather patterns, heat stress, vector-borne diseases on the increase, climate refugees constantly on the move, the habitable area of the planet shrinking even as population increases, rising insurance rates to cover bigger losses, higher taxes to rebuild climate stressed infrastructure.  The costs of inaction are staggering.  Climate change is now considered among the biggest financial and health risks of the 21st century. 

 We live in uncharted territory, at the same address-417 ppm CO2, pawns of a massive, precarious global experiment testing the limits of the atmosphere to hold our emissions – the unintended consequences of modernity and our carbon-intensive lifestyles.  

 We are a species living out of context with the natural world, defined by our consumption rather than our stewardship.  We are captives of an economic system that requires constant growth in a world with fixed resources.  We keep taking without giving back expecting nature’s economy to keep bailing out the human economy.  We watch as the human economy rolls along with pathological indifference to its ecological costs and think of ourselves as over and not part of nature. In the short term, we claim success, but in the long term, we are all losers as earth’s invoices are coming due in the form of extreme weather events.  We can no longer sacrifice the environment for economic growth.

 Both COVID and climate change are major disruptive forces with downstream consequences.  The less we do upfront the more problematic they become. The virus will peak, we will eventually get vaccinated and achieve herd immunity.  But there is no vaccine or quick fix for climate change.  However, unlike other species, we can change.  We are hard-wired to solve problems, recognize mistakes, and reverse course.    

 The pandemic has reminded us that public policy should always be built around the precautionary principle, that science denial is deadly, that foresight is imperative, and that big public problems require solidarity, good governance, and public solutions. 

We know what to do, but we procrastinate saying we want to be more certain, or that some new “technology”, just around the corner, will save us.  The only certainty is that we will regret not acting.

Above all, COVID has taught us what is important in life, what to value.  A stable climate is imperative for civilization to continue in recognizable ways. Earth Day 2021 finds humanity in danger, not just from an evolving virus but from our inability to live in balance with nature.   Generations now living will determine the fate of civilization.  The choices we make will define who we are and how we will be remembered.  Let us choose wisely.

Loren Johnson    Elkhorn, WI

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