I Fear Dying of Climate Change

I was reading the New York Times the other day when I saw the Quote of the Day followed by the "Here to Help" article.

In case you can't read this picture above, the quote of the day is from a Russian who is fighting fires in Siberia as the permafrost is melting. "This is not a phase, this is not a cycle--this is the approach of the end of the world."

Followed immediately below, is an article summarized as "OMG! Bathing suits cost $250? WTF?"

Right.

Rome is burning and we are worried about how much bathing suits cost. More specifically, Oregon, Washington and California are burning, blowing smoke into the jet stream and floating as far east as Maryland and New England. Russia is burning. Europe is flooding. Seattle had a heat dome a few weeks ago where temps reached 108F.

My son is a fisherman. He has gotten me interested in the sport.

Fish are dying in Montana. Having lived in Montana for two years, Pedro learned to fly fish. He reads voraciously about rivers and trout and flies. He also reads about how the rivers are warming up and killing off the fish. While one could ask, why do I care about fish? If you care about fish, then you also care about people. Fly fishing brings in $500M a year to the state of Montana, which is lots of jobs.

I can see why people focus on bathing suits instead of climate change. Buying a bathing suit is in my control. Containing forest fires and floods is out of my scope. Plus, most days climate change isn't a big deal.

Until it is. My daughter is coming to town next week, as is Pedro's girlfriend. I ordered 50 KN95 masks in case we get smacked with forest fire smoke while they are here. (I already googled that the KN95s which are the Chinese standard are just as good for smoke as are the N95s.)

Do I really think I am going to die of climate change? Not specifically, but it is now on the list of things I could die from. Before I thought the most likely cause of my death would be due to being overweight and out of shape. Think getting Type 2 diabetes, heart disease, or a cancer.

Jack, Pedro and I were eating dinner, and Jack said the coronavirus was a bigger threat than climate change. I can see his point, as the docs at his hospital are still taking care of people who are dying because they didn't get vaccinated. Yet, Pedro and I disagreed with him.

"When the virus is contained, climate change will still be here."

We can do two things: We can try to stop climate change and all drive electric cars and whatnot, or we can figure out ways to live with fires and floods and other biblical levels of catastrophes. 

Or, we could do both.

Or, we could do nothing. 

Doing nothing is a bad idea. First the fish die, and then us. I know we all will eventually die, but no one wants to die unnecessarily, before our time and due to otherwise preventable causes.

We could get closer to the fish, to the waters and the streams, to help us realize the smallest things we need to protect.