Is the world ready to understand we have known global warming is going to change the world’s climate to the detriment of life on the Blue Marble for over half a century? For political reasons many people are publicly denying the Earth is warming influencing people to disbelieve in Science and even what they see for themselves.

            The change is going to happen whether or not something isn’t done to ameliorate the increasing damage to the environment. Beyond the politics, the deniers are concerned about the change in the structure of our economy. The fossil fuel industry is a pillar of our economy and employs millions of people from lease scouts, geologists, drillers, pipe manufacturers, truckers, refiners, manutainence, gas station operators, and all the people who build engines and their parts. Add to the petroleum business the thousands who are coal miners, transporting coal by truck and rail, and the few coal-burning coal-fired generating plants.

            Of course politicians have some concern about the loss of jobs but it’s the owners and stockholders who put money into their pockets and campaign chests which concern them the most. The loss of those jobs is going to occur and the sooner the better to prevent the worst scenario from happening.

            Bill Clinton’s campaign advisor George Stephanopoulos told him, “it’s the economy stupid” because he saw that was what won elections and that is why politicians are scared to face the facts.

            What will the future generations think about us, their ancestors, in last years of this century and early in the next? Will they think of us as we think of our slave owning ancestors? Will they be ashamed? Will they criticize us for the damage we had done to the climate and the ecosystems?

            Will they have had to change their living conditions so much that many areas of the world became completely uninhabitable? Wealthy people will be able to adapt to the increased temperatures, droughts, flooding, dangerous weather patterns, and rising seas. How will the rest of the people who do not have the money to compensate for the changes survive?

            Will those generations to come want to know why so many people denied what was happening for short term greed and power? Will we all be cursed by them for not making those in power stop the disaster they are living in a hundred years from how? Will the generations to come understand we knew what disasters they would have to contend with and didn’t care? The legacy of those in power today who do not do all they can to stop climate change will be worse than slave traders of the past.

            Send this letter to your elected officials and polluters. Maybe it will move them because every day is critical and because every day we waste makes life for coming generations worse.

            Never have those words been more appropriate than today. President Biden’s motto “Build Back Better” means we will be fixing what’s broken or too old to function as needed for current requirements.

            After Katrina we spent over a billion to try to fortify New Orleans. Ida hit close. The levees held but the reinforced pylons didn’t so power went out. The new ones will be even sturdier. We will probably waste millions on helping the few nuts who want to live on Grand Isle. Most of the homes are about fifteen feet above the sand to avoid surge damage. Wind damage got the buildings, the above and below ground utilities, and the only road onto it. Many of the towns, roads, and levees in the hinterlands were destroyed again from the Ida rains with Nicholas dropping another foot.

            Protecting those flooded New Jersey towns every future Ida is going to be expensive and difficult to Build Back Better. New York City lost several people in flooded basement apartments. The subways and tunnels flooded too, but not as bad as Hurricane Sandy. Protecting the city and suburbs around the Hudson needs to be protected by a trillion dollar system. Sandy was a surge and Ida was rain so the fix will be difficult.

            A “Permanent” fix concerning the regular seawater flooding of Miami and Charleston will cost tens of billions to Build Back Better.

            We may have learned our lesson when we stupidly put Puerto Rico’s infrastructure back as it was instead of upgrading and fortifying to withstand the next storm. Build Back Better.

            I have been in all the lower forty-eight states. Many of them – many times. I have a road atlas with each road my wife and I have traveled. Many states have lots of orange marker, some have less like Nevada. My 78 semester hours in Geography and almost a million miles of driving allow me to be an expert on America.

            During my lifetime, I have seen how climate has changed our country. My Dad drove my Mom and I to see my brother in Utah when I was six. In other trips we went to see him in Montana, Wyoming, and Colorado. The mountains were green with huge trees. Today those trees south of southern Wyoming are dying from bug infestations. A few decades ago those bugs froze out around the southern Colorado border or a few thousand feet in altitude. Millions of those dead trees now cause forest fires.

            Dad and I caught malaria in New Mexico when streams and low areas had water for mosquitoes to breed. My last trip to New Mexico saw no places where they could breed.             On our way to southern California in 2003 I saw lots of signs for desert land for sale. We were far from the Colorado River so I called the Realtor. He was selling the desert for $15,000 per acre because the government was going to build an irrigation system fifty miles to the land. The water would make it possible to grow alfalfa hay for California dairy cows. My first trip through Yuma was in the mid-seventies. In 2003 it was at least twenty times wider with all trailers and motor homes. During one climate class in college, I had studied how they were quickly sucking their aquifer dry. Now they get Colorado River water or move away.

