The news this morning out of Kentucky, and all the states impacted by the tornadoes last night brings my heart to my throat. The governor of Kentucky calls the tornadoes there "the worst storm in Kentucky's history".
As I see the devastation on my television set, and sit here in Florida, where we are in the path of hurricanes that grow more monstrous year by year, the words blaring in my mind, heart and soul are: CLIMATE CHANGE. Say the words, news reporters. This is what climate change looks like. This is what climate change is.
And while no one can say for sure whether any one given weather event is the direct result of climate change, surely any adult alive now, who is aware of the science (which has been warning us for DECADES) or not, knows that the climate is changing. Some do not believe that climate change is induced by human activity. Some don't believe climate change is happening at all. Yet clearly it is. And, for some reason, it is rarely mentioned when horrific news like what is all over cable news right now about last night's tornadoes is in progress.
Maybe the reporters feel it is too soon. Maybe they feel that it would be disrespectful to the victims, to those in the path of the tornadoes last night, living and dead, to speak of climate change in their reporting right now. But, to that, I say, NO: it is disrespectful NOT to talk about it! Saying it's too soon is exactly like the people who never want to talk about gun control after a mass shooting, who use the same excuse: it's too soon. NO: it's too late!
It is very, very late days now with climate change. Our climate is changing, our glaciers are melting, exponentially faster than even scientists had originally predicted. And we'd better start saying it's name, and talking about it, when these things happen, and during all the time in between things happening. And we'd better start changing our choices and behavior, right now. All of us, from individual human beings, to huge corporations need to move off fossil fuels NOW.
Climate change is in progress. Are we going to avoid even saying the words, or are we going to name it, talk about it, and actually change to try to turn it around to save ourselves, all the creatures of the earth, and our awesome environment itself?
