“I don’t like to gamble, but if there is one thing I’m willing to bet on, it’s myself.” – Beyoncé
We are all going to die. This is not news but it has been on my mind. Watching President Trump on July 12 in the Oval Office meeting with his most senior advisor and confidant was terrifying. Trump reviewed his presidential record. Building a strong military, “we are the most powerful nation in the world and I am a strong military president, Qatar is the main funder of terrorism.” Building a strong energy industry, “we are going to frack, natural gas, export coal, and LNG. Approving the Keystone XL pipeline and DAPL will create many jobs, it was a no brainer.” He added, “we have lifted thousands of restrictions and the stock market has gained trillions.” This was an impressive imaginary list of accomplishments. Pat Robertson smiled and did not mention Satan.
The Larsen C Ice Shelf
The Crack was a vivid reminder of the threats of global warming and rising sea levels. Ice cubes float in a glass of water, but glaciers and calving are complex. What matters is global warming.
Imagine a bus with enough seats for everyone on Earth. The brake fluid is low, an inexperienced driver is looking in the rearview mirror, it is hot, foggy, and some say we are heading for a cliff. This bus trip is like global warming, a man-made climate emergency from an unprecedented concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.
In 1896, Svante Arrhenius, a Swedish physicist and chemist, discovered an essential relationship – increasing greenhouse gas emissions increases the Earth’s temperature. Arrhenius won a Nobel Prize. It is getting very hot, and some people don’t want to know, but it does not matter what people think or who is to blame.
The Survival Game
We have two choices: act immediately and do all we can to reduce greenhouse gases, or wait. Global warming may be a hoax or the threat may be real. The Survival Game has simple rules. Everybody plays, the game started 100 years ago, we are running out of time, and the outcome will determine life on Earth.
If we act and global warming is a hoax, we’ll end up joining the rest of the world with a strong economy. If global warming is real, our children and grandchildren will remember us as Climate Warriors.
If we wait and global warming is a hoax, the rest of the world will remember the U.S. as a global pariah for pulling out of the 2015 Paris Climate Agreement. If GW is real, we are toast. Game over.
The best strategy is to act now, do all we can to reduce our carbon footprint and be kind to everyone.
Dr. Luis Contreras
Waiting is what the Trump EPA wants you to do …
Here is one of the many reasons to act, now, while we can …
https://qz.com/1034405/former-nasa-scientist-says-the-world-may-need-to-spend-as-much-as-7-trillion-per-year-to-remove-carbon-dioxide-from-the-air/
Here is the interview at the White House on July 12, 2017: President Trump and Pat Robertson
https://youtu.be/JsMxZjvVmBE?t=33s
Dr. James Hansen is our top Climate Scientist and Climate Activist. Yes, he decided to Act.
Dr. Hansen, as director of the US space agency Nasa’s Institute for Space Studies, made global headlines in 1988, during a severe drought and heat wave on the North American continent, when he told a Washington Senate committee: “It’s time to stop waffling so much and say the evidence is pretty strong that the greenhouse effect is here.”
He is helping the Climate Kids on a lawsuit against President Trump and the U.S.
http://climatenewsnetwork.net/22709-2/