Inconvenience is a small price to pay to save our planet

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report released last week, demonstrating how climate change and global warming will reach a point of no return if we don’t act immediately, should make every human being on the planet stand up and demand action.

That action must be to stop burning fossil fuels altogether, and much sooner than we’d planned. It demands that we legislate carbon fees and dividends, or similar measures, to drastically reduce carbon emissions. That action must also include developing carbon capture, preserving forests, changing how we obtain our food, distributing free birth control worldwide and mitigating the effects of global warming that we’re already too late to stop altogether.

This is not going to be inconvenient. It might involve gas rationing, paying for green infrastructure, limiting water use, paying more for food that isn’t local.

Yet I and many of my fellow citizens are ready and willing to be inconvenienced to save our planet. A small amount of discomfort now might mean that my children and grandchildren aren’t baking in heat that the power grid can’t mitigate or wondering why there are no longer any songbirds — or trees, for that matter.

Are our politicians willing to pass legislation that might be unpopular with those constituents who still don’t understand the precipice we’re on? Are we citizens willing to cut back our meat intake, adhere to limits on mileage in gas-burning cars and take fewer showers? I am. Many are. We are desperately trying to save our only home. I will vote only for those candidates who understand that climate change is a global emergency and make it their top priority.

Individual rights stop at the border of others’ rights. If global warming is allowed to go on, unchecked by strict regulation, all humans will be affected in a catastrophic way.

The house is on fire, yet we’re still sitting in the living room talking about what we should do.

Francesca Kelly, Highland Park