Rob Watson, an environmentalist, likes to say: “Mother Nature is just chemistry, biology, and physics. “And we’re naturally frightened of the unknown.” He concludes, “Manmade global warming appears, so far, to have been the biggest (barrier) of all.” Veteran ABC journalist Bill Blakemore thinks one of the reasons Americans don’t, or can’t, believe in climate change is because of the “unprecedented scale and complexity of the crisis of manmade global warming.” Blakemore goes on to say, “We (journalists) try to get a fix on whatever new psychological barriers the latest story has presented us.” And then continues to relate what one of his college professors had said: “All genuine learning is frightening. It’s new, and therefore unknown, at first. How can you face down and overcome something you cannot even see or detect? How can you wrap your brain around the idea that a substance as innocuous as carbon dioxide can destroy the world you live in? It is with us for every minute of our existence. Without it we could not live a normal life but ironically too much of it is going to end life on Earth as we know it. Carbon dioxide is unseen but a part of our everyday environment. Hitler and Tojo and Mussolini were persons with faces. You could take their photos. What mankind faces today is even more grim and frightening. And that is what is going to have to take place to overcome this latest great threat to our very existence. Our whole economic system was turned into a war machine. Many of us died, all gave of themselves, and everybody sacrificed.
What chance did we have to prevail against such odds? I and just about every other young, able-bodied American male and many young women were ready to take on those odds. It was nip and tuck for a while as we faced such enemies. Hitler’s armies had taken most of Europe and with Mussolini’s armies were set on taking Africa. The Japanese had just destroyed much of our Pacific fleet and had already overrun much of Asia. The days following Decem– Pearl Harbor Day – were grim and frightening. We are foreclosing the future for our children and grandchildren. If we do nothing to stop carbon dioxide from going into the atmosphere, planet Earth will face a future similar to that of Mars today. Mankind and our civilization are at stake. Two of us are still living.įrom my perspective, I believe we are at a crossroads of history. Five of those young men never returned alive. My crew of ten young men flew a brand new B-24 bomber from New York City to South America, across the Atlantic to Africa, across the Sahara Desert to a temporary training camp in Tunisia, and finally across the Mediterranean to our tent camp home amongst olive trees near Foggia, Italy. Army Air Corps was 18 so in the spring of 1942, I was enrolled at the University of Wyoming when I enlisted. After attending one-room rural schools, I then went to the Lander high school. My classmates and I graduated just in time to be gun fodder for WWII. I was raised on a ranch five miles out of Lander and two miles from where my mother was born in 1901. I was born in a little coal mining camp outside of Rock Springs in 1924. President Obama, in his presidential acceptance speech, said, “And yes, my plan will continue to reduce carbon pollution that is heating our planet – because climate is not a hoax. More droughts and floods and wildfires are not a joke. They’re a threat to our children’s future…”
0 kommentar(er)
