The most important issue facing all of us is global warming since it has the potential to cause catastrophic death and destruction.

If we had a storm like Hurricane Sandy or typhoon, many of us could suffer loss of our homes and casualties. Many people in our society continue to ignore this multifaceted, potentially disastrous problem. Worse yet, some even go to the extent of suppressing the public’s understanding of this issue.

What I fail to understand is why we have not more firmly challenged them. While the local press did not fully express the devastation caused by Sandy, I can testify that it was extensive in the New York/New Jersey area. Not just along the shoreline but in upstate New York. The damage in the Oso mudslide area will seem trivial compared to what can happen here in Washington from a typhoon.

Gov. Jay Inslee has expressed concerns about the oyster growers in Puget Sound. He has made minor noises about trivial aspects of this problem. He has made no major effort to override the Washington state Senate’s inaction. He will have to show much greater leadership. Even his alliance to develop an effective plan with the political leadership of California, Oregon and British Columbia is insufficient and amounts to nothing more than a stalling tactic in the face of the crisis before us all. They have all failed to present their problem to their respective federal governments.

It has become clear that some of the decline in the rate of global warming is a direct result of the warming of the oceans as they store the heat in deep waters. This warming will soon majorly change currents. These coastal currents keep temperatures within a moderate range all the way into Canada on both coasts. Loss of these offshore warm currents can happen here and increase the temperature range along our coast that keeps Washington such a pleasant place to live.

A direct result of the warming deep ocean waters, to make matters worse, is that methane, which is contained on the bottom in the deep ocean depths along both coasts, is being released and bubbling up into the planet’s atmosphere. Methane is about 80 times worse than carbon dioxide in heating the atmosphere.

In addition, recently scientists have linked our excessive use of agricultural fertilizers to the formation by bacteria from ammonia to nitrogen oxides that acts just like methane.

The current warming trends have had measurable effect. Recent findings show that the mountains of the West Coast have lost an enormous amount of water into the oceans and atmosphere.

Based on GPS measurements that indicate the rise of the mountains points to a loss of 63 trillion gallons of water. In our area, one has only to look at Mt. Rainier to see the loss of glaciers on its flanks. Other work using satellites points to a further loss of 123 trillion gallons of water from deep ground waters just on the West Coast.

Another factor is the effect of stronger, warmer easterly winds that are pushing a huge deep water wave of warm water toward the western coast of the Americas.

This same process struck the Philippine Islands last November with the largest typhoon ever to hit those islands.

That storm literally flattened whole islands in that group. If such a storm were to hit either Portland or Seattle the death toll would easily exceed tons of thousand and destroy billions of dollars of infrastructure. More recently, a typhoon struck the big island of Hawaii for the first time in 24 years.

As recent international conferences and scientific papers have pointed out, we must reduce the carbon dioxide pollution of our planet’s atmosphere. We as a species brought this crisis upon ourselves. We can correct the issues by converting to solar power as much as possible. Our use of excessive amounts of agricultural fertilizers has to be controlled.

Our excessive use of the oceans as a dumping ground for our economic activities must end. Our continuing destruction of our forest lands must stop. We have to reverse the effects of our past activities so that natural systems can restore themselves to provide the services we have always depended on to help us create a healthy environment. These observations certainly tell us that whatever the cause of rising temperature we have no choice but to reduce our input to the problem.

The most difficult part of this difficult problem is that we must confront our own choices about the number of children we conceive. Birth control with current technology allows us to take better care of the children we chose to have.

Our children need a much more comprehensive education so they can be a more effective part of a Democratic society. All of us need to better understand the scientific method and why it must be a part of our every day thinking process. Our lives are not governed by mysticism, but by natural laws that we can discover. Some of these natural laws were discovered thousands of years ago, which relate to how we interact with each other.

We need to get our state officials to understand that we can reduce our carbon dioxide generation. The first key is a comfortable, convenient public transportation network powered by electricity generated from solar sources. The initial cost is quite expensive, but a small fraction of what a typhoon’s damage would cost.

One international study points out that appropriate global actions will actually save money compared to doing nothing. By organizing public concerns, we should be able to get the federal government to provide assistance in this place for the entire West Coast. The president recently started an initiative to gain global political support for this kind of thinking. We could be a major beneficiary of this plan. If we sit on our hands or place them over our mouths to silence our voices, we will suffer greatly for our lack of action.

Based on these findings, we have little time to lose. We must act now.

Walter Brooks Jr. and Carolyn Brooks, Federal Way