The startling news that Lancaster County is projected to have higher extreme temperatures than anywhere in the Northeast (“Dairy in peril from climate shift”) by 2050 moved me to write.
I started this letter out on my patio, but when the heat index passed 90 by 9:30 a.m. I fled indoors. I find that, as I’ve aged, high heat stresses me more each year. If I’m around in 2050, I may need to escape to the Arctic each summer.
Incidentally, all-time heat records have been set all over the world during the recent heat wave, driving people from Denver to Montreal, from Scotland to southern Russia and from Siberia to the Middle East to seek relief. Tragically, Quebec counted an estimated 70 heat-caused deaths.
The time for concerted action to address dangerous global warming is way overdue. So we need to act now — decisively, massively, together. We can be the ones we’ve been waiting for. Either that, or we risk handing our children and grandchildren a world where everyone is seeking refuge and finding it harder to come by with each passing year.
Jerry Lee Miller – Manheim Township