Climate Change Is No Longer Over There. My Dad and My Grandma Know Better.
My dad and my grandma have seen climate change with their own eyes.
If my dad had been in A Few Good Men, he definitely could’ve handled the truth. He lives for the truth.
One of his favorite slogans comes from Ronald Reagan: “trust but verify.” Other times, he’ll ask “do you think or do you know?” You can guess what answer he prefers.
So my dad’s not one to overreact to a sensational headline or believe in gossip. He’s not hyper-rational (nobody is, despite what your eccentric economics professor told you), but he’s certainly not easily swayed by conjectures or opinions.
My dad’s heard about climate change for a while. He’s well informed and well-read. But he’s never truly cared or believed its severity. He’s not a scientist, so he can’t verify climate change himself.
Until now.
My Dad Has Seen Climate Change With His Own Eyes
My dad likes to take bike rides in the morning before the scathing Florida sun bakes the ground. Since his house is near the coast, he prefers to make roundtrips to waterfront locales where he can feel the ocean breeze and take a momentary relaxing reprieve from his exercise.
Given that my family moved to Miami almost 20 years ago, my dad knows how things have changed over time around there.
When we were growing up, there was one nearby beach we used to visit often. It’s a popular family hangout destination that my dad has frequented for years on his morning bike rides.
My dad recently told me that nowadays, signs warn motorists that during high tide, the road to the beach may become impassable for vehicles. He made sure to mention that when we first moved here, that never happened.
My dad’s gut instinct is to be skeptical and doubt what other people claim or say until he can get to the bottom of the matter.
But he’s seen climate change with his own eyes. He no longer thinks it’s a problem; now he knows.
Climate change is no longer over there. It’s right here.
My Grandma Has Also Seen Climate Change With Her Own Eyes
My grandma is in her eighties. A decade ago, a severe stroke robbed her of her mental acuity.
But thankfully, she is healthy enough to enjoy some of life’s simple pleasures. Gardening is her lifelong passion; these days, it’s one of the activities she can thoroughly enjoy despite her old age and poor health. She maintains her garden masterfully.
She has an encyclopedic knowledge of the plants in her garden. I have no way to prove the following claim, but she must be one of the world’s greatest gardeners. It is her ikigai.
Top-notch gardening requires keen observation. When you combine scrutiny with experience, the result is a lifetime’s worth of knowledge to fall back on.
So when my grandma talks about her garden, she knows what she’s talking about.
My grandma recently told me that over the years, her flowers have been blooming earlier and earlier. She’s lived in Southern California since 1962 and in the same neighborhood since 1985, so she draws on decades of experience.
And only two years ago, she and my grandfather almost lost their home to some of the worst wildfires California has ever seen. They got lucky; many of their fellow SoCal residents have not been so lucky.
Severe fires and changing growing seasons are two of the many manifestations of climate change we already see around the world.
My grandma never received a formal education. But oftentimes, the best education comes from real-life experience.
My grandma doesn’t need to read a climate-related article or watch An Inconvenient Truth to understand climate change.
She’s seen climate change with her own eyes, just like her son.
It’s no longer over there. It’s right here.
Climate Change Is Right Here
It’s one thing to watch the fierce flames of fire on your TV screen or read an article about the impact of melting glaciers on freshwater availability. It’s another to see Mother Nature’s wrath with your own eyes, to feel it in your heart, to learn about loved ones or neighbors who’ve felt it.
When I was growing up, you could conceivably dismiss climate change as only a faraway phenomenon. The polar bears were over there, thousands of miles away in some bleak frozen world. Same with those melting ice caps.
Climate change is no longer just over there. My dad lives in a middle-class neighborhood right here in America. Same with my grandmother.
Neither of them is particularly passionate about the climate crisis. Especially for my grandmother, the world likely (hopefully?) won’t burn while she’s alive. Humans are hard-wired to largely ignore concerns that will never affect them.
I don’t have that same luxury. I’m 25 years old. When I was born, the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere was about 359 parts per million. Now, a short quarter-century later, it’s risen to about 415 parts per million.
Humans have increased the global average atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration by almost 15% since I was born.
15%.
The climate emergency is a lot more than that number. And yet that number says all you need to know about the urgency of the circumstances.
Earth is incredibly resilient. But it is also fragile and sensitive.
For over 200 years, we’ve treated this beautiful planet like garbage. Atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations have risen about 50% since the mid-18th century, when Adam Smith published the most influential economics book of all time and Thomas Jefferson wrote perhaps the most influential document in human history.
50%.
Our time is up. At long last, the planet is breaking.
No longer must we rely on projections from scientists and environmentalists as to how climate change will happen, when it will happen, where it will happen, and what will happen.
No longer can we say climate change will only happen over there.
Now, everyday people can see it for themselves. It’s happening right here, right now. The unprecedented cyclones. The record-breaking heat. The stifling droughts. The burning forests. The raging floods. The melting glaciers. The rising seas.
Soon enough, climate change will become an inescapable reality for every single human on Earth.
It’s Never Too Late To Act
It’s too late to stop climate change. That ship sailed decades ago.
But we can act. Every fraction of a degree of warming counts. The difference between 1.5°C and 2°C is massive. Let’s not even think about 2.5°C or 3°C of warming.
And it’s not too late to lessen its impacts, to save a species on the edge of anthropogenic extinction, to save a coral reef from bleaching, to protect a forest from deforestation, to fortify a waterway from pollution and drought. It’s not too late to talk to people around you, to learn more, to speak up, to vote.
It’s never too late to eat green, to move more eco-consciously, to consume less, to recycle more, to vote with your conscience rather than your pocketbook.
And it’s never too late to join the Stairway To Harmony, to live in harmony with nature, to coexist with the planet rather than destroy it for selfish and ultimately counterproductive ends.
Someday, I’d like to tell future generations about the changes my dad and my grandma saw. I’d like those warnings to be the climax of the climate story rather than the beginning of it.
I might tell them a story with this summary: “In my twenties, humanity slept as the world fell apart.”
I’d rather tell a story with this summary: “In my twenties, humanity woke up and acted forcefully to save the world from a nasty outcome.”
What story do we want to tell ourselves down the road?
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