Learn to fight climate change

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To the editor,

Where do I begin to address John J. Sweeney’s assertion that we should "learn to love climate change" (letter to the editor, Oct. 1)? He apparently has no grasp of the magnitude of the problem and its implications for present and future generations. We are in the midst of the Sixth Extinction, as documented by Elizabeth Kolbert, staff writer for The New Yorker, in her book called “The Sixth Extinction.”

The root cause is the transformation of the ecological landscape by human activity. We are living in the Anthropocene era, cutting down rainforests causing massive habitat loss, acidifying oceans with excess carbon dioxide from the burning of fossil fuels, resulting in extinctions of a growing number of flora and fauna species. The heating of our oceans favors bacteria that produce hydrogen sulfide, which is poisonous to other life forms. Carbon dioxide levels have risen 40 percent over the past 200 years and methane levels have more than doubled since the start of the Industrial Revolution. If trends continue unabated, the glaciers will disappear, the arctic ice cap will melt, low islands will disappear and coastal cities will be inundated. 

Worldwide records are being broken for temperature rises, severity and duration of droughts, floods, hurricanes, tornadoes and wildfires. The U.N. Panel on Climate Change issues reports every six years. In September 2013, 209 lead authors and 600 contributing authors from 39 nations concluded: global warming is “unequivocal,” sea levels are rising and ice packs are melting.

If we continue at this pace we will cause further warming, but we can slow the process if we begin to address it at once.

Debbi Dolan

climate change, Debbi Dolan

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