How Much Evidence Will We Demand Before We Decide to Act?

By Dan Rather, Dan Rather's Facebook Page

10 September 17

ow is a time for unity and compassion, for evacuations and pledges of assistance, for those facing Hurricane Irma, for those rebuilding their lives from Hurricane Harvey, and for those still suffering from the wildfires out West.

But sometime soon we must have a reckoning.

Our climate is changing, and human activity is a major factor. We cannot ignore this any longer. We have to make changes in the way we live, where we live and how we live. To ignore this is a dereliction of duty, as assuredly as if we tell people to ride out a category 5 storm. Science gives us satellite images of hurricanes. It gives us models of where they will strike. But it also gives us the data that says that our warming planet will produce catastrophic natural challenges like the ones we are seeing, even worse.

We ignore this threat, like we ignore a hurricane, at our collective peril.