Warming up

To the editor:

As an adult who became aware of the early warnings of environmental damage 60 years ago when life in ponds and lakes in the Northeast began dying as a result of so-called “acid rain.” I’ve been wrestling with the language to describe what human development was doing to the earth and sky as a community activist for decades

Global warming, climate change, ecosystem degradation of all kinds, is affecting everywhere, and our lived experience coupled with available science says we have forever crossed some environmental lines. 

We are no longer in a period on Earth of Climate Change; we have fallen onto a slippery slope to an open ended future caused by Climate Breakdown.

So when four persons, scared beyond powerlessness in the face of this monumental crisis affecting hundreds of millions of people, staged a protest at the U.S. Open, to be seen by millions and ask that people get organized to do more to minimize the destructive forces of air and water and fire already growing more severe during this early stage of Climate Breakdown, I say “Thank you, and what can I do.”

Alan Schulman