Friday, April 22 was Earth Day, marking the anniversary of the environmental movement. Earth Day has been celebrated since 1970, fueled by the awareness of the negative impact of industrialized practices on our planet. Now, perhaps more than ever, we are seeing the effects of years of mismanagement of our world: Increased CO2 levels, severe droughts, fires, floods, melting glaciers, rising sea levels, wide swings in weather patterns, and the imminent extinction of hundreds of species. 

Sure, climate change deniers claim that tree-huggers are too alarmist, but we have known for the last 50 years that our mismanagement of the planet would bring us here. 

Over fifty years ago, in 1965, US President Lyndon Johnson’s science advisory committee produced a report titled Restoring the Quality of Our Environment. The introduction to the report noted: Pollutants have altered on a global scale the carbon dioxide content of the air and the lead concentrations in ocean waters and human populations. Written by a group of prominent climate scientists, the report included a section on atmospheric carbon dioxide and its predicted effects on climate change.

The report was remarkably accurate. It read: “Through his worldwide industrial civilization, Man is unwittingly conducting a vast geophysical experiment. Within a few generations, he is burning the fossil fuels that slowly accumulated in the earth over the past 500 million years.” The report added, “The climatic changes that may be produced by the increased CO2 content could be deleterious from the point of view of human beings. The possibilities of deliberately bringing about countervailing climatic changes, therefore, need to be thoroughly explored.”

Although the report was released to the public and Congress, the LBJ administration focused more on solving the more immediate effects of pollution, such as smog and litter plainly visible along America’s highways at the time. As a result, the dangers of the continued burning of fossil fuels were not addressed. Sadly, in 2022 we are faced with levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere moving dangerously close to the point of no return, and its effects are felt around the globe.

As with much of the southwestern United States, New Mexico is experiencing a megadrought, one of the worst in 1,200 years. Like some weird Earth Day prank, warnings of hurricane-like winds, dry vegetation, and above-normal temperatures around the state created an environment ripe for what the National Weather Service called a “widespread extreme and potentially catastrophic fire weather event.” 

Climate research has shown that greenhouse gases are increasingly disrupting the jet stream, in turn creating a change in winds that steer weather systems in the Northern Hemisphere. This causes more frequent summer droughts, floods, and wildfires in some regions while causing flooding in other areas. A more recent study shows that if emissions of carbon dioxide and other climate pollutants from industry, agriculture, and the burning of fossil fuels continue at a high rate, wild winds will be 50% more frequent by the end of the century.

Like something out of the film Don’t Look Up, the world didn’t listen to the scientists back in 1965, and now current and future generations are paying for it. 

Many states are moving towards renewable energy sources, but oil and gas still dominate the economy of many states, including New Mexico. However, perhaps our hope lies in the younger generation. It seems to me that young people are more in tune with climate science and the importance of biodiversity much more than the baby boomers of my generation. Gen Xers and Zers have a good reason to be: Without immediate action, their future will be burdened by heatwaves, high winds, more fires, storms, rising sea levels, and floods.

As a “boomer” I never paid attention to climate change growing up and didn’t stop to think about the ramifications of carbon emissions caused by fossil fuel emissions. A 2021 Pew survey found that members of Generation Z, as well as Millennials, are more open than older “boomers” to some of the more dramatic policy proposals addressing climate change. The survey also found that older Americans are more reserved when it comes to changes in energy consumption, such as entirely phasing out the use of fossil fuels or ending the production of gasoline-powered cars and trucks.

As well-known young environmental activist Greta Thunberg stated at a UN climate-action summit in 2019: “People are suffering. People are dying. Entire ecosystems are collapsing, We are at the beginning of mass extinction, and all you can talk about is money and fairy tales of eternal economic growth.”

It is my hope that current community leaders, legislators, and governments will pay attention to the science, and involve the younger and succeeding generations in decisions that will affect not only their futures but what is happening now.