How many more stories about climate-fueled heat waves, wildfires, droughts and floods must we read before we recognize the climate crisis for what it is — a moral wrong?
Governments have allowed a rogue fossil fuel industry to devastate our lives, our livelihoods and the very future of human civilization. While heat waves created from their heat-trapping emissions kill thousands, the air pollution alone from burning these fuels kills more than 8 million people annually across the world.
Coal, oil and gas are not our only energy options. The world’s climate scientists have concluded that affordable clean energy, like solar and wind, is readily available to replace these dirty fuels. The only obstacles to a clean energy future, they say, are fossil fuel companies and their political allies.Understanding the climate crisis as immoral adds urgency to climate action and clarifies the solution: Stop burning fossil fuels, and deploy clean energy as quickly as possible.
And the Northern Hemisphere summer has barely started. As has the third millennium — and with it the endless summer of a new hot and hotter Anthropocene Epoch?