In The World Without Us, Alan Weisman describes the impermanence of the structures that humans have erected.  The day after humans disappear, he says floods will fill NY subways, asphalt jungles will be replaced with real ones and the infrastructure will erode so quickly that our cities will become unrecognizable within decades.  What we have created that will last for millennia is an atmosphere so laden with methane and carbon dioxide, the exhaust from burning fossil fuels, it will cause temperatures to rise for decades.  Deadly temperatures!

Jeff Goodell, in The Water Will Come, exposes us to melting ice caps, eroding glaciers and diminishing permafrost as the temperatures rise.  The rising seas will inundate communities on coasts worldwide where forty percent of the population lives.  Elizabeth Kolbert points out in The Sixth Extinction that hotter ocean temperatures are killing the coral reefs, diminishing the fish stocks and depleting the ocean’s ability to sequester carbon.  When the oceans die, so do we.

We rely upon scientists and journalists to pursue the truth. When Rob Percival, author of The Meat Paradox and director of a large food distribution network in England, says we are on course for unprecedented social and economic chaos if we don’t change our habits, particularly in regard to our diets, we should listen. These are alarmists by profession.  They are scientists and learned journalists.

More than 30 years ago Rachel Carson, a journalist, and James Hansen, a scientist, warned us about an approaching crisis that would challenge all mankind.  It’s clear now we should have paid more attention.

Katherine Stewart foreshadowed the connection between fossil fuels and the Christian Nationalism movement in The Power of Worshipers.  When a significant percent of the population worries more about burning up in Hell than by being incinerated on Earth, the obstacle to change becomes religious fanaticism.  When Naomi Klein tells us in This Changes Everything:  Capitalism vs. the Climate that we have to re-think how our structure of commerce incents polluters, the obstacle to change is politics.

The obstacles to conquering the defining crisis of our lifetime, global warming, are myriad and complex.  It is these scientists and journalists who study and report this stuff to which we owe a debt of gratitude.  Without their work there would be no stories for people like to tell.  Damon Gameau, creator of the documentary 2040, challenges writers and film makers, and all of us, to create new stories for mankind that are not dominated by fossil fuels.  We need models that will lead us forward.

So, this is what I and a few others are doing.  However, we could not accomplish it without the input of those who have documented their findings.   What we need now is for more people to paint pictures, write books, turn words to songs and make movies that bring to life a world that is greener, sustainable and less toxic than what we have now.  We need stories without graphs or charts.  Of course, the villains, the rich and the powerful who care little about the havoc they are causing, are easy to identify, the heroes can be you and me.  Dr. Derk Bryan, the hero in my eco-thrillers, is like most of us.  He would rather spend a day at the beach than chasing those whose arrogance and greed are fueling a global catastrophe.  His obsession to reduce his carbon footprint, however, becomes our collective consciousness and a mirror into which we must look if we are to evolve and survive the Anthropocene.

G. Spencer Myers is the author of the Dr. Derk Bryan eco-thriller series and “WE ARE PLAYING ROULETTE WITH YOUR FUTURE.” His “Top 10 Ways to Stop Global Warming,” can be found at: www.GSpencerMyers.com