Peter Wirth, of Fayetteville, is a volunteer with Climate Change Awareness & Action.
By Peter Wirth | Special to Syracuse.com
In normal times, we would be celebrating 50 years of achievements since the first Earth Day, April 22, 1970. Tens of millions of people across the world would be celebrating in the streets and demonstrating for a better environment.
These are not normal times!
While there is little mention of climate change in today’s news narrative, in many ways the coronavirus pandemic and climate change are connected. The challenge is to understand that both are life-and-death issues.
The coronavirus gets our attention because it is immediate. You feel fine and two weeks later you’re dead. Climate change happens slowly. It takes decades for the Earth to warm, reefs to die, droughts to become more prolonged, fire seasons to become longer and more deadly, seas to rise and floods to kill. What we see as “natural” disasters are actually man-made disasters due in large part to burning fossil fuels.
The virus is invisible, as are CO2 and methane, which cause the environment to warm. Climate change is much harder to get people’s attention as it is an invisible killer which happens over time.
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