Are you feeling the heat? Perhaps not, as you sit in your air-conditioned office or home. But have you ever paused to consider everything else outside your cool little corner of the Southwest? What about all the wonderful native species of plants and animals that make the Southwest such a special place? Are you going to invite them in for a moment to cool off? Or perhaps you don’t care about our native species. “Let them fry in the sun,” you say. “Survival of the fittest; let them adapt or die off.”
But how about the vegetables that nourish you or the livestock that feeds on those vegetables? How about the pollinators that help those vegetables grow? How about the laborers who pick those vegetables, when they are ready or raise that livestock? Next time you think that adapting to these miserably hot summers simply means throwing on the AC, take a moment to think about how food is going to get to your table if the summers become too hot and too dry to grow your food.
The climate crisis is real. It is man-made and caused by burning fossil fuels. It is already affecting the global ecosystem, which includes the Southwest. But there is still time to save what’s left of our future. Demand more from yourself and your policy-makers. Demand a just transition to clean energy.
Bradley Ramos
Albuquerque