            Every year the local, state and federal government plus the insurance companies spend hundreds of billions on repairing or replacing infrastructure and buildings. FEMA got tired of paying for a small town on the Illinois side of the Mississippi River and rebuilt it out of the flood plain. They saved Cairo, Illinois which would have to get a lot better to be a bad slum by flooding prime farmland in Missouri.

            Much of Louisiana is a swamp and below the levied surface of the Mississippi River. Katrina showed how far below sea level much of the city is. We spent two billion to try to withstand the next category three storm. Ida was a strong 4 and missed. Still, it was damaging and the electrical supply lines were destroyed. More money was needed to put it back together.

            Why do I have to pay for damage done to property in floodplains, swamps and hurricane prone states? My home insurance went up 10% to offset losses from last year. Many insurance companies have pulled out of those areas and states that get huge claims each year. It will only get a lot worse.

            Without thinking about the turn around in their political stands, Republican Governors have been wondering how to prepare for future climate disasters. How do we do that? Having a house on a river or a lake is a pretty place to live and enjoy life but frequent flooding costs the homeowner, the insurance companies, the state and federal governments, and of course all of us through high premiums and taxes.

            Now take that one home and multiply by a million more plus all the businesses and industries that used to flood every two or three decades or more. Now they are flooding much more often and more violently. We have to expect this is just a transition period to one with greater violence and more often. Hurricane Ida showed us a tropical storm can go from 65 to 140 miles per hour in a little more than a day with gusts over 175. When it got to the Northeast states it caused massive flooding costing billions and over sixty lives.

            New Orleans is mostly below the river and sea level. Who will pay for the levee that is going to be built around Charleston? Who is going to pay for the flood protection for New York City? Many other cities are doing their planning through building codes like Miami has. Its newest major building code is fourteen feet above the current street level. The streets are going to be raised in anticipation of rising seas and storm surges.

            Life on the Blue Marble is rapidly changing and all the governments need to prepare for heat, drought, floods and ecosystem destruction. At least five natural disasters costing over a billion have happened each year since 2002.

            We must cut carbon dioxide and methane emissions to keep the climate from being over-bearable in the several decades. I just read only a small African country, was keeping its reduction pledge. The U.K. was getting closer than most countries.

            Illinois just passed a bill to keep the nuclear plants running while it is growing its wind and solar. The bill seems to include a 2145 sunset for oil and coal plants. The base load natural gas plants are not affected.

            Now the reality check: The peaking gas plant north of Minooka only runs when demand is high and at a high cost for its electricity. Its emissions are based on a yearly rate even if it only runs sixty days. Its burning of natural gas is highly inefficient. The base load gas plant being built across the river from Minooka claims to be very efficient. Natural gas is methane and it is over thirty times stronger in holding radiant heat from escaping.

            Wind and solar are great when the sun shines, and the wind blows. What about cloudy, windless days or nights. The nukes are a base load and not for peaking. The base load plants aren’t designed to be cyclical and aren’t profitable to run under those conditions. Southern Illinois and the surrounding states don’t have nukes so they still rely on coal and gas plants.

            Some people think huge numbers of batteries will discharge electricity gotten from renewables during the day. Unfortunately, nights are not going to be using less power but maybe more since that is when electric vehicles are going to be charging. Are we heading into an unknown future trying to make it all work or just kicking the can?

            As I write this, it looks like and feels like the winters I experienced up here fifty years ago. One winter we had snow, freezing rain, snow, and it repeated several times. I could walk on it without breaking through. The frost line used to be four or more feet deep freezing water lines from the main to the homes. That may be the winter with 20 to 25 degrees below zero nights and days not reaching zero.

            A few years ago the TV meteorologists fell in love with the Polar Vortex term to gain attention. Like today’s cold weather it is for a few days but not weeks. People will point out these snaps as global warming being a myth. Overall the winters have been so light a vortex is an anomaly. Younger people will remember the last fifteen to twenty winters as their base memory and not know how winters were before Global Warming.

            Youngsters, I have a parka and long thermal underwear left from those winters. Somewhere I have very heavy socks to wear in my old rubber boots and several neck scarves to keep out the frigid wind. Today I wear a light jacket over the sweatshirt I wear inside my home and a headband over my ears when I am outside.

            I don’t miss locking up my lungs for over a minute while trying to take a breath, after getting hit by a sudden gust of wind, or busting through 4 to 5 foot drifts to get home. Nope, those weren’t the good ole winters.