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A Matter of Time by Bert Caldwell Peninsula Daily News, July 11, 2021

There's a lesson for all of us in the collapse of the Champlain Towers.

Many knew for years the structure was deteriorating but squabbled over the degree of hazard and who would pay for the millions in repairs.

In the Northwest, we are witnessing the decline, in some watersheds catastrophic, of salmon runs but won't make the hard, expensive decisions to eliminate dams on the Snake and other rivers that block migrations to waters that were their spawning grounds for millennia.

Many populations of subspecies have become extinct.

More will follow as we discuss, discuss, discuss.

A proposal from Idaho Rep. Mike Simpson that might have moved the region toward some solutions got nowhere.

Meanwhile, our species has ignored decades-old warnings from scientists that our energy-consuming ways are heating the planet.

Will the recent triple-digit highs change our ways?

For hundreds in our region any action will come too late: They died of heat-related ailments.

We're living in a planetary condo rotting from human neglect.

It's only a matter of time.