Dear Readers,
This newsletter is to announce that I am going to start slacking off a bit in the future. I’ve done 35 of these missives since last winter, one each week with pretty fair regularity. But I find that, as the subject get more involved, each one gets a little harder and takes longer. I’m to the point where I am spending more time than the rest of my life allows to do the necessary research and writing for a weekly addition.
Over the last 35 weeks I’ve tried to present a very basic primer on the climate problem, while attempting to stay as positive as possible given the dire situation we are in. We’ve explored a lot of topics, an illustration, I hope, of the many tentacles of the climate problem and many paths necessary to a solution.
I set out on this project out of a sense of despair — it seemed that the problem was evident and quite possibly catastrophic, and very few people seemed to be taking it seriously. My despair has be mollified a bit, as I’ve found that there are many good people working with real dedication to bring about solutions. And, I’ve been heartened to learn that corporations and investors have been well ahead of our government or the general public. Now, finally, the US government has come forward with legislation that shows the country is ready, if not exactly to lead, at least to take responsible action.
All of this is cause for cautious optimism. But we are still very far from the type of war footing that won World War II — the kind of universal awareness that we are in trouble and need to do everything we can to address it. Climate change is like a huge ship with a small engine heading for a dangerous whirlpool — tremendous momentum in a bad direction, unable to stop quickly much less turn around. The problems associated with climate change have come much more quickly than predicted. The whirlpool may be much closer than we thought, and we are only just starting to think about putting the engine in reverse.
I plan to continue writing these newsletters, but they will be less regular and less frequent. The statistics I get from my Substack hosts indicate that I have a tiny but loyal readership. I’ll write in the hope that you will spread the word. There are still far too many of us who never give a glancing thought to the way our actions affect our beautiful planet. That will have to change if we are to avoid becoming just another footnote in the geological record.
I’m planning to move to a more local venue for some of my climate energy, helping to build window inserts with Window Dressers and getting our town hooked up with Maine’s Community Resilience Partnership. I urge you to look around your community and pitch in!
Thanks for reading,
Doug Hylan, Brooklin, Maine
“One of the things about researching climate change and global warming is that you eventually come to the conclusion that nature will fix everything after starvation, illness and disease causes the collapse of modern society.” ― Steven Magee
Thank you Doug-it starts with educating all.
Congratulations, Doug, for all your research and writing. I admire how well you have set forth complex issues. In addition to addressing the wide range of topics, I hope you'll devote some energy to trying to wake up the recreational boating industry -- buyers, manufacturers, marketers, etc. -- to the climate crisis now at hand. In the face of the climate emergency, as you well know and have written about, the trend toward faster and faster, bigger and bigger boats using more and more fossil fuels is absurd and almost criminal. You have the expertise to be highly credible in an effort to get the industry to become more responsible.