April is Earth Month — a time to savor the wonderful planet that gives us bright blue skies, breathtaking mountains, wide-open plains, serene river valleys and lakes, captivating forests, and an endless variety of plants and animals. Earth Month is also time for considering what more should be done to protect it.
Climate scientists agree: Human activity has caused rapid warming of Earth. Warming occurred before, but over thousands of years. Current global warming started less than 200 years ago, when we began burning coal, oil and natural gas, polluting the air with too much carbon dioxide and methane. These gases act like greenhouse glass that let in sunlight but hold heat. This changes atmospheric moisture flows, thus some areas get more moisture (more rain, floods, stronger storms) and others get less (more heat waves, droughts, wildfires) harming people, animals and plants by disrupting habitats.
To stop climate change we must use more clean energy — wind, solar, geothermal, hydroelectric and nuclear. America needs to be the clean energy leader — not China — and create the jobs that go with it.
Write or call your members of Congress 202-224-3121 and remember the proverb, “Treat the Earth well. It was not given to you by your parents, it was loaned to you by your children.”
Gary Jump
Itasca, Ill.