Sunday, July 9, 2023 | 2 a.m.
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There are dinosaurs in our midst.
It should not be lost on anyone living in Las Vegas this past week that 115-degree days are approaching what should be unbearable. And these days are just the beginning of what every responsible expert claims will be the new normal.
Following a June where the thermometer didn’t break the 100-degree mark, some would think all is well and that global warming is a hoax — a hoax that those in the oil and gas industry and those making millions and billions of dollars off the rest of the world while burning carbon-based fuel at unheard of levels are only too happy to perpetuate.
And those folks would be wrong. They would be the dinosaurs of the 21st century who, as history and science — I know, two dirty words in places like Florida — inform us, never saw their end days coming.
Well, human beings are supposed to have larger brains and greater thinking capacity than the dinosaurs that roamed Earth a couple hundred million years ago. I believe that to be mostly true. There are always a few people whose brains and ability to use them are pushing up against scientific fact.
In any event, the dinosaurs didn’t have computer-driven weather services that reported the changes in Earth’s temperature on a daily basis. But they knew, instinctively, that it was getting colder, and that wasn’t a good sign for life on this planet as life-sustaining food sources became rarer and theories like “survival of the fittest” started to take hold.
Unfortunately for the behemoths who ruled the prehistoric world, they never saw the asteroid coming. That one event some 60 million-plus years ago is responsible — again, according to the scientific data which I am going with despite what could be a law in Florida against such reliance — for the demise of most living things and ended all hope of a slow and frigid death due to climate change at the time.
And, now, many millions of years later, human beings have a second chance to get climate change right. Unlike the dinosaurs, which just felt an uneasy chill in the air, we know what’s coming. We know why it’s coming and we know there are some things we can do to slow what may seem inevitable but which could give us and our progeny a fighting chance to deal with the change over many generations.
Barring an asteroid, which could destroy the Mother Earth we know and love, the application of scientific solutions and changing human behavior can save us from a dinosaur-like demise.
That is if the dinosaurs of today — let’s call them the elected leaders who insist on doing the bidding of the carbon-based industries around the globe — will start making decisions designed to prolong life rather than shorten or downright end it!
Earth has never been hotter. And with each passing day, it gets hotter still.
You don’t have to be a scientific genius to see the effects of this change. Storms are more powerful and destructive. Tornadoes are more devastating than ever before, and there are more of them. Fires are more deadly and more often. Floods that used to come with warning now just happen, and happen to be far deadlier than in past years. Ocean levels are rising — not by multiples of feet but by just enough to destroy the futures of so many sea-level communities around the globe.
And right here at home, does anyone think these prolonged droughts — which are now just the way things are — have no connection to climate change? Water is no longer everywhere and there may someday soon be far less to drink.
In the meantime, what are we doing about all of this?
Many people are trying to do all that we can or what we must to mitigate the damage and reverse the trends.
But that is not as easy as it sounds or as it should be. That’s because there are still dinosaurs roaming among us who think just because they are bigger and more powerful than the rest of us, they can lead us all toward extinction.
Most human beings, however, have an advantage . We have brains and the ability to use them. It remains to be seen whether enough of us are up to that challenge.
In the meantime, enjoy the beautiful weather.
Brian Greenspun is editor, publisher and owner of the Sun.
