Seals First. People Next?

If you’ve been planning on buying a pet Alaska seal as a Christmas gift for your grandkids, you’re out of luck. I checked PetSmart and Petco and the ponds are empty. They claimed there never were ponds and I didn’t argue. I didn’t get to Costco or Target, but I think they will tell you that seals are on back order, but with no delivery date set. If you are determined to get a creature at home in the water, they may try to sell you a goldfish.

But don’t blame your disappointment on the stores. The World Wildlife Federation gives them an out due to the supply chain. It says, “Globally, monitored population sizes of mammals, fish, birds, reptiles, and amphibians have declined an average of 68 percent between 1970 and 2016 …. Populations in Latin America and the Caribbean have fared worst, with an average decline of 94 percent. Global freshwater species have also been disproportionately impacted, declining 84 percent on average.”

Climate change may not be the sole cause, but it is the major one. Denying that climate change exists or is a function of the “Deep State” keeps us from dealing with its causes. Doing nothing condemns us bipeds to join all those other unfortunate, and disappearing, creatures. Without behavior change, we are all on the way out.

An election is just ahead, we also need to look toward the next one. We choose more than a president in 2024, more than the state of the nation. We will determine the future of the earth. That is not hyperbole. Congress is loaded with naysayers on climate change. A lot of them see voter fraud where there is none, yet don’t see climate change where there is a ton of deadly evidence. In the current Congress, according to the Center for American Progress, a liberal think tank run by former South Dakota Sen. Tom Daschle, there are 139 climate change deniers, more than 20% of the. membership. Some come from states economically dependent on gas and oil, and the congressmen rationalize huge campaign contributions as the result of “constituent service,” but that money is different from what you and I, real constituents, contribute. It buys silence where the courage to listen, learn and speak is vital to life.

During the past 50 years the explosive growth of human consumption, population, global trade and urbanization means people are now using more of the Earth’s resources than can possibly be replenished.

If Congress won’t do something today, I look to young people to lead the way tomorrow in doing what must be done to make a livable world possible for their own grandchildren. Back in the 1960s, with the spirit of 17, not 76, neither getting out of Vietnam, nor moving forward on civil rights, would have been possible without the energy of youth.

To err in this is inhuman, not human. It is not tax policy and balancing the budget. It is not even dollars for education, for science seeking to make people live longer and better. It is mankind’s future. Cast your vote for the Christmas seal, not a symbolic elephant or donkey with their heads in the sand.

Norman Sherman of Coralville has worked extensively in politics, including as Vice President Hubert Humphrey’s press secretary.