Are you a passenger or crew member of Space ship Earth?
Letters to the Editor Washington Post. Printed 7-8-21
Opinion: Climate actions we can take now
Charlie Warzel’s June 30 Wednesday
Opinion commentary, “It’s not the heat. It’s the existential dread.,”
rightfully concluded, “Talking about our shared dread won’t bring down the
temperature or vanish the smoke, but leaning into the grimness is grounding.”
We need more than grounding. We need more passengers on spaceship Earth
transforming themselves into crew members.
We need an Earth systems restoration
corps. NASA’s vision for
an Earth System Observatory in space and President Biden’s ground plan “to
tackle the climate crisis at home and abroad” have good intentions. But
nowhere in his 2,000-word news release are the 17 U.N. Sustainable Development
Goals mentioned. These goals are the only global comprehensive approach
with the potential to functionally address most root causes of the existential
threats we all face.
Only when the global protection of human rights and the environment are more important than the protection of national sovereignty and corporate profits will our vital earth systems become sustainable and our dysfunctional human systems be fixed. Even if climate change is solved, humanity’s food chain would still be threatened by loss of topsoil, declining biodiversity and dwindling fresh water supplies. A comprehensive plan exists. We all need to make all of it happen.
Chuck Woolery, Former Chair
United Nations Association, Council of
Organizations
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