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I sent this letter to Nicholas Kristoff in response to his op-ed piece in the New York Times
Dear Mr. Kristof:
Regarding your opinion piece (“From Decades of Reporting, a Long View of Hope”), I believe you are accurate in suggesting that deadly and seemingly intractable problems in the past have failed to doom us. We have some grounds for hope from history itself.
We are not doomed. The most important statement you make is that “improvements are possible if you push hard enough.”
Today, as in the past, we have enormous problems. Today’s most important issue is the climate crisis. Just as the possibility of nuclear was (and remains) a danger that dwarfs nearly every other important issue, we must prevent climate collapse. Our efforts on preventing nuclear war have been, up to now, successful. And our efforts to prevent climate collapse have been, and continue to be, a catastrophic failure.
We have waited in vain for meaningful action on this crisis. In 2000, the majority of American voters selected a passionate climate activist as their president. But they were overruled by a partisan Supreme Court who put an oil profiteer in the White House. We’ve seen 28 COP conferences meet to address the crisis, and fail every single time. We all know that CO2 emissions are at record levels and continue increasing. We know…
