CHANGING PLANET

Author’s Note:  Trill is a fictional female acquaintance who makes it possible to write in a style that is comfortable for me.

My Dear Trill,

What an exciting time to be alive! We have front row seats to witness  Earth ending one epoch and slipping rapidly into another. The last epoch, the Pleistosine, lasted 2.6 million years, ending with the Fifth Extinction. Scientists are not sure why, but are quite certain that it was sudden and enormously destructive. Earth was home to many big animals then, revealed by various digs like the La Brea Tar Pits in California. Humans were not making much of a mark, but somehow survived to begin the Holocene Epoch about 11,700 years ago. It is an age in which the species dominates over all others and plunders, pillages and pollutes the planet to the point that Holocene may be the shortest ever, a mere12,000 years, to introduce  another era. It seems a short time, but already there are predictions of the Sixth Extinction, brought about by a prolifiration of the human species. Since the beginning of the industrial revolution human activitty has proven sufficient to cause a global warming that will have dire effect on all living things. The Anthropocene Epoch, the Sixth Extinction, as the new era is commonly termed, is our future. Some scientists, including noted astrophysicist Stephen Hawking,  predict the onset in as few as one hundred years from now. Others insist that it is going on now and has been going on since the beginning  of the Industrial Revolution in the late 1700’s.
I take the apocalyptic view because in my opinion not much can be done about it. World population continues to increase, exacerbating an already serious situation. (Birth rate is approximately 4.3 per second, whereas death rate is only 1.8 per second). 
Admittedly, an important movement is now taking place toward abatement of climate change, but lacking enforcement, sadly, it will  only postpone disaster by a few years.
In the end, although it will matter little, Earth’s ruin may ultimately be traced to politicians and climate change deniers and their intransigence regarding taking action now to avoid  the consequences of global warming. It will be said, though, that some did try.
The Paris Accords, sponsored by the United Nations, brought together a meeting of representatives from 195 nations and produced a non-binding agreement to jointly reduce emissions in the coming years at a rate that will hopefully limit the damage. Every five years they would meet again to see how well they had done. The language calls for limiting the temperature growth to 2 degrees centigrade over the next 100 years: an admission that reducing the rate of climb, or even reversing it, is beyond reach. The United States, which is responsible for 18 percent of the world’s emissions, is tacitly assumed to take the lead, though France has already shown the way,  providing 90% of its energy needs from renewable sources and nuclear energy, If the United States fails, then other nations will feel less compelled  to comply with the objectives that were agreed to and published.
The  challenge is formidable, because there are many legislators who believe that global warming is a hoax. Some have ties, financial support and orherwise to special interests. For example, Senator McConnell, leader of the Senate, reports to interests in Kentucky, his home state, where coal mining is a major industry. More disturbing, the Republican candidate for the presidency, Donald Trump scorns the warnings  about global warming. Then there are companies like ExxonMobil who wilfully fund studies that undermine  scientific data on climate change history and trends for the future.
Another powerful contradiction lies with the person who considers himself a champion for climate change  abatement, who may be the single greatest polluter of all.... President Obama, and I would add to this, President  George W. Bush before him.
The president habitually takes his annual Christmas vacations at taxpayer expense in Hawaii,  about 5000 miles from Washington, or a round trip distance of 10,000 miles. The media refer to these trips in a bemused way as “costing millions” and leaving “a big carbon footprint” and lets it go at that. But for each such adventure, involving up to three 747 sized aircraft, 3 million pounds (1500 tons) of carbon dioxide is generated. 
In contrast, a typical automobile operator, over a driving lifetime of 50 years, will generate less than 20% of emissions created by President Obama’s  single vacation trip.
The super rich, for whom the whole world is a playground, cannot be excluded from the list of excessive polluters. 
Other conditions exist  that contribute to climate change that appear beyond control.  An example is the refinement of Canadian tar sands oil. The refinement process produces a nasty combustible coke byproduct which cannot be burned in the United States because it is so polluting, but it is welcomed as cheap fuel in India and China. If, in the next administration, the Keystone Pipeline is approved (and it probably will be ), then mountains of foul burning coke will be produced in Texas  refineries and exported to foreign countries. 
Nothing will stop the exploitation of the tar sands. Plans are already in place for a pipeline to the west coast, known as The Northern Gateway, for loading tar sands crude oil into ocean tankers. It will then be shipped to Asia, and possibly toTexas.
There are many deceptive assurances that some activities, for example, replacing gasoline powered cars to grid-powered electric cars, will mitigate the problem. In this case it is  a false notion, since  two thirds of grid power is provided by fossil fuel burning power plants.
So you see, Trill, we are headed toward untold disaster, caused by human behavior, and are unlikely to make a course correction. This disparate species will never come together and measure up; not so long as the most powerful and privileged among us continue to pursue their profligate ways and employ fraud and deception to assure the public that there is no problem. 

Welcome to the Anthropocene Epoch......the Sixth Extinction.