{"id":647793,"date":"2018-11-22T07:00:41","date_gmt":"2018-11-22T14:00:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/?p=647793"},"modified":"2018-11-23T15:48:29","modified_gmt":"2018-11-23T22:48:29","slug":"cranes-are-our-fall-gods","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/2018\/11\/cranes-are-our-fall-gods\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Cranes are our fall gods’"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Sandhill

Laura Paskus \/ New Mexico Political Report<\/p>

A sandhill crane.<\/p><\/div>\n

COMMENTARY:\u00a0<\/strong>I\u2019ve given a handful of presentations about water, climate change and politics in quick succession over the past few weeks. Flashing the requisite slides on the screen \u2014 a dry Rio Grande in April, woefully low reservoirs this summer and fall, graphs showing temperature increases over decades \u2014 I\u2019ve watched your faces in the audience.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve seen your shock over emptying reservoirs. Grief at the photo of hollowed-out fish at the edge of the sandy channel, where they took refuge until the last puddles dried. I\u2019ve looked at the older white men whose faces are the physical manifestation of the messages I sometimes receive: \u201cWhat does\u00a0she<\/i>\u00a0know?\u201d And I\u2019m still thinking about the silver-haired woman who teared up when she mentioned her brand-new grandbabies. She turned from me as she wondered aloud about their future. Then she stopped talking. And I didn\u2019t know what else to say.<\/p>\n

Last month<\/a>, a special report released by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change explained we have about a decade to prevent catastrophic and irreversible warming \u2014 but only if we choose now to change our energy systems. For more than a century, we\u2019ve extracted fossil fuels from the ground and burned them to power our economy, drive our cars, heat our homes and fuel our war campaigns across the world.<\/p>\n