Hope in the face of climate crisis? Not so fast. | Letter

This letter is in response to Joseph Hardy’s op-ed of Aug. 2, in which he offers hope regarding climate change. The writer bases it on personal observations of vast arrays of wind farms in Wyoming and on learning of China’s advances in solar cell technology. He also cites several consequences of climate change but doesn’t give them the significance they deserve.

I don’t know how one can be hopeful in the face of increasing storms that produce flooding; ocean warming that is expected to raise ocean levels so that coastal cities are flooded; melting of polar ice that will also raise ocean levels; melting glaciers that will flood downstream regions and leave little water for upstream drinking and food cultivation; increase in tropical diseases; deaths from overheating of people; mass migrations of people looking to escape the heat; resistance by countries to that migration; ocean warming that will destroy coral systems; species extinction, some of which are important for people; heat that will make it difficult to grow certain important crops; and anarchy as a result of governments not being able to control the deteriorating situations.

Solar cells and wind farms, no matter how many, have no chance of reversing the horrors that are already well on the way and will get worse as time goes on.

Len Frenkel
Portland

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Tagged: letter to the editor