What a picture is worth
by Tom Sullivan
It's been a hell of a week and it's not quite over.
The House Judiciary Committee on Friday passed two articles of impeachment against Donald J. Trump, acting president of the United States. The full House of Representatives votes on them next week.
Time magazine named Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg, 16, its Person of the Year for 2019. Trump mocked the teen the next morning and the Trump War Room Twitter account photoshopped Trump's head onto her body in a flaccid attempt to distract from the president's legal/political problems.
But a tweet that popped up this morning helped reset my perspective on where we go from here.
Sir David Attenborough spoke in July to British MPs about the impacts of climate change. The tweet contained a clip from the hour-long meeting. Attenborough calls out leaders in the U.S. and other countries for ignoring climate issues that young people see very clearly will affect their futures:
Nobody thought that human beings could change the climate. I mean, we now know we are and what is worse, of course, is that we are changing the climate in a way that is irreversible. If the world climate change goes on as it is, we are going to be facing huge problems with immigration. Large parts of Africa will become even inhabitable than they are now.
We cannot be radical enough in dealing with these issues at the moment.
I have no idea what the future holds. I see no future in being pessimistic because that leads you to say, 'Then, to hell with it. Why should I care?' And I believe that way disaster lies. So, I feel an obligation. The only way you can get up in the morning is to believe that, actually, we can do something about it.
"We cannot be radical enough in dealing with (this crisis)."
— Mike Hudema (@MikeHudema) December 13, 2019
~Sir David Attenborough
We have the solutions, let's implement them. #ActOnClimate #climate #energy #go100re #GreenNewDeal #COP25 #COP25Madrid pic.twitter.com/lh0c7o4iXK