Sometimes knowledge is comforting but this is scary in the extreme. We know the climate is changing and changing rapidly due to increased levels of carbon in the air. The CO₂ we are spewing in the air has been the major cause of the temperature increase by our burning fossil fuels. Some of our damage is from burning natural gas, methane, which reduces the damage to CO₂ levels. Methane is thirty times more damaging than carbon dioxide. We bring up methane from deep underground and animals create some, but the growing release is from gas well leakage and the thawing of the tundra. We are working to stop the well leakage but with each passing day thousands of megatons from the melting tundra are released blocking the radiant heat from escaping.

            The damage we have caused is melting the Greenland glacier and some of the Antarctic glaciers. This plus heat expansion of the oceans is going to raise the oceans over thirty feet flooding the world’s coastal cities and hinterlands displacing over two billion people. The loss of all the world’s glaciers could raise the level to cover all of Florida, Louisiana, and several eastern states. The droughts and floods will increase in number and severity. Many areas that are now cool in winter will require air conditioning in a few decades.

            We have unintentionally raised the temperature but we have pushed the boulder over the top of the hill and it is starting to take up speed. We are trying to slow it down and probably too late. What we don’t know is how deep is the valley it is rolling into and how wide before the boulder can start rolling up the next hill. Will we still be around?

            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.