It's Raining! It's Pouring! The Old Man is Worried!

I have seen a mighty river.

No, that's just the road next to my house.  For clarification, the picture above is not my side road.  It's a representative of the flood conditions that are becoming more common in our country, and across the world.

Part of this is due to population increasing near flood zones.  Part of this is MORE areas can be considered flood zones, as climate change increases and global weather patterns change.

Even though sometimes there is an inch or two of sheen across a road near us, we are not in immediate threat of flooding.  We have a lake/pond about two blocks away that could rise a bit but has a pretty effective drainage system (making it someone else's problem).

So, since the risk is minimal to me, why should I care about others?  Not my problem.

Yeah.  Is that how you like to live your life?  Only care about a crisis unless immediately hits you and your loved ones?  No, I don't think most of us are built that way.

It is a shame that climate change/global warming has been caught up as a partisan issue.  It is not.  It is the gravest crisis civilization faces. 

Earlier, maybe a decade and a half ago, we did seem to be moving towards a consensus.  In 2006, there was even a series of public service announcements that included a Republican and a Democrat appearing together to endorse doing something about climate change.  One of the PSAs had Newt Gingrich and Nancy Pelosi appearing together.

Then right-wing extremists decided to make it a wedge issue, cozying up to the fossil fuel industry, and deploying an army of Christian Reich pastors, that as the evidence of climate change increased, the path toward joint efforts decreased.

In 2019 the window to stop this nightmare is almost closed.  We can no longer avoid the transformation that is going to occur, we can only mitigate it.  And we only have about a decade left to even do that.

We currently have an administration that is not trying to stop global warming.  They are doing nothing to slow it.  They are indeed, intentionally or not, doing everything they can to speed it up.  Our racist President is one of those ignorant people who think the fact that it snows in winter means that climate change is not real.

No, what tells us it is real is the increasing global temperature average across the planet.  June 2019 was the hottest June on record.  What tells us it is real are the already rising sea levels.  What tells us it is real is the mass extinction of many species.  What tells us it is real is the dramatic increase in extreme weather events.  What tells us it is real is the destabilization of agriculture in many places.  What tells us it is real is the fact that the one area of government that, even under right-wing pressure, is the military, making plans based on the acceleration of global warming. What tells us it is real is an overwhelming scientific consensus that it is real.

I could go on and on, but if you're determined to ostrich the issue, head buried in the sand, you either stopped reading, or you are assiduously ignoring it.  Change is too hard.  Change is just an excuse for liberals to push us around.

Yeah.  Keep telling yourself that as floods creep towards your road, or as the sea level rise consumes your beach house, or as animals disappear from the face of the Earth, as food prices rise, as climate refugees have to relocate by the millions because parts of the planet have become uninhabitable, as other more forward-thinking nations become the new energy leaders and America slides to second or even third-world status.

On the other side, though, you'll have gotten to snot off some of those fancy damn liberals.

Hope that helps keep you cool.