Will humans grasp climate change?
Mark Anderson’s and Tom Staley’s recent columns illustrate that humankind won’t grasp climate disruption until it understands four things: everything is related to everything else; the time frames we must adopt are millennia; humankind’s effect on our common home is a moral consideration (Pope Francis); and severely limited knowledge about the first three demands humility.
Climate disruption is much more than fossil fuel abuse. The human population is too large. Corporately fostered addiction to material consumption aspirations is unsustainable. Current economic models tout growth, allocate costs incompletely, entail corporate hegemony and inequality, and disproportionately weigh corporate political power (read, elections and the Trans-Pacific Partnership in this country). Disconnection from the biological world hides from consciousness our essential dependence on flora and fauna everywhere.
Much of our technology is inherently violent. For example, it is destructive of our soils and oceans. It pumps poisons into geological strata, endangering our aquifers. It leaves sulfite powder everywhere just waiting for water and oxygen to transform them into sulphuric acid. For a fifth of a millennium, we’ve disposed of the carbon byproduct of the fossil fuel we’ve used for power in the same locus, our atmosphere, to which carbon sequestered in the soil for millennia has been rerouted by big agriculture’s indiscriminate deforestation and deep tillage practices. It’s now proposed we contemplate a dramatic expansion of the unresolved spent fuel rod problem of nuclear reactors.
Alas, narrowly drawn thinking will only drive us deeper into the hole and assure us first prize for species brevity of earthly tenure.
Hendrik Gideonse
Brooklin
Holiday celebration should harmonize Bangor
Bangor City Councilor David Nealley recommended in his Dec. 26 Bangor Daily News letter to the editor a decorating competition in Bangor for December. What a great idea. But let’s pick a symbol that harmonizes our community. While the Christmas tree might resonate with many, it doesn’t represent all of our city, including plenty of school children, our co-workers and neighbors. For example, let’s use a theme, such as “Season of Hope and Light,” symbolizing what helps us all conquer darkness and suffering.
Remember, when we are in the majority, it is really easy to say others shouldn’t be offended. Let’s make Bangor an exciting, receptive, lively, enjoyable and creative city where people want to live year-round, especially in December.
Annette Hatch-Clein
Bangor
Senior drivers and independence
Amen to Diane Atwood’s Dec. 26 BDN column about senior drivers. My aged uncle committed suicide in Ohio when his son took his car keys away from him. Uncle Stanley had been a lifelong delivery truck driver and knew every road in Cincinnati by heart. He was a widower and depended on his daily association with his VFW and American Legion cronies for emotional and spiritual support. His loss of independent motility literally killed him.
Paul Haddon
Dover Foxcroft