The "Keep Emotions Out of it."

I was recently working on this piece about climate change/ global warming/ whatever you want to call it—you know what I mean. I told my friend what I was writing about and he said, “just keep emotions out of it.”

The next day in the car I was listening to NPR when a story came on about a New Jersey mayor preparing the city for more extreme storms and flooding. Out of nowhere the focus of the piece became “planning for climate change.”

So now were “preparing” for the effects of global warming. So what happened to the part when everyone says, ‘oh hey actually climate scientists were right the climate is changing because of excess greenhouse gases in the atmosphere so maybe we should stop, you know. . . doing that?’ There was no in between the “do we believe in global warming?” and the “oh ok well it’s happening so let’s just adjust to it.” What the hell happened to, “how can we prevent it,” ?

Well excuse me for having emotions about this but I just want to know what happened to all the people who brushed off global warming as a “myth”? What happened to putting off regulations and caps on carbon for the future because, oh you know, we have time? What happened to all the people who told me not to worry about it because it won’t affect us in our lifetime? What is going on with all the kids I went to school with whose daddies and pappas owned coal mines? They don’t have to apologize for the carbon? This is childish of me but I want that.

Where is the apology from all the people who made fun of me for wanting to go to school for environmental studies? Where is the “oh hey you were right, sorry for making fun of you,”?

Tell me that I won’t get to see the coral reefs, or my children won’t get to play on the beach. I’m emotional about this. If I had no emotions about this I wouldn’t be doing what I’m doing, and it’s emotions that are going to drive change.