To the editor: The fires of California are, for me, a wake-up name. (“Fossil-fuel polluters put money over the planet. Tax them into smithereens,” letters, Jan. 27)
They need to be for all of us. They’re the lighthouse marking the shoals of our existence on this planet. They’re the bonfires of our self-importance.
I, like many others, have slumbered too lengthy within the passive hope that the governments of the world will heed the Jeremiahs of local weather change. The prophets to date have been ignored, and at our peril.
Governments are the reflections of the folks they govern. America has elected an administration that’s little involved with local weather change. This displays the angle of the American folks. And this angle prevailed in our election of the earlier administration as nicely — for nothing exceptional was demanded, little extraordinary was tried, and nothing vital was completed.
The bonfires nonetheless burn. The skies are nonetheless pink, or grey, or black.
Every of us must shout out, not solely to our leaders however to at least one different: “Sleeper, awake! All of our quotidian distractions are secondary to local weather change. For none of those issues will matter after we descend into the hell of political, financial and social chaos that can ensue if we proceed on the current street of indifference within the curiosity of our instant consolation.”
If anybody doubts this, I recommend you ask the folks of Southern California.
Kenneth Ely, Blaine, Wash.
