by Ernie McCray
Oh, the weather.
Winds and snows
and tornadoes
wreaking unspeakable harm,
while, at the same time,
we pray for the rains to fall
to protect us from
firestorms
that transform
our woodlands
into acres of
charred terrain,
its flames
leaving towns
as darkened
burnt-out memories.
Mother Nature
flexing,
reacting to whatever
comes into play
in the vastness
of her atmosphere,
compelled by what
we do or don’t do,
to melt the ices
causing the seas to rise
and the winds to blow
with forces
that more and more
seem to have
no boundaries,
making the fires move
at unbelievably fantastic speeds –
all of it
right before our very eyes,
eyes slow to recognize
that we need to take
what’s happening seriously,
that it is only going to increase
in intensity
especially considering
that, basically,
we’ve turned our back
to utilizing
more sources of environmentally
sustainable energy
that can better help us
confront the changes
in our climate,
which begs the question:
“How can we weather
the storms of climate change
if we don’t change?”
{ 4 comments… read them below or add one }
In a nutshell, no, Ernie, we will not weather the storms of Global Warming at all well because we already aren’t doing so hot.
The only people who have the power to make the really significant impacts towards even mitigating what we are facing have not changed their thirst for ever-increasing profits at all costs. As so many studies have shown, there is a certain type of personality that tends to rise to the top in corporations. In poorer communities they become serial killers.
Our industrial-based lifestyle is in full-force; CO2 and other GHGs continue to soar, and our enormous oil-sucking military machine continues to be the largest single emitter of CO2 on the planet. Nor have there been any effective attempts to lower our population growth rate which directly relates to how much finite resources are used every day. A million new mouths every 2-3 days? Wow.
And as a recent article stated, there isn’t enough lithium on the planet to build all the batteries needed for the future. Probably one of the reasons why Elon Musk stated he was in favor of the RW coup in Bolivia since that country has large amounts and the elected government was talking about nationalizing the mines for their own people’s profit rather than US corporations. His corporation.
CO2 hit 421ppm this last summer at the observatory in Hawai’i. At 11,000 feet! The last time this planet saw that was…our ancestors weren’t even a distinct species yet.
I posted a reply to a climate article in 2018 with three links:
https://obrag.org/2018/07/the-taboo-on-talking-climate-change/#comment-462565
The arctic news link’s most recent article? Read only if you already are aware of the Arctic Methane because it’s pretty grim science.
I would also suggest to read Dr. Andrew Glikson’s work. And the latest from the Russian Arctic expert Smelnikov(sp?) which I can’t find the link to (damn Windows 10!).
Some days Ernie, weathering is just ducking for cover. Our species caused this but the oil barons’ own secret documents showed they knew it was coming back in the 60s. We COULD have done something then, or started a serious worldwide effort but profits and greed… Reagan took the solar panels off the White House that Pres Carter put up. What more is there to say to that?
Be sure to do something fun every day. I don’t have any answers, just more questions and a large suitcase full of worries for the younger folks future. I will not live to see the worst of what’s coming. That 30 year lag time between emissions and physical consequences is going to be a bitch.
sealintheSelkirks
Nearly 3,300 San Diego Gas & Electric customers lost power in Ocean Beach, Sunset Cliffs, Point Loma, Midway and Lindbergh Field Tuesday morning.
The utility says power is expected to be restored by 3 p.m. Crews are assessing what caused the outage.
America’s Finest City? Maybe not. Power was down briefly Tuesday afternoon in one beach area of La Jolla — the third outage in the same region in the last month, the first one lasting eight hours past midnight. The latest event followed a water main break in the same neighborhood last week.
The comedian Lewis Black and his rant on people who don’t want to understand Global Warming. I watched it again last night after reading the latest science on the what’s left of the disappearing Arctic Ice Sheet (UCSD researcher says summer 2022/23 a likely Blue Ocean Event), the Antarctic’s massive Thwaites Glacier pending collapse and the ocean ice sheet ‘plug’ keeping it on land that’s losing cohesion, the first ever rain on the very top of Greenland at 10,000 feet that covered the entire island last summer, and a little more on the record-breaking longest tornado on the ground ever that recorded Friday a week ago and the follow-up massive windstorm last Wednesday.
The Rant is Due, Best of Climate Change
https://youtu.be/-pUpVF1AlHQ
Warning: he pulls no punches and uses effective cursing. And makes you laugh at the gross stupidity somehow. I don’t think I’ve put up this short compilation of his on-stage skits before.
sealintheSelkirks