We have been warned…

If a doctor diagnosed you with high blood pressure and told you it would probably kill you fairly soon, but you could easily control the problem and postpone your death for years by taking a prescription drug, what would you do?

After all, you were warned.

If an exterminator came to your house and told you he detected the beginning of a termite infestation that would make the whole building collapse in a few years, but he could easily fix the problem for a nominal fee by spraying the woodwork in your basement, what would you do?

Again, you were warned.

If a mechanic told you the airbag in your car was defective and could someday explode, sending shards of metal into your head and chest and killing you, but he could replace it in a few minutes at no cost to you, what would you do?

You were warned.

If a teacher told you your child would flunk out of school and have to repeat a grade unless he or she read a book and took a test, what would you do?

You were warned.

If you found out that some food you normally buy in the supermarket was making people get sick or die, what would you do?

You were warned.

And if the world’s most eminent climate scientists told you that by the year 2040, if we burn more than 30% of our known fossil fuel reserves around the globe, we will cross an environmental red line, resulting in more extreme weather events such as floods, droughts, heat waves, rising sea levels and so on, what would you do, knowing that food will become scarce, parts of the world’s coastlines may find themselves under water and millions of people are likely to die?

Further, if we were to burn ALL of our available fossil fuels, the scientists said, humans would find large parts of the planet uninhabitable out of doors.

The year 2040 is only 21 years from now. People who are in their 30s now will be 50-something then, and children who are, say, 12 years old will be 33. Does this relate to anyone you know?

The solution to this environmental crisis is not to pull out of global climate agreements or to open up national parks for more oil exploration or to legislate tax incentives to rescue coal-burning power plants or to sit back and watch as the Amazon rain forest burns to the ground. The answer is to reduce or eliminate the combustion of fossil fuel and increase our reliance on renewable energy sources such as wind, water, solar, biomass and others.

The question is, what will you do?

You’ve been warned.