Page 4 - Aug Sep Oct 2015
P. 4
editor’s note
A tipping point is change everything” and the largest
“the point at climate change march in history.
w hich a series of
small changes To bring this issue into the present
or incidents at your doorstep, we have brought
becomes signifi- together the words, hopes, and
cant enough to experiences of people like Don
c ause a larger, M artin, of South Central Los
more important Angeles, who started to investigate
CHRIS THEODORE change.” the fracking site near his home
after his granddaughter, Kiari, was
In this Reader Magazine we sug- diagnosed with Hodgkin's lym-
gest that we have reached a tipping phoma. You’ll meet Gernot Wagner,
p oint in the issue of climate a Harvard-trained economist,
change, specifically in the public's whose book Climate Shock,is on
perception of the issue. It's been a the Financial Times and McKinsey
long time coming during which Business Book of the Year long
there seems to have been layers list, who talks climate change with
upon layers of evi- “back of the enve-
dence presented on lope” clarity and
the potential harm “one generation force. Coming at the
human activity has issue from an entirely
had on the earth’s passeth away, different approach is
capacity to sustain and another Pulitzer-prize winner
human life. Chris Hedges, who
writes:
On January 2,1989, generation
Time Magazine cometh: but the Some know and
showed aerial views respect the power of
of the burning of the nature, are able to
Amazon rainforest earth abideth feel its majesty and
with the heading, forever.” are aware of our
What On Earth Are insignificance and
We Doing? It was an -ecclesiastes 1:4 smallness before the
indictment, a wonder- cosmos. Others,
ing of what had it enamored of the
come to that as a machines that obliter-
species we could be so brilliant and ate distance and effort, and that
so blind as to destroy what enables insulate us from the natural world
the world to support life. Eight in a technological bubble, are
years earlier, James Hansen, a largely dead to the rhythms that
NASA climatologist, published the sustain life. Those whose lives pay
first analysis of air temperatures homage to the sacred are consid-
from 1880 which found clear and ered by many in the modern world
irrefutable evidence that human to be eccentrics and cranks. On the
activity was causing the earth's other hand, those who live discon-
temperature to rise at rates which, nected from the sources of life,
if unaddressed, would have irre- who neither fear nor honor nor
versible and potentially catastroph- understand the power of nature,
ic consequences. who place their faith in human
technology and human power, are
Today, what some continue to deny celebrated and rewarded with
is increasingly viewed by more and power as they propel the planet and
more scientists as fact. According the species toward extinction. The
to a Yale University report, 97% of natural world, if we do not radical-
climate scientists say climate ly reconfigure our relationships
change is happening and is human with each other and the ecosystem,
caused. But along with this consen- will soon teach us a severe lesson
sus the rate at which the planet is about unbridled hubris.
warming is an important part of the
story. Since 1880, all of the nine What we hope emerges is a new
warmest years happened since perspective on climate change
2000, and 2014 was the warmest which along with nuclear weapons,
year on record. is one of the two most important
issues we face, and described by
About this time last year, an esti- some as “the most fascinating
mated 311,000 people from every scientific, political and social
possible part of society marched in puzzle in history.”
New York City in “an invitation to
4 READER MAGAZINE OF REDLANDS FALL 2015 [AUG SEPT OCT] WWW.READERMAGAZINE.NET
A tipping point is change everything” and the largest
“the point at climate change march in history.
w hich a series of
small changes To bring this issue into the present
or incidents at your doorstep, we have brought
becomes signifi- together the words, hopes, and
cant enough to experiences of people like Don
c ause a larger, M artin, of South Central Los
more important Angeles, who started to investigate
CHRIS THEODORE change.” the fracking site near his home
after his granddaughter, Kiari, was
In this Reader Magazine we sug- diagnosed with Hodgkin's lym-
gest that we have reached a tipping phoma. You’ll meet Gernot Wagner,
p oint in the issue of climate a Harvard-trained economist,
change, specifically in the public's whose book Climate Shock,is on
perception of the issue. It's been a the Financial Times and McKinsey
long time coming during which Business Book of the Year long
there seems to have been layers list, who talks climate change with
upon layers of evi- “back of the enve-
dence presented on lope” clarity and
the potential harm “one generation force. Coming at the
human activity has issue from an entirely
had on the earth’s passeth away, different approach is
capacity to sustain and another Pulitzer-prize winner
human life. Chris Hedges, who
writes:
On January 2,1989, generation
Time Magazine cometh: but the Some know and
showed aerial views respect the power of
of the burning of the nature, are able to
Amazon rainforest earth abideth feel its majesty and
with the heading, forever.” are aware of our
What On Earth Are insignificance and
We Doing? It was an -ecclesiastes 1:4 smallness before the
indictment, a wonder- cosmos. Others,
ing of what had it enamored of the
come to that as a machines that obliter-
species we could be so brilliant and ate distance and effort, and that
so blind as to destroy what enables insulate us from the natural world
the world to support life. Eight in a technological bubble, are
years earlier, James Hansen, a largely dead to the rhythms that
NASA climatologist, published the sustain life. Those whose lives pay
first analysis of air temperatures homage to the sacred are consid-
from 1880 which found clear and ered by many in the modern world
irrefutable evidence that human to be eccentrics and cranks. On the
activity was causing the earth's other hand, those who live discon-
temperature to rise at rates which, nected from the sources of life,
if unaddressed, would have irre- who neither fear nor honor nor
versible and potentially catastroph- understand the power of nature,
ic consequences. who place their faith in human
technology and human power, are
Today, what some continue to deny celebrated and rewarded with
is increasingly viewed by more and power as they propel the planet and
more scientists as fact. According the species toward extinction. The
to a Yale University report, 97% of natural world, if we do not radical-
climate scientists say climate ly reconfigure our relationships
change is happening and is human with each other and the ecosystem,
caused. But along with this consen- will soon teach us a severe lesson
sus the rate at which the planet is about unbridled hubris.
warming is an important part of the
story. Since 1880, all of the nine What we hope emerges is a new
warmest years happened since perspective on climate change
2000, and 2014 was the warmest which along with nuclear weapons,
year on record. is one of the two most important
issues we face, and described by
About this time last year, an esti- some as “the most fascinating
mated 311,000 people from every scientific, political and social
possible part of society marched in puzzle in history.”
New York City in “an invitation to
4 READER MAGAZINE OF REDLANDS FALL 2015 [AUG SEPT OCT] WWW.READERMAGAZINE.NET