Let’s not do the same for climate change.
Peter Dykstra for the Environmental Health News
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| By Michael Ramirez, Las Vegas Review-Journal |
I've seen or heard the grim stats compared to deaths at Antietam, Pearl Harbor, 9/11, or "12 jumbo jets a day falling out of the skies," as we exceeded each one by Wednesday.
Fair enough, but what about other
comparisons?
It's
not as easy when you're describing whether the latest calved iceberg is the
size of Central Park, or all of Manhattan, or even Connecticut. It's harder
still since icebergs generally don't shut down beaches or restaurants or kill
your Aunt Gladys.
The
wrath of climate change could span decades, or even centuries. It won't have
the immediacy of shutting down the school year, or postponing the Masters, but
it will hurt more, and for much, much longer.
In 1994, Laurie Garrett published "The Coming Plague," a book that received far more attention than your average science/medical book, which is to say, not much at all.
However,
Garrett's book was both masterful and prophetic. Garrett laid out a hellscape
of seven-figure death tolls, a crumbling global economy, and social chaos if we
didn't pay more attention to things too small to be seen.
At
the time, notices like this review from Eliot A. Cohen in Foreign
Affairs abounded: "After reading this work one begins to think a
note of hysteria may be justified."
Looking
back, some hysteria surely would have helped. But Garrett's book and the alarm
calls from journalists and public health experts fell on deaf ears, as they
have for a quarter century, and despite real-world body blows from Ebola, H1N1
flu, and more.
I'm not being cavalier about COVID-19. On May 26, it took my mom, and it hurts. But we need to recognize that the world is poised to repeat its dismissal of pandemic warnings with climate change.
And the dangers posed by things too big
to be reckoned with – our oceans and atmosphere – may not be contained once
they're released.
That
will hurt a lot more, for more of us, and for much longer.
Peter
Dykstra is our weekend editor and columnist and can be reached at pdykstra@ehn.org or @pdykstra.