Brookings resident Carl Kline is an ordained clergyman, part-time teacher and occasional blogger.

Probably because of my experiences in India, and my many trips there, I normally have a couple cups of tea every day, morning and afternoon. They can be chai, or campanile, or green tea. I always use the same teapot to heat the water. It has a cap on the spout you can lower, so when the steam begins to rise, the pot will begin to scream and you will know the water is ready and you can remove it from the burner.

When I fill the teapot, I always fill it through that little spout. The hole of the teapot spout fits nicely over the spout of the water faucet. There’s no need to remove the top of the teapot. Besides, the handle makes filling it that way difficult.

When I place the pot on the burner I don’t close the cap, as I’m usually standing right there fixing my cup with honey and tea or looking out the kitchen window. I will see the steam eventually begin to rise or hear it begin to boil. One day, something away from the kitchen drew my attention and I completely forgot I had water on the stove. When I finally remembered, all the water had turned to steam and the teapot was starting to melt onto the burner. I caught it just in time.

This was one incident where my obliviousness almost got me into serious trouble. On a larger scale, our inattention to the climate kettle is causing a meltdown. Last month the World Meteorological Organization informed us that 2023 was the hottest year in human history. Temperatures near the surface of the earth were 1.45C higher than in the late1800s, when we began turning on the stove of the industrial revolution, burning large quantities of coal, oil and gas, and heating the whole planet. The one hopeful sign the WMO reported, was about the rise in renewable energy installations. They rose some 50% in 2023. The WMO called it a “glimmer” of hope.

The “red alert to the world” of the WMO was not front page news. Most of us were oblivious, even to the existence of the organization. And there are significant forces at work to keep us inattentive. Besides ignoring, even hiding the bad news, some would have us believe we can just purchase a new burner and teapot. We will just replace the old.

At almost the same time as the WMO report, there was a gathering of the giants of the hydrocarbon industry in Houston, Texas; where the head of the largest oil producer on earth, Saudi Aramco, remarked: “We should abandon the fantasy of phasing out oil and gas and instead invest in them adequately reflecting realistic demand assumptions.”

At the same gathering, Exxon CEO Darren Woods explained how the fossil fuel industry is in an all-out fight to derail anything green, because it won’t return above average profits. A seven figure 2024 political campaign is being organized in swing states, against the EPA and administration support for electric cars.

Corporations have clout. They are economic behemoths, especially corporations in the fossil fuel industry. Perhaps we need to remember the story of David and Goliath, or Gideon, or the apochryphal story of Judith. Or perhaps we need to support the courage of the young, like Greta Thunberg and the members of 350.org.

If the young cannot move older folks on this issue, I’m not sure anything can. The numbers are in. The questions have been asked.

A recent study of 16-25 year old young people, across the world, found that 67% were sad and afraid because of climate change; 59% said they were extremely worried about climate change and 45% said those feelings affected their daily life and functioning. In my own personal experience, climate change is a factor in the decisions of some to forego having children, rather than bring them into an increasingly dangerous and threatening world.

Maybe you know that Joyce Kilmer poem. We used to sing it in our youth choir at church. “A tree that looks at God all day, And lifts her leafy arms to pray; A tree that may in Summer wear A nest of robins in her hair. Upon whose bosom snow has lain; Who intimately lives with rain. Poems are made by fools like me, but only God can make a tree.”

There’s truth in this poem. But anyone can “plant” a tree; a carbon sink. When we lost our huge, beautiful maple, we replaced it; and then planted a second on the other side of the yard. We need to plant more milkweed in the garden, hoping for another monarch convention to visit and fill every space around us, on their annual pilgrimage to Mexico.

The point is, we can all do something to cool the climate and renew the beauty. We even have the witness of tree huggers, who lash their arms in love around a tree that stores that carbon, to stop the blade of the lumberjacks saw and still the climate teakettle. Close that spout and hear the whistle! We can help turn off the heat.