Climate action starts with the people

In response to Meredith Carroll’s column “Shame on the climate shamers” (Jan. 22, aspentimes.com). It sure is tempting to believe Auden Schendler’s perspective on the climate crisis, but the magnitude and the momentum of the problem leads me to believe otherwise. Magnitude — humans emitted 36 billion tons of CO2 last year. Momentum — CO2 is cumulative since these emissions last 100 years.

I’d like to see you write an opinion this spring when the Keeling Curve (Wikipedia it) reaches a new all time high pushing CO2 to levels which haven’t been seen for what, 2 to 3 million years; a time when there were palm trees in Antarctica and the oceans were high enough to cover all of Earth’s current coastal cities. He’s right that we need to decarbonize the economy, but to put all of the responsibility of the problem solely on business and governments and to give individuals a pass is crazy. Change isn’t going to happen fast enough with that perspective.

Like America’s response to World War II, this is now an all-hands-on-deck problem. Can you imagine if someone then expressed, “I don’t need to help the war effort because businesses, governments and the military will fix it.” They would have been rightfully shamed for that.

Tom Mooney

Aspen