Jack Pichotta

LOCAL VIEW
By Jack Pichotta
In 1970, as a high school social studies teacher, I proposed and coordinated a full week of environmental education in Cloquet. The program resulted in all regular high school classes being replaced with sessions focused on environmental concerns.

The program, called SCARE, or Students Concerned About a Ravaged Environment, occurred in April 1970, at the same time as the nation’s first Earth Day. The decision to replace all scheduled classes required and received unanimous support from the School Board. Former Vice President Hubert Humphrey was a keynote speaker, as were both the Democratic and Republican candidates for governor. A number of other local and state government representatives also participated.

Climate change, caused by increasing atmospheric carbon dioxide, was not one of the more than 50 topics presented at SCARE. Most people had never heard the term, nor were they aware of any concern.

Since then, we’ve learned that one or more of the world’s largest oil companies long understood that the climate would change if atmospheric carbon-dioxide levels continued to increase and did nothing about it.

At Paris in 2015, 195 nations agreed that steps should be taken to ensure that the annual global temperature increase not exceed 2.7 degrees fahrenheit above the preindustrial average.

After Paris, as the atmospheric carbon-dioxide level annually increased, scientists suggested it may be possible to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. It may be possible, they said, to “overshoot” the preindustrial temperatures by 2.7 degrees fahrenheit and, by removing carbon dioxide, get back below 2.7.

In February it was confirmed that a 2.7-degree global temperature increase occurred for a full 12 months — for the first time

A recent study published in the journal Nature shows that going past the 2.7 degrees is more dangerous than originally thought and that bringing the temperatures back down by “overshoot” may not be technically feasible. Further, even if it were feasible, the oceans would continue to rise, the permafrost would continue to thaw, and species extinction would continue, as the journal reported this month.

Even after two, same-year, back-to back, $1 billion hurricanes, there continue to be elected officials — from a presidential candidate to governors and members of the U.S. Congress — who resist acknowledging what much of the world now fears, that climate change will disrupt most of the planet’s ecosystems and have devastating impacts for all life on earth.

America should be leading global efforts to deal with climate change. In order for that to happen, voters should keep from office any elected official unwilling to deal with global warming.

Climate change may be the greatest threat to life on earth that has occurred since the dinosaurs were killed 65 million years ago. It’s past time for action.

Jack Pichotta of Duluth is recognized as the founder of Wolf Ridge Environmental Learning Center near Finland, Minnesota. A former social studies teacher, he became director of Wolf Ridge in 1972 when it was located in Isabella. Pichotta also coordinated SCARE, or Students Concerned About a Ravaged Environment, a week-long Earth Day program in Cloquet in 1970.