The Only Moral Imperative.

In an op-ed today (11.30.2015) in the Buffalo News I read the most ludicrous idea that I have ever had to deal with recently (aside from any of the ideas that some of my students provide). Given that Buffalo has had NO measurable snowfall this year so far (that means .10 in. or more), and how warm it has been, the crazy storms and weather that we have been having across the country (and world for that matter), and the severe drought that California is in, the writer has the audacity (or balls, if you prefer that term) to advise that we keep burning fossil fuels as it is the only way progress can happen.

I think he is either from Colorado or one of the states where they have legalized marijuana use, or must be using something far more potent to be as oblivious as he is to the ecological damage that is going on. The droughts in Africa with the resulting refugee crisis that follows ; the Class 4 and 5 hurricanes and typhoons that have been in the news in the last 5 years ; the “once in a century storms that have hit how many times this century? No to mention the rising sea levels that are wiping out island nations and decimating coastlines.

Even the Pentagon admits that global warming and climate change are the biggest security threats to the United States. Not Daesh or any other terrorist organization. Not Russia or China. Global warming and climate change.

Seriously, what drugs is this guy taking?

The best compromise is limiting the temperature rise to 2° Celsius. To prevent island nations, like Tuvalu, Micronesia, parts of the Philippines and Indonesia, the Netherlands among other countries from being wiped off the map, 1.5° Celsius is needed. Even less if we don't want to see NYC, New Orleans, London, Venice, and other global cities wiped off the map.

If we want to address the refugee crisis in Africa and the Middle East, global warming must be addressed. There is no other choice.

Finding a more environmentally friendly way to burn oil, wood, and coal will do nothing to address the environmental crisis that we are facing every year. When California's fire fighting season goes from January to December, there is a problem. When the mid-west is so parched for water that corn in August isn't even a foot tall, there is a problem. When Buffalo has no snow in November, there is a problem. (I'm sounding like Jeff Foxworthy here. That is a problem. BTW – come up with some of your own lines.)

The better life that the writer thinks that people in Africa, China, and other 2^nd and 3^rd world countries would be denied because fossil fuels are not being used to produce electricity is bogus. Many of the people in 2^nd & 3^rd world countries are living in desperation because of 1^st world countries' arrogance, imperialism, and neo-colonial attitudes and actions. I'm sure many of those people would rather be living on the small farms that they had, growing subsistence food and getting by rather than the abject poverty that they are living in right now living in slums outside of cities.  I think that they could be living much better with native foods and organic farming,  but that is another post for another day as well.

Let's get those people back on their lands, growing their own food and generating electricity with solar, wind, geothermal, and tidal energy sources. Energy sources that will not kill the environment that they live in. My sister is heating her house with geothermal and stays plenty warm just outside of Syracuse, NY (who beats Buffalo in snow every year. Count your blessings, unless you are a ski resort owner or like snow sports.) Up in Northern New York is a camp that heats their water, using solar panels, to 160° Fahrenheit. They have to add cold water to it or people will get scalded. This is on cloudy days and in winter.

And we need to burn fossil fuels because?

And yes, this response was typed up with a computer that has plastic that probably came from oil. So what? It could have come a plant as well and been just as durable.

The op-ed is so full of crap that it could be spread over the Sahara Desert and turn it into the Garden of Eden.

As socialists, we demand from Paris:

• 1.5° or less (the less the better)
• Plans to convert to 75% or more green energy by 2030
• Complete green energy conversion by 2050

We need to:

• Keep the oil in the soil
• Tar Sands in the land
• Coal down in the shoals
• Gas below the grass
• No nukes

That is the only moral imperative that we have.

To give our children a planet that we would want to inherit.

Humanity's future depends upon it.