Show notes
Climate change is now an emergency. It is no longer about a polar bear floating on a tiny piece of ice. It is about flooding, wildfires, crop failures, hurricanes, evacuations. It’s about forced migration, hunger and food insecurity. It’s about social isolation of staying indoors for months at a time. It's also a direct threat to your own health, with head, dehydration, and natural disaster causing more and more death and disability not just in the remote developing world, but here at home as well. The sirens of the climate emergency are sounding daily. In June 2021, before summer has even kicked off, the western US is experiencing its worst drought in over a decade, with new wildfires at a 10-year high. In Brazil, the Amazon is experiencing its worst drought in 90+ years.People are getting displaced globally and we have heartbreaking stories of desperation and death as people try to flee areas of food insecurity or military conflict. In this first half of the 21st century, it is the global poor who will suffer the most from the climate emergency, with financial insecurity, hunger, water scarcity, natural disasters, political unrest, and direct health effects from heat and pollution. As we enter the second half, even affluence will be no guarantee of security.Who is most affected by the climate emergency here at home? It is the most vulnerable people in our communities: children, babies, pregnant women, elderly, poor, undocumented immigrants, and minorities.
