To the Journal editor:

In the June 30 issue, The Mining Journal printed an article entitled “Crops stressed as central U.S. deals with drought.” This article mentioned the frequency and intensity of significant droughts and heavy rainfall events was increasing due to the burning of fossil fuels and other human activities that release heat-trapping greenhouse gases.

This statement is consistent with the September 2022 World Meteorological Organization report stating that human-caused global warming/climate change has caused weather-related disasters to increase fivefold over the last 50 years, resulting in an average of 115 fatalities and $200 million damage every day around the world. The WMO warned that unless humans reduce the burning of the dirty fossil fuels like oil, coal and gas as well as the deforestation responsible for this climate change, these disastrous impacts will only get worse.

The widespread Canadian forest fires related to increasingly severe droughts that have occurred in recent months and the significant negative impact on air quality here in the U.S. are further examples of the dangerous conditions that will become more frequent in the future unless we take significant actions to move away from the use of fossil fuels and slow this climate change. Another advantage of moving away from fossil fuels is that the reduction in demand for oil will punish the economies of dangerous countries like Russia and Iran.

The WMO also reports June 2023 ended up as the warmest June on record and that the 10 warmest years since 1880 have all occurred since 2010.

Since the great majority (97%) of the most qualified scientists in my field of atmospheric science believe human-caused greenhouse gas emissions and other irresponsible actions like mass deforestation are responsible for this global warming/climate change (see climate.nasa.gov/scientific-consensus), I urge your readers to go to the Citizens’ Climate Lobby website at https://citizensclimatelobby.org/get-loud-take-action and follow the Write Congress links there to urge our Congressional Representatives to 1) support carbon pricing to encourage a transition to clean, renewable energy sources and 2) support healthy forests that will reduce greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere.

Readers can also contact our congressional representatives by visiting their websites or calling 202-224-6221 for Sen. Peters, 202-224-4822 for Sen. Stabenow and 202-225-4735 for Rep Bergman. You can also visit citizensclimatelobby.org to sign up for future online actions.

Sincerely,

KEVIN CRUPI

Marquette