Future generations will curse us

To the Editor,

The world is in the midst of an existential health crisis from the COVID-19 virus that threatens our health, safety, and even our lives. It is understandable that this crisis is absorbing our time, our attention, and our resources. Yet, simultaneously, the Earth is headed toward a longer-term challenge that threatens to change the habitability of the planet and cause misery and suffering, even death, to many millions of the world’s inhabitants. Global climate change is unfolding. While its effects sometimes seem to advance at a glacial pace, they are actually accelerating.

Coastal regions are threatened by a rising ocean, hundreds of thousands of animals and plant species are threatened with extinction by increasing temperatures and less consistent rainfall, arable land is threatened by the encroachment of expanding deserts, and ocean life is threatened by increasing water temperature. We humans are like the proverbial frog placed into a pot of cool water that is being slowly brought to a boil — we do not yet feel much pain, but it is coming.

Humans are hampered by a powerful cognitive bias that severely discounts a seemingly remote and vague future in favor of our immediate circumstances and our current environment. This, along with admittedly finite resources, makes the likelihood of our dealing with this slowly unfolding but inexorable crisis seem slim. Future generations, acutely suffering as a consequence of our collective myopia, will curse our shortsightedness. 

Ken Derow
Swarthmore