Temperatures rising, and the talk is animated

It’s easier to be fearful of an ISIS attack at Massie’s Corner than of any threat from global warming. So it’s remarkable, really, that so many Rappahannock folks have been joining in “Conversations on the Care of Our Common Home,” inspired by Pope Francis’ encyclical of the same name addressing the environmental damage we humans are causing. Sponsors include RappFlow, St. Peter’s Roman Catholic Church, and the Unitarian Universalists of the Blue Ridge.

The third “Conversation” will convene at the Washington Fire Hall at 3:30 p.m. on Sunday, April 10. All are invited.

In his encyclical, Pope Francis pleads: “I urgently appeal for a new dialogue about how we are shaping the future of our planet. We need a conversation which includes everyone….”

The climate is warming faster than at any time in the last 65 million years, but we can’t actually see the carbon being spewed into the atmosphere. Instead, what we in Rappahannock see is an unusually severe winter snowstorm, followed by this spring’s pretty flowers. This paradox is part of the conversation.

Not only is there little visible evidence of what seems only an abstract threat, but what can be seen is far, far away:

➤ Sea level rise submerging islands in the western Pacific and flooding lowlands of Southeast Asia.

➤ Acidified oceans bleaching the earth’s fragile coral reefs, thus destroying the ecosystems that depend on them.

➤ The West Antarctic ice sheet melting even faster than predicted, sending sea levels soaring around the world deluging every coastal city within the lifetimes of children being born today.

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) report that February 2016 marks the 10th consecutive month a monthly global temperature record has been broken.

Meanwhile, the atmosphere continues to fill with greenhouse gases. For the week beginning March 27, 2016, the Mauna Loa Observatory measured 405.41 carbon-dioxide molecules per million in the atmosphere (ppm). The same week the year before, the observatory recorded 402.43 ppm. In 2006, atmospheric carbon stood at 382.42 ppm for the final week of March.

Despite the 200-nation climate agreement reached in Paris in December, one scientific observer predicts that it’s looking increasingly like November 11, 2015, was the last day in our lifetimes with a daily carbon measurement of less than 400 ppm.

Too bad we can’t actually see this carbon, as plainly as we can see the very visible litter, also generated by humans, along Route 211. Then we could simply and virtuously clean it up and feel good about it. And soulsearching, thought-provoking, often unsettling, “conversations” wouldn’t be so needed.