These Extraordinary Days
In the introduction to their book The Future We Choose: Surviving the Climate Crisis, the authors wrote, “The world is on fire, from the Amazon to California, from Australia to the Siberian Arctic. The hour is late, and the moment of consequence, so long delayed, is now upon us. Do we watch the world burn, or do we choose to do what is necessary to achieve a different future? Who we understand ourselves to be determines the choice we will make. That choice determines what will become of us. The choice is both simple and complex, but above all it is urgent.”
Christiana Figueres and Tom Rivett-Carnac talk about the various climate events that have contributed to a more fragile planet over the past fifty years. The populations of mammals, fish, reptiles and birds have declined by 60%. Half of the world’s coral reefs have disappeared. Also, the Arctic summer sea ice is rapidly shrinking.
Over the past several months, we’ve been reading about the extensive wildfires in California and Canada as well as the ever rising temperatures in Phoenix and other parts of the Southwest. And now, we’re watching wildfires in Oklahoma, historic heat records in the central region of the United States, new hottest night records in Indonesia and Thailand, and a year’s worth of rain fell in 8 hours in Valencia, Spain.
