We have had some strange weather as of late. A nearby city called McAllen (part of a
sprawling, congested and otherwise colorless metroplex) suffered two devastating
hail storms a few weeks back. Local
meteorologists are predicting an active tropical storm season (in other words,
we might get a hurricane), and the drought is still upon us, although recent
rains, and hail, have moistened the ground somewhat. I see that to the northwest the state of
Arizona is already experiencing some nasty wildfires and it’s expected to get
worse since the West and Southwest had nary a winter and their drought continues
unabated. We used to never get tornadoes
in this region but four times in the last few weeks we’ve been under tornado
warnings around our place. Of course,
there’s also the sun to deal with. And
perhaps, that’s the root of our conundrum since heat—or the augmentation of hotness—is
creating not simply a condition known as “warming” but in real terms a situation
more accurately described as “chaos.” You
can use innocuous and otherwise namby-pamby terms like “climate change” in an
attempt to undermine the issue and therefore give license to continued hedonism
and recklessness. But the truth is that
things are not going well in many places, and the “let’s claim it doesn’t exist”
tactic, as well as holding up a queue of quacks to buttress such nonsense does
nothing to fix the problem. I guess it’s
inevitable that scientific data should become a political issue when empirically
derived observations conflict with our holiest held ideology, “profit no matter
the outcome.”
So here we are with droughts, hailstorms, tornadoes,
hurricanes, blizzards, floods, and soon to see water shortages, crop failures,
increased diseases (more on that in a later post), and yet at the same time we
keep digging the hole deeper and deeper.
So here’s my question: How deep do you want to make this grave?
