If you have something to say...
Say it on the Huffington Post
If you have something to say...
Say it on the Huffington Post
When the High Park Fire finished its rampage through the rural mountains of Larimer County, Colorado last summer, it left behind one person dead, over 87,000 acres of forest burned and thousands of lives shattered. But mountain people are tough, and they stick together and help their neighbors.
Researchers have found evidence of a link between global climate change effects and increasing frequency of extreme weather. Continued silence from our elected officials is adding up to a tidal wave of economic and environmental loss in the wake of events such as Sandy.
Let's try a thought experiment called Pascal's Green Wager -- after the 17th century French philosopher Blaise Pascal's "bet": What if we took the steps to reduce greenhouse gases even if climate change scientists were somehow wrong?
Too many lawmakers have remained idle while Americans pay for unchecked climate change with the health of our families and the well being of our communities. It's time for leaders of both parties to start calling for reductions in carbon pollution and clean energy solutions.
These fires reflect unprecedented conditions. Atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases are the highest they have been in at least 800,000 years, largely the result of rapidly growing use of coal, oil and natural gas.
There is a special place in hell, wrote the immortal Dante, for those who, in times of moral crisis, preserve their neutrality. How much worse place in hell must there be for those who perversely destroy Nature herself in the interest of money?
The experience of evacuation surrounded campers, staff, and the community with powerful examples of grace in action. We were reminded that God's grace is not just forgiveness, but abundant life.
Think the Washington storms and Colorado wildfires are isolated incidents? Talk to the people still recovering from tornadoes in Joplin, Mo. or Hurricane Katrina along the Gulf of Mexico or the 2011 Mississippi River floods that killed nearly 400 people.
The State of Colorado is on fire. The day after the landmark Supreme Court decision on the Affordable Care Act, Colorado's fires are so bad that President Obama is in Colorado Springs to tour the damage.
During the victory dance over the Court's Obamacare decision, the West was on fire and record heat punished much of the rest of the country. It is hard not to draw the connection between our abject failure to address climate change and the septic politics that have infected Washington.
