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As America goes through another inane presidential cycle with media concentrating on the horse race and the “He said, She said” blaming, real serious threats slowly mount past a point where they can be stopped.

The Trump campaign makes its bones on lies against pretty much any and all “others” – women, Jews, Haitians, Muslims and now you can even add Catholics to the mix – in an effort to divide the country while ignoring real imminent danger caused by human activity. 

We are talking climate change and the increasingly uninhabitable planet we have created for ourselves. Scientists tell us there is still time to reverse some of the worst effects of climate change but we must start taking action now and it must be drastic.

We know what will happen based on studies by scientists and what climate history has told us. Previous predictions have warned us of increasingly hot weather, bigger stronger storms with much more rain and rising oceans. So far they have only been wrong on how soon we will see these effects. The effects are happening much earlier than anticipated.

In the past few years climate scientists have focused much attention on an Antarctic glacier called the Thwaites Glacier. The Thwaites Glacier is also known as the “Doomsday Glacier” among scientists because when it finally melts it will be one of the leading indicators of doomsday on our planet. Remember folks there is no Planet B. Right now this is the only planet we have to live on.

Just to remind you – I hope you have given some consideration to the consequences of climate change when you vote – here are some excerpts from the highly regarded Scientific American concerning the effects of the Doomsday Glacier:   

At the bottom of the Earth sits a massive bowl of ice you may know as the West Antarctic ice sheet. Each day, the ocean laps away at its base, slowly eroding the glaciers that line its rim. When they inevitably give in, the sea will begin to fill the basin, claiming the ice for its own and flooding coastlines around the world.

Thwaites Glacier is one of the bulwarks guarding against the collapse of this critical ice sheet, most of which rests below sea level and holds enough ice to raise the ocean by 3.3 meters, or almost 11 feet. Unfortunately, this frosty Goliath, the size of Florida, is also one of the world’s most unstable and fastest-melting glaciers. While glaciologists knew its rate of ice loss was dire, they recently discovered that it’s exposed to far more warming water than previously believed. In a study published last week, scientists using satellite imagery and hydraulic modeling found that warming tidal currents are permeating the massive block of ice at depths as great as 3.7 miles, causing “vigorous melting.”

Thwaites Glacier, often dubbed the “Doomsday Glacier,” already accounts for 4 percent of the planet’s sea level rise and loses 50 billion tons of ice annually. When it collapses, it could raise oceans worldwide by 65 centimeters, or just over 2 feet. “It doesn’t sound like a lot, but if you think of how much ocean water we have in the world, that’s a huge volume,” said Dow.

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As climate change drives global temperatures ever higher, glaciers and ice sheets in polar and mountainous regions inevitably melt. The water and dislodged ice flows into the oceans, causing them to rise. Since 1880, global sea levels have climbed roughly 9 inches, and any sudden increase could be catastrophic for coastal cities like New York, Mumbai, and Shanghai. Low-lying countries like the Marshall Islands and Tuvalu could be submerged entirely.  

Let me add that the Thwaites Glacier is only a leading indicator. Water locked up in glaciers around the world is being released in similar fashion adding to the rising oceans. And of course as the ice melts, temperatures rise which in turn allows the atmosphere to hold more water.

This in turn creates the changes in climate that make for higher rainfalls and flooding or contrarily, little rainfall and drought.

We need leadership that will take on real problems, not the fantasies that the demented MAGA imagination creates. Climate change is a real problem that we still have time to work on. Kamala Harris and Democrats in congress and in state legislatures will address these problems. We all know Trump and the MAGAs will have their hands out for a “tip” from polluters, as the SCOTUS described bribes last term.