Climate change here and now.
Climate change is the most urgent sustainability challenge of our time. It threatens to disrupt our economy, our national security, our ecosystems, and is predicted to make existing racial and economic disparities worse. 97% of climate scientists actively publishing in the field agree that man-made climate change is happening, but it has taken a long time for the rest of society to come to terms with that reality. This week, outlets from The Economist to CBS to PublicSource are covering climate change, looking towards the Sept. 23 Climate Action Summit at the U.N. And, led by youth around the world and here in Pittsburgh, massive public action will make the reality hard to forget. It’s the story of the month, and a critical chapter in the story of humanity.
The truth is that climate impacts are already being felt, not just across the world (or in Houston, TX, flooded again this week by another massive storm fueled by increasing ocean heat). We are also feeling the impacts to our quality of life here in Western Pennsylvania.