KENNEBEC JOURNAL • September 21, 2020
More than 3.1 million acres have burned in California this year far exceeding the previous record set in 2018, when 1.7 million acres burned. These raging fires are the direct result of climate change. Heat waves and fires will continue to worsen as long as humanity continues to burn fossil fuels. Throughout the world, hurricanes, floods, lightning storms and snowstorms will continue getting worse. Ice sheets and glaciers are melting, and sea-level rise will inundate many coastal cities. As climate scientists we are terrified but we take hope in two facts. First, this is a problem entirely of human making, which means we can solve it if we choose. Second, the grassroots climate movement has gotten so strong that climate is rapidly becoming the deciding factor in major elections around the world. ~ Peter Kalmus, author of “Being the Change: Live Well and Spark a Climate Revolution” and Natasha Stavros, fire ecologist