Oxford Dictionaries has declared “climate emergency” the word of the year for 2019, following a hundred-fold increase in usage that it says demonstrated a “greater immediacy” in the way we talk about the climate, reports The Guardian in an article published recently.
Yes, we ARE facing a CLIMATE EMERGENCY, although it sure doesn’t seem like we are reacting to it that way, at least not in mainstream America, where the fact that we are smack, dab in the heart of a Climate Emergency is sadly barely registering, and few people seem to be do anything at all to mitigate their impact on the climate emergency.
That’s not all on individuals, BTW. This is ALSO on an American public education system that has NOT educated students consistently and regularly across K-12 about the Climate Emergency, and continues to fail to do so.
It’s also on rampant consumerism, which is on display during every NFL game I watch, where there is one SUV add after another AND NO ads admonishing us to do something to address the Climate Emergency.
It’s on the do-nothing and often corrupt politicians who are deliberately ignoring the greatest threat to human survival in modern times and it’s also on the fossil fuel companies whose greed, selfishness and shortsightedness in continuing to push a disastrous set of products on us, non-stop, apparently knows no bounds!
Yes, we are in a CLIMATE EMERGENCY — and we had better get going on doing something drastic to address it ASAP!