The political and election flames were fanned all fall with the impeachment of President Trump
But how soon we forget the real flames that were fanned by the world’s climate from California to Brazil, from Australia to Siberia and throughout the world.
Descriptions of some of these catastrophic blazes ranged from “too big to put out” to the world’s largest forest being on fire for months.
And neither of those observations applied to perhaps the most media-worthy infernos in Brazil’s Amazon’s rainforest last summer.
We, for one, do not need to see how high temperatures will rise, how long droughts will last or how massive the next round of wildfires will be to realize it’s a new year, but the same crisis.
Our newspaper has continued to sound the alarm for years that our environment must be seen in the light of national security.
Defense of our forests, plains, coasts, rivers, oceans and our air is just as important as defense of our national interests abroad and of our allies.
Otherwise, what will there be left to defend if we surrender our nation and planet to this climate crisis?
This crisis should be met on two fronts. One, most of us are familiar with — the idea there’s power in breaking little habits.
For instance, giving up flimsy single-use plastic bags, foam takeout containers, plastic straws and coffee stirrers.
People in countries worldwide and in hundreds of cities nationwide have done it. And for those old enough to remember, we got along well before the bag industry went plastic in the 1980s.
Savvy retailers and other businesses would be wise to invest in durable, reusable bags to give away to customers or sell cheaply.
Keeping a few canvas or reusable plastic bags in your car is easy and better for toting groceries.
Just making this change will help us struggle against the bigger, bad habits our world has adopted.
Yes, this crisis also needs to be met in the halls of the Legislature and Congress as well as in city council and county commission chambers.
Why not laws to wean us off single-use plastics. Bar stores from giving them away. Ban them at public events or their use in parks and in promotions.
Obviously, single-use plastic bags are not our nation’s or our world’s biggest threat — think fossil fuels and an overheated Earth.
Yet, plastic bags and other such modern day contrivances look to be a solvable issue. It’s also a way to tell the plastics industry to quit making such junk. Plastic products should be more often than not, anything but single-use.
Such changes might appear as a burden on consumers and businesses at first, but many will soon recognize this is not only best for the environment, but for ourselves.
We have a long way to go to put out the figurative fires threatening our environment.
But giving up single-use plastics is a smart response in 2020 to doing that.
