Gary Rosenblatt’s column, “An Inconvenient Truth” (Sept. 26), arguing that Jews should be concerned about Israel and terrorism threats as well as climate change, is reinforced by the following considerations: The Israeli Union for Environmental Defense projects that climate change will cause Israel to experience a temperature increase of 2 to 11 degrees Fahrenheit, a 20 to 30 percent decrease in average rainfall, severe storms when rain does occur, increased desertification, and an inundation of the coastal plain where most Israelis live by a rising Mediterranean Sea.
Also, military experts are increasingly concerned about potential increases in instability, terrorism, and war as millions of desperate refugees flee from droughts, wildfires, storms, floods, and other effects of climate change.
Ninety-seven percent of climate experts are warning of the dire consequences of climate change, atmospheric CO2 levels have reached 400 parts per million for the first time in human history, polar ice caps and glaciers worldwide are rapidly melting, each decade since the 1970s has been warmer than the previous decade and 2014 is on track to be the warmest year since temperature records have been kept. The Jewish Week would be performing a great public service by increasing awareness of these issues.
College of Staten Island
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