Are We Finallly Waking Up To The Damage We Do To Our Planet?

Maybe.  This article seems to suggest that we are.

But waking up to the existence of the problem is one thing.  There's been awareness of the problem in the media going all the way back to at least 1989, when Ted Koppel hosted an episode of ABC's "Nightline" focused on the warming of the planet.  At the time, according to the experts featured on it, warming was not expected to be a serious problem until well into the middle of the 21st century.

But we are just into the second decade of the 21st century, and it is becoming painfully clear that the problem is, if anything, accelerating at an alarming rate.  And so it is completely fair to ask a question, if knowledge and acceptance of the problem's existence is in fact growing.  To quote former Senator Bob Dole, in a different context:  Where's the outrage?

The forces behind climate change--specifically, the fossil-fuel industry and its enablers in government--are simply too powerful to be opposed with anything less than a full-scale public assault, at the level of (for example) the opposition to the Vietnam War.  Yet, when it comes to advocacy of taking steps to combat climate change, it rarely gets beyond the talk-show, Op-Ed level.

It may be somewhat hypocritical for a blogger to say this, but it's time to stop talking and writing, and time to get out into the streets.  Make ourselves visible to the fossil-fuel industry.  Find peaceful ways to get in there way, and remind them that we're not getting out of the way, until the only planet we have is safe from our own narcissistic, misguided efforts to destroy it.

When that happens, I'll believe we're finally waking up.  Antarctica is telling us it can't happen too soon.