The false summit of climate change progress
As a novice backpacker in the Pacific Northwest there were several times when I mistook the peak in my near field of view to be the top of whatever mountain that was my destination. The phenomenon of the false summit is something that most people have experienced as a metaphor for life’s challenges. Present progress on addressing climate change is a false summit unless we fully understand the nature of any perceived progress and the extreme danger of ongoing climate and biosphere disruption.
As a member of the post-war generation the current environmental crises have carved an arc through my personal history. I have been aware of biosphere disruption through my work with a variety of terrestrial ecosystems from the beginning of my 40-year career as an ecologist. Rarely did my close friends understand or share my concerns. The environmental icon Aldo Leopold observed, “One of the penalties of an ecological education is that one lives alone in a world of wounds. Much of the damage inflicted on land is quite invisible to laymen.” Similarly, most people have paid scant attention to the onrushing consequences of climate change, which became apparent to me in the 1980s while conducting research in Central American forests.
There is real reason for hope. For the first time in my life climate change is routinely front page news. One of the most painful…
