A recent article in the News Journal reminded us that the era of global warning was actually here — it wasn’t just arriving, it had arrived … 30 years ago!

The article goes on and documents the many changes we have experienced – global warming, wildfires, sea levels rising, loss of billions of tons of ice in polar regions, etc. The evidence is clear even though there are deniers in crucial places.

The article is clear-cut, but the tone is mild. Another article in a progressive Christian magazine is more to the point and pulls no punches.

“By the century’s end, Miami will have disappeared … residents will have joined the ranks of climate refugees who have been either flooded or burned out of their homes.” The article goes on to explain what has happened that we find ourselves in such a predicament.

We have entered the time of the Anthropocene! (The major influence on the future is in the hands of us humans.) This is the result of two developments: the dominance of urbanization and the recognition that we humans are the dominant power influencing the earth’s future.

In the year 2000 it was noted that more people lived in urban areas than lived on the land. The consequences are much greater than a change in locations.

“It is about a change in sensibility, and a shift in desires and expectations… modern urban life makes it more difficult for people to have sympathy for anything other than themselves.”

Life is traversed through shopping rather than caring for land, plants and animals. “People’s imaginations are shaped by market and media-manufactured campaigns that install individual human wants as the only thing that matters.”

In this time of the Anthropocene no longer are the forces of nature the prime movers of our world and its future – it is our decisions that determine the future! The bottom line to this article, which is a summary of the book The Great Derangement, is that “What hope is there for the world if the humans in control of it lack understanding and respect for it?”

We are not prepared and we are not adequately preparing!

In response to this predicament and the recent decision of our president to withdraw from the Paris Agreement came an article in the environmental magazine Sierra. The article contends that “We’ll Always have Paris.”

It goes on to explain that nations, corporations and many organizations have taken up the challenge of global warming and the article ends with a hopeful note – that we can meet this challenge. Paris is everyone’s responsibility!

The local Frien’s Meeting recently made the decision to change their electric power source to alternative energy and we are urging our members to do the same. It is a small step, but it is a beginning and it is important. This decision is open to all of us. It is simple and offered by many organizations.

You can access many groups that offer alternative power sources via the website “Apples to Apples.”

Neil Snarr is a Professor Emeritus at Wilmington College.