Page 24 - Sonoma County Gazette - August 2017

Blue-Green Algae INFORMATION The Sonoma County Community Developemt has a great
website for algal blooms and symptoms: https://www.cdc.gov/habs/ illness-symptoms-freshwater.html
The State Water Board also has a great new site: http://www. mywaterquality.ca.gov/habs/. The State also developed an app for folks to report blooms and track: https://cyanos.org/bloomwatch/
I was keenly aware of this conundrum recently while reading Michael Wells- Wallace’s article in New York Magazine, “The Uninhabitable Earth,” plus the comments it generated. Wallace-Wells painted a “doomsday scenario,” which frankly is pretty scary. In many cases, though, he showed that previous estimates of the risks of climate change are too low. While several commentators felt he didn’t go far enough, others felt that this type of writing can be just as dangerous as climate denial. (Wikipedia has links to the article and all the commentary.)
Yes, Climate Change IS real, but how scared should we be?
As a climate journalist, I’m always trying to nd that “sweet-spot” between giving my readers the information needed to wake them up and take action, and scaring them so much they feel there’s no hope – that they might just as well give up and not make any changes, because they think it won’t make any di erence.
It is REAL, and it is getting worse. If we do nothing about climate change, we’re going to have serious problems – some of which may be irreversible – not in the distant future, but in our own lifetimes and in our children’s.
But, at the same time, if we lose hope and just give up, we de nitely will experience those climate disasters. Studies have shown that, while worry and concern can motivate us to take action, fear simply paralyses us and helps to foster climate denial.
It’s not going to be easy, and we’re going to have to make some real changes in our lifestyles in this country, but we can do this.
How do we get where we need to be? Technological breakthroughs in alternative energy and carbon sequestration – some of which are pretty far- out – are often called for. But we already have the knowledge we need to avoid the worst problems. We have proven technology that works: solar power, wind power, no-till agriculture to sequester carbon in the soil, electric vehicles, and ways to move much more quickly than previously to a totally fossil fuel-free economy. What we need now is the will to make it happen.
No, we’ve already done something that seemed just as unrealistic. In four years, we totally transformed the US economy and our individual lifestyles in order
to win a war – World War II. Now we need the committed mobilization we had from 1941-45: one that transformed the auto industry to making planes and tanks, that changed our buying and eating habits, and that drastically limited our travel and our use of fossil fuels. We did all this then; we can do it again. The threat is just as great – or even greater – today. We need a WWII-scale national economic mobilization to ght climate change. If our parents and grandparents could do it, so can we!
Ten years after An Inconvenient Truth. It seems discouraging to realize how many of Al Gore’s predictions in that movie have come to pass. At rst its follow-up, An Inconvenient Sequel – in theaters now – seems to a rm Wallace- Wells’ pessimism, but it actually shows just how close we are to a real energy revolution. See it now at Santa Rosa’s Summerfield Cinemas & Sebastopol’s Rialto Theater on August 3rd, with the lm continuing at the Rialto through the 5th.
How we talk about climate change matters. Currently a hot topic with climate change writers, how we talk about this issue is critical.To learn more about how you can talk about climate change, sign up for a Climate Training in August at CCP, at climateprotection.org/climate-action-training/.
Electric vehicles (EVs) can make a difference. Learn more about EVs and even maybe test-drive one during the 7th National Drive Electric Week on Sept. 9th, from 11-4 PM, in Courthouse Square. Register at bit.ly/DriveElectricDay_ SantaRosa for a chance to win $250.
Vacation at Home—beat the heat at the Sonoma County Coast
without a car! Get cool, save money, forget parking worries, and lower your carbon footprint, all by taking Route 29 on weekends until Sept. 3rd. Find out more at sctransit.com/maps-schedules/.
© Copyright Tish Levee, 2017
Is it unrealistic to think we can make the necessary changes?
24 - www.sonomacountygazette.com - 8/17