To effectively destroy the planet's climate for us and other living things, and to leave a ruined world to our children and grandchildren, we don't have to mess around with coal trains. All we have to do is keep doing exactly what we are doing today, without even any growth in human population or the world economy. Just keep on releasing greenhouse gasses at the current rates, just continue to impoverish the ecosystems and release toxic chemicals at the current rate, and within 50 years the world won't be fit to live in.

But of course, human activities are not holding at current levels: they're dramatically accelerating. So we are facing the possibility of an enormous increase in environmental degradation, just when we need to move strongly in the opposite direction.

Add to this the growing social inequality and the ceding of democratic governance to corporate interests and we have the makings of crisis -- a turning point.

Coal trains are not the cause of our problems. They are a symptom.

Daniel Warner

Bellingham