“At any minute it is what we are and are doing, not what we plan to be and do that counts.” – J. R. R. Tolkien
I’m angry. Angry to the point of having headaches. To the point of not sleeping. I’m fed up with a world that seems hell-bent on destroying everything beautiful and possible, and for what? Greed? Fear?
Judge Brett Kavanaugh never should have been nominated to the Supreme Court, much less appointed. Even if we shelve the allegations of sexual misconduct leveled at him (which we shouldn’t; those should have been thoroughly examined), it was a hasty and botched attempt to push through a man who lied under oath and proved himself to be wildly partisan and temperamental.
This is our best and brightest?
The highest court in the land deserves better. And U.S. citizens deserve better than senators who dismiss their protests as the grousing of “these people“.
We’re your constituents, jackass. You’ll get my respect when we have yours.
On the heels of a political process intended to win at the great cost of dividing a nation even further, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) released its report on climate change.
“Limiting global warming to 1.5ºC would require rapid, farreaching and unprecedented changes in all aspects of society,” the IPCC said in a new assessment. With clear benefits to people and natural ecosystems, limiting global warming to 1.5ºC compared to 2ºC could go hand in hand with ensuring a more sustainable and equitable society, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) said on Monday.
After consulting the world’s best scientists and examining all of the evidence and information available, the IPCC has concluded we need to take drastic and immediate steps to avoid catastrophe – as in, the exponential slide toward the destruction of our planet.
This is our life-support system they’re talking about. Half a degree is the difference between life as we (almost) know it, and apocalyptic changes.
And the response of the general public? Many people rallied. Most people seemed to put their heads in the sand, either not reading the report or washing their hands of our collective future, despairing that there seems to be nothing we can do, so why bother trying? And then there are the people who deny climate change altogether, classifying it as “weather” and “normal patterns”.
“But the special horror of the present world is that the whole damned things is one bag. There is nowhere to fly to.” J. R. R. Tolkien.
How right he is. We will all find out very soon that borders mean little and we are all nestled in the same basket.
The thing that kills me, that keeps me up at night, is that it could have been very different. Last week, Chris and I visited the Oceanographic Museum in Monaco, a champion for marine conservation since its creation in 1910.
In 1902, eight years before this beautiful museum was even built, Albert I of Monaco said: “The duty of oceanography is to detect the hazards caused in all countries by the overexploitation, whether poorly regulated or improperly monitored, of the resources of the sea.”
1902.
Many people, including Theodore Roosevelt, early on saw the necessity for preserving and protecting wild places, and the creatures that call those places home. They are everything from our lungs to our beating heart, and once gone, they are gone forever.
And it still *can* be different. Every day makes a difference. And it is what we choose to do today that counts.
Taking action is the only solution to anger and despair, and if the IPCC report (and Kavanaugh confirmation) tells us anything, it is that we can no longer afford apathy.
Vote. That’s a great place to start. Vote for representatives who acknowledge climate change and demand we make changes, representatives who support conservation. Politics follows trends: if environmentalism is essential for holding office, they will fall into line. Right now, they are being paid more to ignore it. We need to make that costly for them.
Do whatever you can today to minimize your single-use plastics and energy consumption. Educate yourself, even if the reading is grim, and try to spread the word. Support science and scientific and conservation projects.
We can all do our part, and the collective “we” is greater than any political party or special interest group.
Let’s wake up and save this planet of ours. It’s beautiful. Unique. Precious. It’s looked after us for generations. Time to return the favor.