The News About the Environment is All Bad

For anyone who is concerned about the environment (and that should be all of us), the news recently has been all bad.

Here’s a sampling: A heat wave in Japan sent 10,000 people to the hospital, 30 of whom died; Denver set a record-high temperature in June of 105; and temperatures in Siberia and northern Sweden — in the Arctic — reached 90 degrees, 40 degrees higher than normal.

Then there were the photos of the waves and waves of trash and garbage that are inundating the beaches of the Dominican Republic. Much of it is plastic, which is non-biodegradable. Plastics from our ubiquitous bottles of water and other sources will break down into microsize bits that eventually will be ingested by fish — so there is a good chance that if you are having fish for dinner this week, you are filling your body with plastic.

It should be clear that climate change and the destruction of our environment are occurring at a pace even faster than the scientists have been predicting. As we saw this winter with the unprecedented flooding in the Boston area, we are ill-prepared for the effects of climate change are occurring presently, let alone for the drastic consequences being predicted by the mid-century.

It is not only the future that is bleak — we are facing the disastrous consequences of climate change and environmental degradation today.