Another Attempt to Wake Up our County Electeds on Climate Chaos
Another evening spent at the Westchester County Board of Legislators meeting making public comment. Hoping that our electeds will read the IPCC report and wake the F up to the serious emergency we are facing. Many environmentally focused folks came out to offer public comment about the proposed legislation that would ban polystyrene county wide. Banning this toxic product has been tossed around since 2015. That’s how slow government works. We simply do not have time to continue this slow motion charade.
Here are the words I spoke tonight during my 3 minute public comment.
Tonight is the night for more styrofoam discussion.
YES, by all means ban it.
Those styrofoam cups are in a car
That car is speeding at an accelerating rate, to a deep ravine.
If it goes over that ravine, none of us will survive.
Let’s work to slow down that car.
We are all in it.
We are in the midst of a vast ecological emergency.
The biggest one humanity has ever faced.
This is beyond urgent.
And beyond styrofoam.
Noting that there are plastic water bottles on every desk here is a hint that this legislative body is not taking this threat too seriously.
Here’s a little snippet that the scientists did not include in the IPCC report, the one I’ve been asking you all to read since April.
There are enormous amounts of METHANE locked up in Arctic permafrost.
If and when it melts and that methane gets liberated.
We will face catastrophic runaway climate disruption.
Life as we know it will not continue
We need to hold global average heating to 1.5 degrees centigrade
The odds are very small of us being able to keep the warming below 2 degrees Centigrade.
It will require all hands on deck.
Its time for you, our electeds, to get up to speed on the severity and scale of the problem.
We cannot fix this by being the best recycler or taking shorter showers.
The time is now to take urgent action.
We need radical change
No more business as usual
No more styrofoam too.
