To the Editor:

Super hurricanes Harvey and Irma! $1 billion dollars in wildfires destroy over 7,000 buildings and kill over 40 in California! The Arctic is disappearing! Island states and countries literally losing ground; to one day be lost to the seas, if not destroyed first by hurricanes! Invasive insects with disease moving north and higher in our mountains!

Like it or not, cause be damned, reliable predictions by 98 percent of professional scientists who are expert in studying climate inform us that the simple 2-degrees increase in global temperature that Earth is approaching will be life-changing for all of us. When it rises to 4 degrees, it will be life rending.

Can humans do anything to ward off rising global temps? Should we even try? Are you personally doing anything? Maybe each human is a piece of the problem. Maybe if we do make an individual, personal effort and we encourage efforts by others, we can stop the temperature rise or at least slow it down.

Man-made or not, shouldn’t each of us try to do whatever and all that we can to slow and stop and maybe even reverse these rising temperatures and the climate disruption they create?

I have a 12-week-old granddaughter. I must try. Don’t you have a reason to try, too?

I am making changes to my lifestyle. Reducing consumption. Conserving. Adopting 21st-Century technology to greatly lower my household’s use of fossil fuels. I have solar, I am researching geo-thermal and electric vehicles. What else can I do?

I expect to learn by attending the free Oct. 28 Sustainable Living and Renewable Energy Fair, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. at Doane Stuart School at 199 Washington Ave. in Rensselaer. Go to stopnypipeline.org for information. Stop NY Fracked Gas Pipeline, People of Albany United for Safe Energy, and Mohawk Hudson­ Sierra­ Club are co-sponsoring.

Ken Stokem

Castleton on Hudson