Climate Action Shoreline: Act Now
Wednesday, April 26, 2023
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| Mishirasu asian pear blossoms |
Story and Photos by Diane Lobaugh
Living in Shoreline, in this corner of the USA, I think it is hard to see the day-to-day effects of climate change. We still have water, and not too much, access to food, not too extreme weather.
We do breathe the smoke from forest fires in later summer, witness flooding not too far away, and at times have a low snowpack though it is good this year.
Yet there is a climate emergency world-wide. Everything we do, or don't do, affects climate change, even if we can't see and feel it. In industrialized nations like the US, we are big consumers and polluters from fossil fuel used for transportation and heating.
One important role we have in the Climate Emergency is to stop using fossil fuels as fast and as completely as we can. The next 5 years are critical...not 2050, or 2030, but now.
Industrialized nations produce most of the fossil fuels but are least affected by climate change. Or if there is a disaster there is resource and infrastructure to rebuild. Of course, even in the USA this depends on the region, and which communities have access to resource.
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| William's Pride apple blossoms |
In the Pajaro Valley in California last month, because of the extreme rain there have been floods, loss of homes, farmland, jobs, and this has been devastating to the people there, many who are farm workers. They have not recovered.
According to the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Africa accounts for the smallest share of global greenhouse gas emissions, at just 3.8%, yet is one of the most vulnerable continents in the world to climate change.
There is already drought, flooding, food scarcity and loss of farmland due to extreme weather. Many people have died, been displaced, are hungry, are struggling now. And it is getting worse quickly. There is also dumping of toxic waste (plastics) from industrialized nations polluting land and water, as well as poisoning of the land and water from mining. The extracted minerals are often for the industrialized nations.
We all get to make individual changes in our lives, which will vary based on our usage and resource. I am hopeful about doing this together, as a community of neighbors.
We can make friends and neighbors of everyone. We can share resources so that everyone has basic needs met, locally and globally. We can buy and use less. We can stop taking and using more resources than we need. We can stop burning fossil fuels for energy.
It is important to know the effects of the climate emergency world-wide, even though it is hard to hear about, or observe day-to-day. This truth keeps me working and writing to change our attitudes and actions that do impact our world community.
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| Flowering red currant |
We all get to make individual changes in our lives, which will vary based on our usage and resource. I am hopeful about doing this together, as a community of neighbors.
We can make friends and neighbors of everyone. We can share resources so that everyone has basic needs met, locally and globally. We can buy and use less. We can stop taking and using more resources than we need. We can stop burning fossil fuels for energy.
Many of us can shift to electricity at home, work and on the road. We can learn from our global neighbors about the impact of climate change in their communities. We can listen to each other about our hopes and our fears and ideas.
Enjoy the spring flower photos from my yard and neighborhood. And I hope to see you in the neighborhood.
Past Shoreline Area News articles based on the pamphlet from Climate Action Shoreline:
Enjoy the spring flower photos from my yard and neighborhood. And I hope to see you in the neighborhood.
Past Shoreline Area News articles based on the pamphlet from Climate Action Shoreline:
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4 comments:
California has been feast or famine with precipitation for thousands of years. The Spanish conquistadors noted this variability even in the 16th century, prior to the Industrial Revolution.
It's highly dubious to assign the recent refilling of Lake Tulare to anthropogenic climate change or anything else except the natural vacillation of sea surface temperatures off the equatorial eastern Pacific. This vacillation indirectly controls how far north or south the polar jet stream intersects our coast, and therefore, who gets the firehose of precipitation it provides.
Educate yourselves about weather and climate, and don't fall victim to messianic doomsaying that pervades the media today. ACC is a serious threat, but it is dead wrong to assign blame to it for everything in an atmosphere as complicated as ours.
Thank you, Diane, for your informative and insightful letters. Your consistent and positive voice is a treasure for our community.
Climate change makes catastrophic flood twice as likely, study shows
https://newsroom.ucla.edu/releases/climate-change-makes-catastrophic-flood-twice-as-likely
It's true that natural fluctuations of earth's cycles exist and will continue to ebb and flow long after earth is habitable for humans, our filling the atmosphere with CO2 is having a dramatic impact. This study I reference above is published by the leading climate researcher in the world who specifically studies climate impacts in Calfornia. Because of human caused warming, each year more of the precipitation that falls on California is rain instead of snow. Additionally, human caused warming increases evaporation from the equator, bringing more precipitation to the areas within the 30th and 45th parallels, where California lies.
We have every reason to be alarmed about what is occuring. We have failed to take action to reduce warming at every opportunity. I am a climate scientist and have been studying this topic for 20 years. In my opinion and area of expertise, we have passed the tipping points. We will not be able to prevent catastrophic flooding, fires, food shortages, human migration, ecosystem collapse, social upheaval.
We are still planning new oil drilling projects all over the world. The oil industry will not stop pursuing their investments until every last drop of oil has been squeezed from the earth.
But go ahead, just order another stupid piece of survellience junk for your house from Amazon.
How many people know the damage that plastics do to people? the environment? wild animals and pets? If you do know the cancers and hormornal damage, the fact that plastics my break APART, but WILL NEVER BREAK DOWN to benefit future growth of plants, like plants/animals, etc., please - let's work together to stop making more and more plastics!
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