Much of the southern United States is parched. Food prices are rising due to shortages caused by unusual and devastating weather conditions. The sirens are getting louder.
Are the current, unusual weather patterns warnings or flukes? Have humans become Earth's terminators? Can we continue to satisfy the energy requirements of our desires? Might we leave our descendents a ruined planet?
Worldwide, a myriad of hydroelectric dams were constructed to produce energy but at a great cost to the environment and people. Coincidently, as the planet warms, worldwide droughts are sucking the water out of those dams, reducing production.
The 'Arab Spring" has and will continue to affect oil production in the Middle East. Failed nuclear plants in earthquake and tsunami ravaged Japan once again bring into question the safety of this odd, enriched uranium nuclear reactor design when there are known safer nuclear alternatives such as Liquid Flouride Thorium Reactors (LFTR) . The easy oil is diminishing fast leaving only the difficult and expensive to acquire shale oil deposits. Deposits that require excessive blasting, water and infusion of toxic chemicals that ultimately contaminate drinking water in a process called hydrofracking, a process that negatively affects surrounding populations both environmentally and seismically.
Coal, renamed "Clean Coal" to disguise a venomous product, is falsely advertised as cheap energy. The public chooses not to acknowledge coal's devastation of people's lives and health or the impoverished local economies that killer coal causes. From mineshafts to cities and coal buring energy plants, coal kills and sickens. Coal is not an answer but a terrible corporate swindle of the public. Air borne particulates and poisonous coal ash spills intoxicate communities. Coal lobbyists have successfully thwarted EPA testing and regulation of radiation and other toxic gases released into the atmosphere through mining operations. The public accepts coal's advertising of such myths as safety and job creation because their own desire for cheap energy outweighs their sense of right and wrong.
The climate sirens are getting louder. What will it take to slow the out of control, energy-train wreck that is rushing toward an expiration date in history? Will the US join the world's response and end the irresponsible Climate Change Denial facade perpetrated by American corporate interests. The worldwide Occupy Movement seems to have placed its boot on the corporate neck of the issue and demands the media and leadership hear the message and respond accordingly.
Nothing is won without risk and inaction carries the greatest potential for failure. In the matter of existence, failure is not an option.
