It’s Not LIKE A World War – It IS One

A World At War; We’re under attack from climate change—and our only hope is to mobilize like we did in WWII.

Bill McKibben, August 15, 2016 (The New Republic)

Editor’s note: This lengthy article deserves much attention.

“In the North this summer, a devastating offensive is underway…[With each passing week, enemy forces have seized] another 22,000 square miles of Arctic ice…In the Pacific this spring, the enemy staged a full-scale assault on thousands of miles of] the region’s coral reefs…[and reduced them] to white bone-yards…Day after day, week after week, saboteurs behind our lines are unleashing a series of brilliant and overwhelming attacks…[A firestorm forced] the total evacuation of a city of 90,000 in Canada…[Because of drought], southern Africans are literally eating their seed corn, and floods to threaten the priceless repository of art in the Louvre……Carbon and methane now represent the deadliest enemy of all time, the first force fully capable of harrying, scattering, and impoverishing our entire civilization…World War III is well and truly underway. And we are losing.

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“…[We’re used to war as metaphor but] climate change is the real deal: Carbon and methane are seizing physical territory, sowing havoc and panic, racking up casualties, and even destabilizing governments…It is a world war [aimed at us all and to win] we must look to the last one…[Pearl Harbor made] individual Americans willing to do hard things: pay more in taxes, buy billions upon billions in war bonds, endure the shortages and disruptions that came when the country’s entire economy converted to wartime production…[The next president must not wait for a climate equivalent of Pearl Harbor...[and must stop] drilling and mining on public lands and waters…slow the build-out of the natural gas system…[stop] new fossil fuel projects…[use federal funds to buy] power from green sources and rely exclusively on plug-in cars…Without the same urgency and foresight displayed [in World War II]—without immediate executive action—we will lose this war…” click here for more

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