With another hot, dry summer winding down, the question remains, Why do governments not act on Climate Change? In a new book, Air Pollution's the Answer! How Clean Air Policy Compromised the Planet and Public Health, author Sarah Schrumpf-Deacon chalks up global hesitation to one simple reason—leaders hate being wrong!
“All too often, we, as a modern society, believe in our infallibility. It's just human nature,” explains Schrumpf-Deacon,“If you look at climate change in a broader context, it is fairly easy to see where society turned down the climate change path and how to easily get back on track—even in the middle of a pandemic.”
The book looks at a century and a half of human behavior, scientific progress and environmental responses. Using practical science rather than computer modeling, the author focuses on well-documented environmental cycles that have been disrupted by human meddling. At just over 100 pages, its twelve chapters divide topics into small chunks with everyday object lessons that explain principles rather than dictate theory and change.
“The difficulty will be getting people to accept that a couple of simple mistakes had the power to derail the environment. Even recent reports which acknowledge human intervention as a cause of climate change perfer catastrophic predictions rather than trusting nature to reset itself in the short term,” continues Schrumpf-Deacon, “For too long, civilization focused on making the world perfect for mankind, not understanding that the environment was perfect to begin with. Even the idea that climate change can easily be 'fixed' will be hard to accept.”
The premise of the book begins by throwing out the current focus on 'greenhouse gas theory'. While a significant discovery in its day, the principle was discarded by 19th century scientists as too limited in its focus. Once science accepts this historical reality, other possibilities become much more relevant. In the end, the book's conclusion is that carbon-based gases do not cause climate change but the absence of what is labeled 'air pollution' does. Environmentally the world was crippled when a few essential gases were removed from the atmosphere by reactive and short-sighted legislation known as Clean Air policy. Put back what was removed and the environment is likely to recover quickly.
“What does humanity have to lose by considering a different climate change solution, particularly one that is historically proven to work well?” concludes the author, “By rolling back Clean Air legislation to more moderate and regionally specific levels, all we are doing is returning the environment to a time during which the Earth was healthy and so were the creatures that lived in it. Computer models only parrot the fears and bias of those who use them. What if COVID-19 is the World's object lesson that teaches us that humanity's view of perfect environment is both unhealthy and dangerous?”
Sarah Schrumpf-Deacon is a retired Family and Consumer Science (FACS) teacher, farmer, and freelance writer. She refers to her background as 'eclectic' and brings a broad-based science perspective to her writing. While acknowledging that the book may never have been written without the keen observations of professionals who questioned current climate change theory, she strongly advocates for rural communities in climate change recovery and reminds her readers that cities are, for the most part, environmenally unsustainable.
Air Pollution's the Answer! How Clean Air Policy Compromised the Planet and Public Health was self-published through the IngramSpark platform (Nana Janes Books) and is available in digital and print versions.
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