Editor’s Note: Sally Breen, an environmental and political activist residing on Highland Lake in Windham, will be writing environmental articles approximately once a month. Feel free to comment or to make suggestions for environmental topics that interest you.
My passion for the environment began when my family, which included three children, lived near Houston, Texas. The polluted air caused my son to be ill with bronchitis much of the time. My small contributions to a nascent environmental group made no impact on the smokestack emissions from Phillips Petroleum, Sheffield Steel or Arco Refineries, all situated along the Houston Ship Channel.
Our family moved to Colorado Springs, Colorado, where the air was somewhat cleaner, until we experienced temperature inversions that held the auto exhaust, which is 50 percent worse at that altitude, in the bowl of the city that is backed up against the beautiful Rocky Mountains.
Through the years, I’ve kept myself educated about the environment. I read Al Gore’s “Earth in the Balance.” I’ve been an avid reader of World Watch environmental publications. My family tries to do what we can to protect the earth. However, now I’m reading scientific articles that suggest that this may not be enough…that we need new ethics to save life on Earth.
In March of this year, the Eighth Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity, was held in Curitiba, Brazil. Leonardo Boff, one of the founders of liberation theology, said: “In order for consumption levels of industrialized countries to become universal, two additional planet Earths would be needed. We have become the Earth’s Satan. Either we change or we die.”
In April of this year, the Associated Press interviewed 10 leading climate scientists. They reported that, “in the short term there is a limit to how much individuals can do. The best we can hope for is to prevent the worst-world-altering disasters such as catastrophic climate change and a drastic rise in sea levels.”
They used such terms as “point of no return.” The big disasters are thought to be just decades away. Stopping or delaying them would require bold changes by people and governments. A senior scientist at Scripps Institution of Oceanography in California says, “the big payoff is going to be for our children. Together, if we take a concentrated action as a people, we might be able to slow it down enough to avoid these surprises.”
If you haven’t seen “An Inconvenient Truth,” don’t delay. Whatever you may think of Al Gore as a politician or a person, leave that aside. Pay attention to the facts and figures that are presented in this documentary film.
On April 18, 2006, Richard Cohen of the Washington Post wrote about the movie, “You will see the Arctic and Antarctic ice caps melting. You will see Greenland oozing into the sea. You will see the atmosphere polluted with greenhouse gases that block heat from escaping. You will see photos from space of what the ice caps looked like once and what they look like now and, in animation, you will see how high the oceans might rise. Shanghai and Calcutta swamped. Much of Florida, too. The water takes a hunk of New York. The fuss about what to do with Ground Zero will turn to naught. It will be underwater.”
And the impact on us in the Lakes Region area? We may have waterfront property some day. But there is a little problem with that. The nuclear waste now stored at Maine Yankee sits at 25 feet above sea level. If, as predicted, the Greenland ice sheets continue to melt, the sea will rise 25 feet. Now there’s something that could cause sleepless nights.
So, while you’re awake anyway, write letters to your congressional delegations and voice your concerns. Request that they sponsor legislation that promotes sustainable development and policies that reflect the seriousness of the Earthly situation.
Send questions/comments to the editors.
