Rather than denial and political inertia from the Republican party now in power, what if we had acted immediately on what our science community understood and warned us about, the consequences of the Covid-19 pandemic? The resulting health, economic, and social distortions could have been limited and we might now not be facing the terrible long lasting effects of that stubborn denialism.

Well, it may be that Covid-19 is an unfortunately dark, albeit resolvable, prequel to the vastly more all encompassing and dangerous “monster in the garden”—global warming. It’s that dangerous and just that close.We have understood and been warned by scientists of global warming for over a century. We understand the long term consequences: the advancing irreversible tipping points,  melting polar regions which cool our planet, desertification of global farmlands, dying coral reefs, ocean pollution, acidification and ‘’hot zones” which toxify its organic life— impairing its CO2 uptake and oxygen generation.

We’ve been  warned of rain forest destruction, loss of permafrost ecosystems, methane spikes, rising sea levels, ubiquitous record high global temperatures, year round multiple mega-hurricane systems, fires in the Arctic, fire tornadoes, fires everywhere, evaporating fresh water supplies,  drought, famine, war…

We have been warned of this global climate emergency.Lacking a collective carbon conscience and oblivious to long term consequences we continue, blindly, pumping heat trapping gasses into the atmosphere, rapidly drawing down our allowable carbon emissions budget which at this rate will be dangerously overdrawn in less that 15 years. By then we may have lost control with tipping points falling like dominoes unfolding into the unimaginable horror of a planetary “hothouse” with all the anticipated dystopia. 

Like the pandemic warning this year we have been warned of the years still to come. The time is calling for radical dependence on science. We have the knowledge and technologies to meaningfully overcome the climate challenges which actually can ultimately improve our lives. We have the science but not the will for what is demanded of us now to literally save the very life sustaining capacities of our planet. 

Facing a global climate emergency, with high risks and little time, we need science, expertise and wise, brave leadership. Our voices in government must soon be guided by alert visionary science making smart science-based decisions.

Let’s fire Lee Zeldin(R) whose dismal environmental record earns him a dreadful 13% positive lifetime enviro-score from The League of Conservation Voters and elect Nancy Goroff, PHD, who will represent CD1 consciously and undertake the heavy lifting of crafting the complex actionable policies needed to meet the enormous climate challenges we can no longer reasonably push aside. We’ve been warned.

James Ewing, Water Mill NY