Letter | Climate change is greatest threat to humanity - The Capital Times

Letter | Climate change is greatest threat to humanity | Letters to the Editor | captimes.com

Dear Editor: Deadly heatwaves are no longer news, and anyone who hasn't gotten the message that they're climate change's response to our profligate burning of fossil fuels hasn't been paying attention.

It's been argued that scientists' projections and predictions are often wrong. That's true. But the error is invariably to underestimate the rate of climate-change acceleration and the worsening of impacts because models didn't account for some contributing factor like release of carbon pollution from thawing permafrost. Change is happening so fast that even climate and atmospheric scientists are surprised.

I was working at the Madison VA Hospital in the 1990s when Madison experienced an unprecedented heat wave. It was so hot that nutritional formula curdled in feeding tubes, and patients whose rooms lacked window air conditioners were discharged because the hospital was dangerously hot. Getting central AC required a special appropriation from Congress, whose initial reaction was laughter. Air conditioning? In Wisconsin? It was a harbinger of things to come, and no one is laughing now.

This isn't a "new normal." There's nothing normal about it. It's steadily changing, getting worse.

Climate change is the greatest threat humanity has ever faced, and it's high time we acted accordingly. President Biden tries. Wisconsin is trying, although it's called "jobs" or "the economy," not "climate change." There's increasing bipartisan support for climate action in Congress.

But vote! Only our votes can overcome the powerful influence of right-wing extremists in state and federal governments and the Supreme Court.

Carol Steinhart

Madison