Thanks to Kenneth Burke for detailing the threat of climate change from the release of methane in the permafrost regions and the failure of international leadership to take action against the changing climate (“Where’s our Pearl Harbor moment on climate change?” Feb. 12). Burke said that we have to step off our complacent paths, stop burning fossil fuels and start making moderate sacrifices. He asks where our Pearl Harbor moments are.
A polar bear climbs out of the water to walk on the ice in the Canadian Arctic Archipelago’s Franklin Strait on July 22, 2017. Climate scientists point to the Arctic as the place where climate change is most noticeable, with dramatic sea ice loss, a melting Greenland ice sheet, receding glaciers and thawing permafrost. David Goldman/Associated Press
Extreme methane release from permafrost, flooding, drought, loss of biodiversity and loss of polar ice tell us that this is the time for emergency sacrifices. For over 20 years, I’ve been writing about what those sacrifices must be in order to halt climate change.
Possible sacrifices that we, as individuals and governments around the world, must take within the next five to 10 years: ration gasoline; travel only for emergencies; change from growth economies to non-growth economies; end government subsidies of corn and soybeans; change from meat-based to plant-based eating; change tax codes from favoring large families to favoring small families; plant trees and vegetables where corn and soybeans are now grown to feed cows, pigs and chickens; urge families to live in only one residence; develop mass transportation to reduce car travel, and demand that the president of the United States and leaders of other carbon-consuming countries speak to their populations openly and honestly about the many threats of climate change and what actions are needed to attempt to reverse it.
Can we mobilize again, as we did when Pearl Harbor was attacked in 1941? Our future depends on it.
Leonard Frenkel
South Portland
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