The Staying Power of Climate Change(pgs 72-95)
One aspect of the memoir I like so far is the brief contemplative interludes Squarzoni puts in to change the pace of the story and put a personal perspective on climate change. The one he puts at the beginning of this section was particularly poignant. Even though he may finish a book and put the last period on the page, the story becomes indelible in his mind and perhaps also in the minds of the readers. As he puts it: ” The book is finished…but it continues on.” He is indicating that the topics he writes about stay with him and that there is a heavily psychological staying power of social issues. I thought it was also interesting that Squarzoni mentioned an “uneasiness” which was a precursor to writing the book and later on in the section mentions global warming as a “menace that is still hard to define.” In addition, the two experts he spoke to seemed to have candidly accepted the realities of climate change and to me seemed deeply affected by it. In this way, climate change has a profound staying power in the people who learn about it. It also remains as an ever evolving issue that the international scientific community has to research and it stays with the public consciousness when it rears its head ever few years in the form of a hurricane, drought, or natural disaster. Not long from now climate change will be something that will stay with us not only in a mental sense, but also in an immediate sense as well, unless we take the right actions to fight it.
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