Letter: The choice on climate

The world is on "a highway to climate hell with our foot on the accelerator," said UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres at the annual UN climate conference in Egypt.

Get ready for more frequent and severe storms, floods, heat waves, droughts, wildfires, crop failures, displaced people and billions of dollars of damage to infrastructure, businesses and homes.

"Humanity has a choice: cooperate or perish," Guterres said. "It's either a Climate Solidarity Pact - or a Collective Suicide Pact." The United States could become the world leader in battling climate change, inspiring and helping other countries to do more while creating large numbers of jobs manufacturing solar panels, wind turbines and electric vehicles and batteries and weatherizing buildings. Companies could be incentivized to locate in areas hurt by a decline in fossil fuels and in other depressed rural, small city and inner city areas.

Congressional Republicans have been in lockstep with their big fossil-fuel donors, repeatedly blocking action against climate change. How many more disasters will it take to finally jolt Republicans to vote to protect our planet?

Richard Barsanti

Western Springs