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Jeannine's avatar

Sorry for the late comment, but I needed time to cogitate. While I agree with your basic premise that the "experts" don't know everything, and in some cases may even have a hidden agenda for passing along misinformation, I don't agree with some of the details.

I get influenza and covid vaccines every year. I have a pretty strong constitution, so I'm not that afraid of getting sick, but I'm the primary caretaker for my 88 year old father-in-law and want to expose him to as few illnesses as humanly possible. Do I worry that the US government might be using me as a Guinea pig? Of course I do, but I really don't want to be the one who ends up accidentally causing my fil's death, so there we are...

I agree that "climate emergency" may be overstating things, but I do believe that we have a climate PROBLEM, and that human activity is at least partially causing it: We're burning everything in sight, cutting down forests and destroying other ecosystems at breakneck speed, and consuming WAY too much, in every sense of the word. I agree that climate change is natural and inevitable, but we do seem to be speeding things up. I don't think we're all going to die, but things will definitely be different and we'll need to adapt - I suspect some of us will be unhappy with these adaptations. I'm very sad for the many species that are unable to adapt, like the polar bear - though there are confirmed instances of polar and grizzly bears interbreeding and producing viable, fertile hybrid offspring.

Our use of pesticides and herbicides, along with habitat destruction, are killing off lots of other species, including my favorite butterfly, the monarch... 😥

I think the biggest threat to human existence is human nature: The fact that so many of us are so greedy, so intolerant, and so warlike does not bode well. But even then, I'm optimistic enough to think that though we might get bombed back into the stone age, some plants and critters - and maybe even some humans - might survive. As you mentioned in one of your Katrina books, I believe it won't be the end of life, but certainly the end of life as we know it...

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