In an article published on Common Dreams today, “Warming Soils Could Trigger Potentially Unstoppable Climate Feedback Loop: Study”, the authors report a quotation, “There’s a carbon bomb right under your feet,” that points toward “a potentially unstoppable feedback loop as earth’s rising temperatures drive soils to release more carbon emissions.”
Another quotation from a distinguished scientist at the Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole, Massachusetts says, “each year, mostly from fossil fuel burning, we are releasing 10 billion metric tons of carbon into the atmosphere. That’s what’s causing the increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration and global warming.”
The four distinct seasons that I loved and the snowy winters which I enjoyed when I moved here nearly forty years ago have given way to winters without snow and hotter summers. It is the seventh of October and outside my window, people are on the streets in shorts and short sleeved shirts.
Aiweiwei looking at things in an exhibit today in NYC
One reason I live in New York is that I do not need to drive here. In the South where my family is from and the Southwest where I lived for a time it was imperative to have an automobile; indeed in most of the United States it is. I have lived several times in France where that is not the case; indeed, not having to have a car was one of the reasons I lived there. Even there, however, there are far too many automobiles pouring carbon into the atmosphere.
Will human beings stop this poisoning of our world? There are a few efforts now, but not nearly enough. Will my great-grandchildren and their children be able to survive on this planet?