Addressing Our Mutual Dangers

            Hello, dear readers!

            The repeated weekend rains have inspired in me a more cheerful mood than during the Heat Dome of 2021. I’m so thankful for La Niña’s shading clouds, life-giving rain, and cool, comfortable temperatures. Any summer day under 90 degrees is to be cherished and savored.

            Although some of us seek to minimize this fact, so much of our experience as human beings is emotional. I’ve written articles about the chemistry of combustion, energy budgeting, the slow geologic cycling of carbon through the various spheres of the Earth system, of feedback loops and nonlinear relationships. I’ve briefly touched upon the environmental econometrics at play as we chart a path forward for decarbonization. But all of that doesn’t really touch the heart of the issue at hand here, the emotional weight of this crossroads, the grand scale of all that we stand to lose: life itself.

            It is an inescapable fact that we are mortal creatures who will inevitably meet death at an unknown and unknowable time. Tomorrow is never guaranteed, and this simple notion is enough to explain why we place so much value on today, even at the expense of tomorrow. Economists call this “time preference”: humans tend to want to consume goods sooner rather than later, and often would rather consume goods now rather than consume greater goods tomorrow. Economists also call this “discounting” because the future, forever out of reach with the caveat that it may never arrive, is discounted. We almost instinctually care less about the future, place a lower value on it. If you are so inclined, here is a dense, cerebral article discussing the origins of the discounted-utility economic model: https://www.cmu.edu/dietrich/sds/docs/loewenstein/TimeDiscounting.pdf.

            All of this is to say, there are numerous psychological, social, and cultural reasons we have not taken appropriately swift action to nationally decarbonize our electrical grid, source more of our food locally, reduce vehicle miles traveled, and remediate natural habitats. I understand the reasons why we’ve been dragging our feet, but this does not excuse us. "Do the best you can until you know better. Then when you know better, do better." – Maya Angelou.

            This moment in Earth’s history—and I don’t mean to be so dramatic but I’m speaking beyond human history and specifically talking about Earth’s geologic history—is so crucial. Do we knowingly plunge ourselves into Earth’s sixth mass extinction? Or do we pull off the Herculean feat of tearing ourselves away from the event horizon of the black hole that is unmitigated global heating pushing us past 2 degrees Celsius of warming? We humans aren’t gone yet. We’re still here, and we’re still fighting to survive. The window for action is open.

            What we have here on this miraculous spinning sphere, protected from solar winds by our magnetic force fields emanating from our iron core, protected from UV radiation by ozone high in the atmosphere, kept at a suitable, oftentimes pleasant temperature by a Goldilocks blanket of greenhouse gases, is a cosmic cradle carrying the most precious thing of all: life.

I implore anyone reading this who doubted or denied the science to please hear me pleading with my whole heart: it’s never too late to change your mind. It’s never too late to choose to nurture and protect our home planet. If facts won’t convince you, surely love will.

The last sentence of George Washington’s farewell address reads, “I anticipate with pleasing expectation that retreat in which I promise myself to realize, without alloy, the sweet enjoyment of partaking in the midst of my fellow-citizens the benign influence of good laws under a free government, the ever-favorite object of my heart, and the happy reward as I trust of our mutual cares, labors, and dangers.”

As I write, 226 years later, climate change is our mutual danger. Our forefathers had the best intentions during the Industrial Revolution, seeking to improve the quality of our lives. But now we better understand the costs of our kingly (historically speaking) lifestyles. Let us not tear each other apart, but care for and build each other up. Let us mutually labor against our mutual dangers.

This is our only home.