Where will we be in 50 or 100 years if we fail to take...
Nations should work to prepare for climate change instead of preventing it.
No one is denying that climate change is upon us. The present effects of global warming and other forms of climate change are well documented. As we see it, the people of the world have two choices: --shore up our defenses against the worst effects of climate change and hope that we won"t eventually be incapable of coping with the rising seas, floods, droughts, disease, etc. that are even now threatening communities on every continent, or --focus our energies and resources on preventing further climate change damage to mitigate the impact on humanity and planet. Given the ominous fact that there is nothing that can be done to immediately halt and reverse the effects of climate change, humans need to take the long view. Where will we be in 50 or 100 years if we fail to take steps now to prevent even greater climate change? The effects we are feeling now are so threatening to human health and the ecosystems we depend upon that it is inconceivable we could survive many generations at the current rate of damage. The alternative to real and concerted prevention of further climate change, is to accept a future in which the people of Earth who are not killed by heat waves, mosquito-born diseases, floods, famines and the other inevitable effects of global warming find themselves fighting over the few verdant patches of land high enough to escape seas that have risen [find stat] feet once the polar ice caps have melted completely. The preparation position is a fatalistic one. It accepts the eventual demise of humankind. The only viable position is the prevention of further climate change in hopes of reestablishing ecological balance in the world. No amount of raising levees, recycling water, or distributing mosquito nets will be sufficient over time to save our race and the world from the climate change damage we have put in motion. Given a choice between preparing for the worst, and attempting to prevent the worst--humanity"s best hope lies in prevention. We must do everything we can, starting now, to halt the shameful dependence on fossil fuels, the destruction of tropical rainforests, and pumping of hydrocarbons into the air.