By Godfrey Lee

Wilford Welch, a climate change expert and author of the book “In Our Hands – A Handbook for Intergenerational Actions to Solve the Climate Crisis,” spoke at the Sausalito Council Chambers in Sausalito on Thursday, April 14.

Welch says that we must deal with global warming during this decade in order to avoid environmental and societal collapse.

Global warming is the problem, which results in climate change. We can’t do much about climate change after it happens, but we can do something about global warming before it affects us as climate change, Welch says.

After being the diplomat to China during the Nixon Administration, Welch has been working and teaching at the Presidio Graduate School in San Francisco. He has helped K-12 teachers teach climate change essentials to all subject areas and grades throughout the United States and wrote the book “In Our Hands” as the textbook. Welch has also been teaching Climate Potential and Climate Justice classes to students at the Bayside Martin Luther King Jr Academy in Marin City.

Welch, who is a resident of Sausalito, is also an appointed member of the Sea Level Rise Task Force in Sausalito.

Welch asks us to think about what you would do if a fire was coming down the hill toward your house. That is an analogy to our response to the threat of global warming, which we may not see or feel but which is still happening. Welch says that we, in the United States, had six decades to really deal with global warming. Yet our actions had been insufficient as we were too busy with our lives and concerned with other social and political issues.

Global warming, which results in climate change, is increasingly, damaging our environment. We must therefore act quickly in this decade to change our lifestyle to minimize the environmental damage in the second half of the century, Welch says.

“We have all the technology capabilities we need to deal with the climate emergency,” Welch wrote on page xv in his book. “The only thing we lack is the individual, collective and political will to address this crisis. It is unclear whether the human race, at its current level of evolvement, has the maturity and wisdom, individually and collectively to do what is needed – or in the time it is needed. Let’s change that starting right now. The future is ‘In Our Hands’”

We can act by focusing on the global warming problem, choose how we want to deal with global warming, and act on our decisions as well as we can. We can increase our awareness about global warming. We can use 100% renewable energy, and switch to LED lights, were among the suggestions Welch made.

Everyone can take more action now to fight global warming, so that we can have a better future for tomorrow.

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