-Stop Train Before Climate Wreck-
"As an entire species we're huddled together on a train heading 100 miles an hour toward a brick wall. Our children know it. It even haunts our dreams at night.
Suddenly the engine begins to sputter, and the train slows down. But our response is incomprehensible. Do we look around and collectively think, 'What a blessing, we have a chance to rethink this whole seemingly unavoidable collision we'd set up?' Do we ponder what it means for our human actions to cause the melting of the Arctic ice and tundra? Do we ask ourselves how continued climate change created by our current economic model will impact water supplies, food production, insect borne disease, immigration, species extinction or the future of our own children?
If public and media discourse is any indication, we apparently do not. Instead we seem content to desperately throw more fuel into that engine boiler. Thinking what? 'We must get this train moving again, so it can again speed toward that brick wall, a wall we must all pretend with all out might doesn't exist.'
Is ours a functional economic system if it can only survive by turning our grandchildren into indentured servants and our planet into a raved ghost of itself?"
"Stop Train Before Climate Wreck" is a letter to the editor I found while reading the ADN. I found this letter, written by Gary Weglarz from Barrow and thought it made a really good point, and in my opinion illustrated our current world situation perfectly. My favorite sections of the letter included the comparison between a train wreck and our current economic model, and the last paragraph of the letter. Calling our future grandchildren "indentured servants" says a lot!
Suddenly the engine begins to sputter, and the train slows down. But our response is incomprehensible. Do we look around and collectively think, 'What a blessing, we have a chance to rethink this whole seemingly unavoidable collision we'd set up?' Do we ponder what it means for our human actions to cause the melting of the Arctic ice and tundra? Do we ask ourselves how continued climate change created by our current economic model will impact water supplies, food production, insect borne disease, immigration, species extinction or the future of our own children?
If public and media discourse is any indication, we apparently do not. Instead we seem content to desperately throw more fuel into that engine boiler. Thinking what? 'We must get this train moving again, so it can again speed toward that brick wall, a wall we must all pretend with all out might doesn't exist.'
Is ours a functional economic system if it can only survive by turning our grandchildren into indentured servants and our planet into a raved ghost of itself?"
"Stop Train Before Climate Wreck" is a letter to the editor I found while reading the ADN. I found this letter, written by Gary Weglarz from Barrow and thought it made a really good point, and in my opinion illustrated our current world situation perfectly. My favorite sections of the letter included the comparison between a train wreck and our current economic model, and the last paragraph of the letter. Calling our future grandchildren "indentured servants" says a lot!
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