To Laugh or Cry.
The world is on fire, and if not in fire it's under 2 metres of water, and if it's had the good fortune to avoid fire and flood it's being blown away by hurricane force winds, tornados and typhoons. Climate scientists tell us that these extreme weather events are at least in part caused by Mankind - individually brilliant, collectively stupid - abusing planet Earth, our one and only PERSONAL LIFE SUPPORT SYTEM. Read that bit again. Climate sceptics - exemplified by USA's favourite half-wit (you know who I mean) deny humankind's role in global warming, maintaining that climate change is 'fake news' and/or 'a hoax,' while all over the world political leaders trumpet 'zero carbon by 20something' once day and do their green-washing the next - JUST CARRY ON GRANTING DRILLING LICENSES.
Now here's the funny thing. MOST PEOPLE agree that there is a problem. 'Ooo, it were terrible! We was burned out of our 'oliday 'otel.' 'Me car were floatin' down the street.' 'Granny and Granddad were buried in a mud-slide.' 'Blew the roof of me conservatory, so it did.' 'You'd enjoy Greece more is it weren't so bloody hot.' BUT HOW MANY PEOPLE do you know who have changed the way they treat their PLISS in the interest of an earth fit for their grandchildren to live in? No, once they've settled the insurance claim they resume flitting round and round the world for fun in aircraft. They buy a replacement motor twice the size they really need - SUV's are posh builders' vans. They buy an outfit for their Saturday Night Out and bin it on Monday. They cool themselves down by cranking up their air-cond - and how many people understand that AC makes matters worse.
Before starting this rant I did my washing-up. (Don't have a dishwasher . . . too polluting) Rinsing a saucepan, I thought, 'That used more pure, clean water than lots of little kids in the world get to drink in a week. Doesn't that make you want to cry?
I watch Hawaii, Portugal, Greece, Canada going up in smoke and am reminded of a line from a Peter, Paul and Mary song. back in the seventies -
'GOD SAID A FIRE NOT A FLOOD NEXT TIME . . .'
I feel like crying sometimes also. We are supposed to be the caretakers of the earth but rather we are robbing it blind. Have you been to Iceland to look at the "tectonic plate movements" lately? Wider than the crevices in the glaciers, if dirt and yuck hasn't fallen in one could fall in. I met the NASA ranter, we didn't talk about the weather although he has given talks about it and "Global Warming", ala "Climate Change". Our granddaughter, the youngest we have, and in my blog tonight, was there and he mostly chatted with her.
ReplyDeleteBTW, some, a few, call me Dr. Jim. I never enforced my student to be doing that.
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Yes I hear you! Very tear-jerking! I am quite pessimistic about the whole mankind bunch. Huge countries like China, Canada and Australia are hardly living up to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. And our small NZ is pretty bad too. It doesn't look like things are going to get better. Slowly humans will destroy themselves.
ReplyDeleteYes, it does make me want to cry. Crazy all the way around. Science fiction is real now. I appreciate your thoughts.
ReplyDeleteI had forgotten that line from Well, Well, Well ~ appropriate as we battle fires from within and without. A timely write, well done (pardon pun.)
ReplyDeleteWell, I don't know you, but this may bring some comfort: While all the TVs on Earth must be blaring on about how this summer's heat records are part of "global warming," there's nothing "global" about this summer's weather. Temperatures are not being equally distributed. Some places are seeing record *low* temperatures. I'm in one of them, and no, that's not proof of a coming ice age, either.
ReplyDeleteI'm Green, fwiw. I believed the ice age predictions. That is why I'm skeptical about the warming ones, although they're possible.
But *local* warming is an absolute fact, even in this year's cool places. I limit my electricity to one circuit. (One per person, switch on more if the family are here.) No TV, no AC, and if a rotary fan doesn't cool the computers enough, off they go for the afternoon. One summer the computers were getting daily siestas. This summer they've run every day without even the rotary fan. It's 3 p.m. in mid-August, 72 degrees Fahrenheit at the weather station. In the twentieth century that would have meant 69 or 70 degrees here. Now it means 66...and in the shopping district, with all the cars, pavement, and AD, it means 80. So Greens still have work to do...only it's local, and therefore possible.
All truth here, and no fake news! Ilove it.
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