Who Knows How Hot It Will Get? (It May Be Up To Us To Decide)

OK, we all know climate change means rising temperatures.

What we don’t know is how high those temperatures might go. Will they be just enough to be tolerably uncomfortable? Or will they be so severe that we will abandon the Great Outdoors and never venture away from air conditioning?

We wish we could know the answer today to start making preparations for tomorrow, but the fly in the ointment is we humans. We simply cannot predict what our descendants will do to live with higher temperatures.

Maybe it’ll be like the frog in the pot on the stove where the heat is slowly increased. At first, it’s hardly noticeable. Then it becomes somewhat uncomfortable. And before you know it, the frogs are boiled alive.

Here’s an off-the-Wall thought: suppose our descendants develop mutations to allow them to thrive at higher temperatures much like the Inuit’s who have adapted to the freezing chill of the Arctic. Or the Nepalese who function in the oxygen-starved atmosphere of the high Himalayas.

Of course, there’s also the hope that at any point in the rise of temperatures actions could be taken to reverse the trend. Whatever they might be. For sure, the longer we wait the more draconian they will be. But action can’t be by just some, the early alarmists. Nor can the actions be scattered against numerous targets. This will be an S.O.S. call for the entire world. For only in unity of purpose can there be any possibility of success — or salvation.

So, if it is up to us how hot it will get, it’s up to us to turn down the heat. If we can. The sooner the better.

Ribbit! Ribbit! Rib…Croak…uh-oh.