To the editor: Wildfires, flooding, hurricanes, abhorrent warmth, ocean temperatures rising to unparalleled quantities — this isn’t the “new irregular,” however probably the “new regular.” (“Fires, floods, heatwaves. Is the acute climate from coast to coast ‘a brand new irregular’?” July 12)
Twenty-three years in the past, Al Gore, then operating for president, pointed to scientific experiences that predicted all of this. Thousands and thousands of us heard it however selected to ignore it or not consider it.
It’s exhausting to consider that many on this nation are nonetheless in climate-change denial or no less than faux to be. And why is that? As a result of as Gore stated, it’s an “inconvenient reality.”
Linda Cooper, Studio Metropolis
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To the editor: There’s been buzz concerning the starting of a brand new geological epoch brought on by human exercise for greater than 20 years, but it surely now seems to be on the best way to turning into official — the Anthropocene started between 1950 and 1954.
Nonetheless, a 2015 research printed in Nature says the Anthropocene most likely started round 1610, with the alternate of species between continents.
Earlier epochs started and ended owing to elements together with meteorite strikes, sustained volcanic eruptions, the shifting of the continents and local weather change. Now human exercise has pushed Earth into a brand new epoch. We’re very intelligent however haven’t been very clever.
We’re lastly wising up. Can we cease burning fossil fuels and altering Earth’s local weather and ambiance? Can we are able to cease depleting groundwater and altering Earth’s geology? Can we are able to cease driving the species we rely on to extinction?
Possibly. It’s theoretically attainable, however can we overcome human nature?
Carol Steinhart, Madison, Wis.
