Empathy: A Climate of Unfortunate Events

Many of my Gogebic County neighbors are suffering.  I feel empathy for my neighbors because they are losing their jobs at the prison. They are scrambling to adapt to a new future. They may have to move, retrain, or accept work at lower wages. And, these challenges do not include the difficult to quantify painful separation from loved friends, relatives, and neighbors.

World-wide, we have unfortunate neighbors forced to leave their homes. Often, they move without a vehicle to drive or money in their pockets. They sneak, scramble, beg, and work for pennies as they make their way to places they and their families hope to find order, peace, and opportunity.

It may come to you as a surprise but many, if not most, of these humans are environmental refugees. Sometimes their farms have dried up. Sometimes their forest has burned. Sometimes they are fleeing villages sliding into the ocean. Often, they are victims of political systems thrown into chaos by the destabilizer, climate change.

The scientifically predicted effects of climate change are now easy to spot. Fifty years ago, scientists warned us. We hesitated to act because the “signals” were criticized by a few science naysayers as weak. The proof is now unquestionable.   Uncontrollable forest fires, longer dryer droughts, deeper floods, rising sea levels, and immense hurricanes are more frequent worldwide.

All these climate disasters create pain and suffering. The pain my neighbors feel today is like the pain scientists want us to avoid. Scientists discover things because they want us to live better lives.

We humans are slow to act but, eventually, we do. I maintain that we are at that “Sweet-spot”. Climate science understanding by the citizen has never been higher. We now “know” the consequences of inaction. Scientists* are united and working feverishly to discover ways for us to mitigate, adapt and thrive. More and more businesses are seeing ways to be energy conservative, thus making more money. Entrepreneurs are righteously exploiting ways to make clean energy profits and save the climate.

Will we support these people?

Teri Johnson

Citizensclimatelobby.org

If you need an example of brilliance and passion search John B Goodenough. He is one of two men credited with the Lithium-ion rechargeable battery. He is still diligently working to improve batteries because they are a key element in the climate solution. He is 96.

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