Most alarming, the warnings cited earlier would be current today, since none of them have been adequately addressed. Punctuating that observation, a UN report released on August 9, 2021 delivered a disturbing "code red." It warned that warming of the planet is happening so fast that catastrophe can only be avoided if drastic action is applied immediately.
My 2008 documentation of warnings are strikingly similar to current headlines:
"The crisis is quickening. Evidence of environmental decay is everywhere: Icebergs melting, sea levels rising, vanishing rain forests, average temperature increases around the planet, the ozone layer widening, the prospects of increased famine from crop reductions, drinkable water supplies shrinking, the proliferation of disease as insects migrate north, intensified hurricane and earthquake activity, just to name some of the clear warning signs. And scientists have sounded the alarm that we may be reaching the point of no return. The Tallberg Foundation, based in Tallberg Sweden warned that 350 parts per million (ppm) of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is now considered by scientists the critical danger line and that we are currently at 385 ppm. 350 ppm, they said, should not have been transgressed.
NASA reported that in December 2021 carbon dioxide in the atmosphere measured 417 ppm.
These alarm bells and our failure to heed them reminded me of a joke told years ago by famed comedian Henny Youngman: "My doctor gave me six months to live. I couldn't pay his bill, so he gave me another six months."
Have scientists disingenuously given us more time because we have crossed critical points of previous warnings and are facing horrific consequences? Are they protecting us from panic? Have the public, politicians, and business leaders not seen that we are mindlessly rushing toward extinction by the suicide bombing of science? If so, the joke is on us and it's not funny.
If we don't act decisively, here's what a glimpse into the future might reveal: Imagine future visitors from a distant galaxy arriving at our barren world devoid of humans. They examine the records of our planet's brief history. Picture the astonishment of these highly evolved, super intelligent space explorers as they discover our willful destruction of Earth, despite warnings and overwhelming cautionary evidence.
They might wonder, "What were those creatures thinking when they allowed known contaminants to poison their delicately thin atmosphere? They must have been missing some essential components of intelligence to allow billions of people to drive individual vehicles that spewed destruction into the atmosphere, eventually leading to extinction."
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