To the editor: The fires of California are, for me, a wake-up name. (“Fossil-fuel polluters put money over the planet. Tax them into smithereens,” letters, Jan. 27)
They need to be for all of us. They’re the lighthouse marking the shoals of our existence on this planet. They’re the bonfires of our self-importance.
I, like many others, have slumbered too lengthy within the passive hope that the governments of the world will heed the Jeremiahs of local weather change. The prophets so far have been ignored, and at our peril.
Governments are the reflections of the folks they govern. America has elected an administration that’s little involved with local weather change. This displays the angle of the American folks. And this angle prevailed in our election of the earlier administration as properly — for nothing exceptional was demanded, little extraordinary was tried, and nothing vital was achieved.
The bonfires nonetheless burn. The skies are nonetheless pink, or grey, or black.
Every of us must shout out, not solely to our leaders however to 1 different: “Sleeper, awake! All of our quotidian distractions are secondary to local weather change. For none of those considerations will matter once we descend into the hell of political, financial and social chaos that may ensue if we proceed on the current highway of indifference within the curiosity of our speedy consolation.”
If anybody doubts this, I counsel you ask the folks of Southern California.
Kenneth Ely, Blaine, Wash.
