It is 58 degrees at 9:51 am in New York City in January! It is raining and foggy as well.
This frightens me even though the high tomorrow is predicted to be 41 degrees and the prediction of the high for Sunday is 26 degrees, much more what it used to be here at this time of year. Global warming is nonetheless very much evident.
Though there is excellent public transportation here, there are large numbers of automobiles visible from my window that are going up 10th Avenue. There always are many in the streets of this city. I personally made a choice when I moved here several decades ago not to own a car. It puzzles me that others drive cars in this city.
Choosing bumper to bumper traffic during rush hours, the outrageous expense of an automobile, and the trouble of owning and operating one seems senseless to me. It does not appear so to large numbers of others here. Though many of us in this city defy the national love affair with the automobile, many do not. Unfortunately, these latter are contributing to global warming.
How much is at stake? Is there a danger that this planet will become uninhabitable by human beings–because the climate is so changed that it will not be possible to grow food for them or that it will be too hot for people to survive? Even if people in the few cities in the United States where there is good public transportation were to give up automobiles, the rest of the country is heavily dependent on them, and on trucks which emit even more noxious gases. And the US is far from the only source of automobile and other noxious emissions such as those from manufacturing for instance.
What can we do to protect life on this planet Earth?