Letter: Climate change interest not for self-proclaimed experts only - The Westerly Sun
Letter: Climate change interest not for self-proclaimed experts only | Letters | thewesterlysun.com
Let us all be 4C — Climate Change Concerned Citizens — again, with regular readers of this page recently treated to the vampire debate of appropriate attention levels due climate change as the planet burns baby burns ... Plan-et B? Hats off to Joseph Sciarillo (“Expert on self-professed experts should look in mirror,” June 25) terminating Bill DeFusco’s June 24 “personal attack” (“Self-proclaimed expert might be an overclaimer”) on the credibility of my non-existent self-proclaimed expertise. What the? Passionate concern? Definitely. Motivating? Maybe. Self-proclaimed expert? No how, no way!
The feedback received is that others wish more people shared my restless relentlessness. Let’s refer to The Westerly Sun’s June 21 lead opinion page articleb “Climate change mitigation must not be lost to it management” that topped my “Climate Change isn’t coming, it’s already here” letter that same day, with an eye roll not too much to ask. Weather-related records, refugees and disasters are on the move, having migrated from briefs to front page news nearly everyday. But weather is day-to-day, with climate measured in trends, aggregate changes and comparative satellite images, a battle that life is losing with accelerating frequency. Doubt it? Ask the insurance companies. Just as parents are the bread-winning stewards of their households and make the rules, climate can be interpreted as the steward of life on this planet, with Earth’s climate delivering an extraordinarily complex mix of pick-up-sticks chemistry, biology, physics and temperature. Water and air that allows for the millions of species to evolve and survive on planet Earth that has not been found on the 200 billion trillion (estimated by astronomers, which makes me no self-proclaimed astronomical expert) other “space rocks” spread out across this universe. Your mega-billion lottery odds are much better, but don’t go there! Pick-up sticks is appropriate, since unwittingly remove the wrong stick and the whole thing collapses with remarkable speed. Sound scary? That’s because it is, with exaggeration, hyperbole and self-proclamation left to the imagination and internet. We’re living real life in real time, and please live sustainably, enabling future generations of human and non-human life to do the same.
Jay Lustgarten
Westerly
Related Knowledge Center: Climate science
What began as a theory in the 1890s — that industrial emissions of carbon dioxide could increase global temperatures — had progressed to a scientific fact a century later. Scientists across a range of disciplines are studying the impact of the still-growing concentration of carbon dioxide and other so-called “greenhouse gases” in the atmosphere as they call for industrial and governmental policies to slow, then halt, the warming of the planet.