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About The nugget. (Sisters, Or.) 1994-current | View Entire Issue (Sept. 18, 2019)
2 Wednesday, September 18, 2019 The Nugget Newspaper, Sisters, Oregon O P I N I O N Climate change is an existential threat By Steve Nugent Guest Columnist Letters to the Editor… The Nugget welcomes contributions from its readers, which must include the writer9s name, address and phone number. Let- ters to the Editor is an open forum for the community and contains unsolicited opinions not necessarily shared by the Editor. The Nugget reserves the right to edit, omit, respond or ask for a response to letters submitted to the Editor. Letters should be no longer than 300 words. Unpublished items are not acknowledged or returned. The deadline for all letters is noon Monday. To the Editor: I9m grieved at what I see happening in the U.S. Mass shootings, people wanting to kill the president, burn up certain political parties, killing and aborting babies after birth. Law and order not followed. Much bitterness, hatred, vitriol every- where. Taking guns away will not cure this. This grieves me very much; it9s not the America I grew up in! We all need love, acceptance, forgiveness, understanding, tolerance one to another, bear- ing one another9s hurts, trials, burdens, hav- ing patience, slow to anger, less judgment. We need to esteem others higher than our- selves, caring, helping, serving others, walk- ing in their footsteps, be in peace. America needs a heart change, keep America great, fix the problems. I myself need to try harder. Together we stand, divided we fall! Chet Davis s s s To the Editor: Jim Anderson9s September 11 article about our need to protect insects is so right on the money that I9d like to challenge people, to rise above politics and become truly informed. I9ve spent the past three years working with monarch butterfly advocacy people and the most wonderful aspect of that is to see how well liberals and conservatives can work together to do the right thing for the butter- flies, the earth and all the people who live on it. This isn9t a political issue. It9s about the future of life on the planet. This is much more See LETTERS on page 14 Sisters Weather Forecast Courtesy of the National Weather Service, Pendleton, Oregon Wednesday Thursday Friday Saturday Sunday Monday Showers Partly Cloudy Partly Cloudy Sunny Showers Partly Cloudy 57/44 67/47 64/44 72/48 62/43 68/47 The Nugget Newspaper, LLC Website: www.nuggetnews.com 442 E. Main Ave., P.O. Box 698, Sisters, Oregon 97759 Tel: 541-549-9941 | Fax: 541-549-9940 | editor@nuggetnews.com Postmaster: Send address changes to The Nugget Newspaper, P.O. Box 698, Sisters, OR 97759. Third Class Postage Paid at Sisters, Oregon. Editor in Chief: Jim Cornelius Production Manager: Leith Easterling Graphic Design: Jess Draper Community Marketing Partners: Vicki Curlett & Patti Jo Beal Classifieds & Circulation: Lisa May Proofreader: Pete Rathbun Owner: J. Louis Mullen The Nugget is mailed to residents within the Sisters School District; subscriptions are available outside delivery area. Third-class postage: one year, $45; six months (or less), $25. First-class postage: one year, $85; six months, $55. Published Weekly. ©2019 The Nugget Newspaper, LLC. All rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part without written permission is prohibited. All advertising which appears in The Nugget is the property of The Nugget and may not be used without explicit permission. The Nugget Newspaper, Inc. assumes no liability or responsibility for information contained in advertisements, articles, stories, lists, calendar etc. within this publication. All submissions to The Nugget Newspaper will be treated as uncondition- ally assigned for publication and copyrighting purposes and subject to The Nugget Newspaper9s unrestricted right to edit and comment editorially, that all rights are currently available, and that the material in no way infringes upon the rights of any person. The publisher assumes no responsibility for return or safety of artwork, photos, or manuscripts. Jonah Goldberg9s col- umn September 11 claims that we don9t have a crisis, yet. Humans have inherent problems with slow-mov- ing disasters. They respond better to disasters that are imminent or occur over a short period of time. Make no mistake, however, that climate change is a slow- moving man-made disaster and a true existential threat to mankind and most ani- mals on the earth. It is not natural or political. Unless bold actions as proposed by Bernie Sanders or Elizabeth Warren are taken, millions of lives will be impacted and lost. These politicians can walk and chew gum too, so I9m not worried about other priorities. The effects of climate change will be with us for thousands of years. Even if all of humanity stopped driving gasoline/diesel vehicles and shut-down all of the fossil-fuel power plants overnight, the effects of climate change would not reverse for hundreds of years. There will still be too much CO 2 in the atmo- sphere. The best we can hope for now is to mitigate the worst effects that consti- tute an eventual disaster for humanity and most animal life on earth. <Existential threat= sim- ply means that our existence is threatened. Our food and water supply, arable and liv- able lands are being elimi- nated by this slow-moving disaster. We see evidence of this all around us as it starts to accelerate. Hurricanes are more intense, flooding is more common, wildfires are more common/larger and heatwaves are killing more every year. High tem- peratures in humid areas of the country are not just inconvenient. Sweating simply doesn9t work to cool the body, so outdoor time is limited. Farms in our Midwest were seriously impacted by flooding this year. One- hundred-year floodplains on plat maps make no sense anymore because floods are occurring every year or two. Countries in the Middle East and Africa are expected to be uninhabitable due to the heat and drought. This summer, 9 million acres of forest in Siberia burned. There were over 100,000 fires in the Amazon rainfor- est in Brazil, Bolivia and Paraguay this summer, as the forest is being converted to soybean farms and cattle ranches to sell to the market in China created by Trump9s tariffs, which cut off our own farmers and ranch- ers. These markets will not rebuild after the tariffs are removed. New supply chains in Brazil, Argentina and other countries have already taken the place of U.S. suppliers. Too late. Trump gave away our lucrative Chinese markets and as a result, destroyed what experts call the <lungs of the planet,= as it generates 20 percent of the planet9s oxygen and is a major CO 2 absorber. Once these large forests are gone, oxygen will start to deplete. The only major CO 2 sink left will be the oceans, which are becoming warmer and more acidic every year, kill- ing reefs and fish as a result. Indigenous Florida fish are already showing up in Maine. As the crisis impacts liv- ability and food/water sup- ply in the U.S., those with money and resources will relocate to lands where it is possible to function and live outdoors, where food and water are still available. Farms and ranches will be forced to migrate north. Most people worldwide without such resources will suffer and eventually die from starvation, drought or wars. Climate refugees will cause wars and civil unrest worldwide as evidenced by the recent refugees from Syria. Countries that are most impacted by climate change will invade other countries. Millions of peo- ple that have no control over their situation will suffer and die. This is 99 percent of the world population. If you don9t consider decima- tion of 99 percent of the world9s human population to be an <existential threat,= then you need to look it up in the dictionary. Opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the writer and are not necessarily shared by the Editor or The Nugget Newspaper.