>>> Letter to Editor by Betsy Lawson, Morgantown Dominion Post, 12/26/21

Hoppy Kercheval’s commentary last Friday (DP-12-17-21) paints a very discouraging picture.

The premature death knell for coal that he describes means a more imminent death knell for life as we know it. The record-breaking heat waves and wildfires in the Pacific northwest, more hurricanes, the first ever rain falling on the highest point of the Greenland icecap, massive tornado systems across Kentucky in December; we are seeing extreme weather events this year that have never been seen before.

All this is because we are burning fossil fuels and creating greenhouse gases, which trap heat in the atmosphere and warm the planet. Warmer oceans and air currents throw complex weather systems out of whack.

I am 67 and am truly frightened by what the world could be like when I am an old lady. Do we want to spend all our tax dollars on cleaning up after ever more severe weather disasters? How many billions will it cost to restore what was destroyed in Kentucky two weeks ago?

Doesn’t it make more sense to invest those dollars in switching to clean energy? Why aren’t our senators supporting the Build Back Better Act, which would bring much needed investment to our state? The cost of doing nothing is way more than we can afford.

Betsy Lawson, Morgantown Dominion Post, 12/26/21

Notes from a Dead Planet 2021 is a sequel to Notes from a Dying Planet 2004 – 2006, published fifteen years ago. In the earlier book I described how Planet Earth was dying (and had been for some time) due to human destruction. The causes were Overpopulation, Mass extinction, and Global warming – giving new meaning to “OMG”. I described our species as akin to frogs being slowly boiled to death, most of us unaware because it wasn’t yet hot enough.

Today, most educated people around the world are well aware of at least parts of the problem, but are far too complacent to save our ecosphere (hence “dead planet” of the title).

Unfortunately, in the United States, far from the best-educated nation (Most Republicans Say Colleges Hurt America) and perhaps the most serious culprit behind planetary death, awareness of this lethal combination of threats is possibly the lowest among developed countries.

Excerpts from Dead Planet: Introduction

Accelerating trends of human behavior and indicators of ecological collapse. The human behavior indices in the left column of the graph closely parallel the ecological ones in the right column, because the behaviors are causing the collapse. Dead Planet argues that humans are incapable of ending these planet-killing behaviors.

Source: https://www.pinterest.com.mx/pin/275775177167542214/

A Premise and a Challenge

It is the premise of this book that life on Earth will come to an end by the end of this century, a view increasingly shared by others. I say this for two reasons, that apply right now: a) the present state of our planet is not compatible with continued life; and b) humans have not developed the traits necessary to return our planet to viability, because we have evolved inappropriate behavior patterns for the problems we face. I’m not alone in this conviction: for example, many top climate scientists are skeptical at this point that nations will rein in global warming.

My challenge to you is to prove me wrong. In the ensuing chapters, I describe the human-caused (anthropogenic) processes killing life on Earth, what we have done to cause them, what we must do to reverse them (except for the irreversible ones), and the obstacles: the one percent, corporations, and the governments they own.

In the book, I back up my assertions with hundreds of links to articles. Come join in this effort to get out the information and get on the road to saving our civilization.

Contact: https://www.deadplanet.org/