Even as the nation’s attention is riveted on such pressing matters as the alleged crimes of Jussie Smollett, R. Kelly and Robert Kraft; the Oscar-worthiness of Green Book; Elizabeth Warren’s DNA test; and the sordid details of the congressional testimony by longtime Trump family consigliere Michael Cohen, “the system” — in the memorable phrase of the 9/11 Commission Report — is “blinking red.”
Only this time, the looming threat is not Islamic terrorism, as it was back in the summer of 2001, and knowledge of the dangers is not confined to high government officials and members of the intelligence community. This time the system is the ecosystem, the dire warnings are in plain sight for all to see (if they choose to) and the threat — climate change — is truly existential in nature.
Just last week, The Washington Post reported that the Australian government has confirmed what is likely the first extinction of a mammal resulting from human-caused climate change: a small rodent called the Bramble Cay melomys, after the island of that name in the Great Barrier Reef. They were first sighted on the island in 1800s and last sighted in 2009. Probable cause of death? The volume of leafy plants on which the rodents lived shrank by 97 percent between 2004 and 2014, the result of rising sea levels that inundated low-lying Bramble Cay with seawater.
If the fate of a small rodent far away across the Pacific doesn’t alarm you, consider that persistent warming in the Arctic is, in the words of U.S. government scientists, affecting the jet stream in ways implicated in extreme weather events around the world, such as last winter’s severe storms in the United States and brutal cold spell in Europe. Last week, Britain recorded its highest temperatures ever for February, while wildfires raged in iconic locales in Scotland, Yorkshire and East Sussex amid dry ground conditions.
How about the still bigger picture? Strong scientific evidence has been presented to the effect that a warming climate is making heat waves and rainstorms more frequent and more intense. Coral reefs and other sensitive habitats are already beginning to die, and some scientists fear that if greenhouse gas emissions continue unchecked, they might precipitate a mass extinction of plants and animals. If the climate ultimately warmed more than 8 degrees Fahrenheit, they say, the Earth’s ability to support a large population of humans would be cast in doubt.
In 2001, all the many warnings the U.S. government received about imminent terror attacks somehow did not yield an urgent, coordinated response that might have headed them off. Many Americans died as a result of this strange lassitude, and the resulting “global war on terrorism” has distorted national priorities ruinously ever since.
Bureaucratic bungling cannot be blamed this time around. Americans have elected a president who not only thinks climate change is a hoax, but also is determined to undermine all efforts to combat it. Why did they vote that way? Ignorance of the scientific evidence? Distrust of expert opinion? Worry about the economic effects of carbon-countering strategies? Years of exposure to corporate and ideological propaganda downplaying or denying the threat of climate change? We hope so, because at least those barriers could conceivably be overcome.
The more alarming interpretation is that a large number of Americans simply don’t care what happens to the planet beyond their own brief span on this mortal coil. But listen up, folks: The bell tolls not only for the humble Bramble Cay melomys; it tolls for thee, and thy kids down to the last generation.