Forum: How, late in life, I understood gravity of climate change

By Jim Bloss / Herald Forum

Editor’s note: Jim Bloss, a Monroe resident, and regular contributor to The Herald’s letters to the editor column and Herald Forum, died on Aug. 15. He was 83.

I come late to becoming involved in the issues of climate change and global warming. Not for lack of interest or concern but mostly, like many of us, due to the issues of just living and surviving in our society.

Then I heard the plea of the young Swedish schoolgirl, Greta Thunberg, and was truly shamed into becoming involved, as I saw in her my children and grandchildren and the world I had helped create, with all of its apparent problems and issues resulting from poor use of our planet’s natural resources.

So at the beginning of my journey I tried to catch up and learn more about these issues, initially joining an international organization, the Citizens Climate Lobby, and the Snohomish County chapter of the League of Women Voters, recognizing that with these two entities I would at least be sourcing well-thought-out and researched information about these topics; as close to the real truth and facts that such care would be able to surface.

I’ve attended meetings of newly created legislative workgroups that have as their goal the creation of positions and recommendations from assembled groups of stakeholders, appointed from both public and private sectors, working to create a balance between the worlds of (for example) the timber industry and conservationists (the Ecosystem Services Workgroup and the Carbon and Forest Management Workgroup).

I’ve been researching and studying the world of the Washington state Commissioner of Public Lands and the Department of Natural Resources. I’ve watched the documentary “Kiss the Ground” and learned something about regenerative and sustainable farming methods and discovered the difference between dirt and soil and that you can’t plant much of anything successfully in dirt without having to treat the area to be planted with a lot of chemicals.

I’ve read the book by a German forester, “The Hidden Life of Trees” and have come to believe that, to a large extent, trees are people too. And I read the newspaper, daily and see all of the otherworldly climate happenings all around the world, becoming more and more violent, dangerous and life-threatening. Our planet is fighting back, and telling us it’s not happy with how we’ve been treating it.

I have no doubt or reticence in believing that our climate is changing and that global warming is now “the” existential threat to life on Earth. And yet I know that many do not believe this “take” on these topics. To this group I have a couple of recommendations:

One: Please — rather than choosing an either/or position on these topics, do your own research on all sides of the argument, recognizing that there is a difference of opinion, take the time to look at the positions presented and (somehow) get past the biases that we all know we have related to these subjects. Use your God-given gift of critical thinking and don’t stop researching until you come to the point where you believe you have finally gotten to the truth of the matter. Then look some more; question everything until you are sure what you’ve found fits the real reality of it all.

Two: Recognize that supporters of both positions have created well-structured proofs and can point to best science and research to support their contentions. Understand that everyone has vested interests in their positions, whether it be financial or other reasons. And understanding that, do your research. Either way, whatever you find out, understand it’s in asking the question that you’ve at least tried to find the truth of it all.

For me, on my own journey, it’s come to me that two thoughts of Socrates are spot on as relates to addressing this approach to the search for truth:

The secret of change is to focus all of your energy, not on fighting the old, but on building the new (that’s the bias thing) and;

All I know is that I know I know nothing; which means, of course, that the more one learns, the more one needs to learn more.