To the editor:

One thing that has become apparent in our present situation is that the world population has become very interconnected, and it is very important to consider how our increasingly toxic nationalistic politics might affect the future quality of life around the world. An event that went almost unnoticed in 2015 was a speech by Bill Gates in which he predicted the possibility of a world pandemic. The content of that speech was a remarkably accurate prediction of what has actually occurred with COVID-19. This is particularly interesting because Bill Gates is warning us of another world-wide problem. He has written extensively about what must be done to avoid climate disaster. He is not alone with this concern. The specter of climate disaster is something we all need to consider.

The good news is that we still have an opportunity to mitigate the severity of climate change. Climate scientists say that we have a window of about ten years in which to make a major reduction in carbon emissions. The bad news is that this is a very big task, and the window is very small.

A significant problem is that we have seen no action from our federal government. We need to hear from climate scientists in NASA, NOAA, and the EPA. We also need a president who listens to warnings from the Pentagon and the intelligence agencies with regard to possible threats to national security due to climate change. We need a president who has the confidence of the G7 nations (and others) to rally other leaders to make similar and difficult changes.

What is President Trump’s climate plan if reelected? He has no plan. Unable to accept anything promoted by his predecessor, he is paralyzed on this issue. Despite ever-increasing and overwhelming evidence to the contrary, he has described climate change as a hoax. Of the 197 signatures to the Paris Climate

Agreement, the U.S. is the only one to initiate withdrawal. At a G7 meeting in 2019, our president declined to attend a session that addressed climate concerns.

To be the great country that we should be, we need action (rather than negligence), and we need intelligent science-driven decisions that are not crippled by politics or the irrational personal issues of one person.