For the longest time, power brokers on both sides of that infamous “aisle” maintained that “climate change” was a hoax, and even if not, they claimed humans were not responsible. They were partly correct.
It is Mother Nature that has caused climate change; Mother Nature IS climate. But us humans kicked Mother Nature in the behind. Now, we are paying a heavy and ominous price for our foolishness. You betcha, Buffalo Bob.
July 2021, was the hottest month, worldwide, ever recorded, including record-breaking “hotspots” in southern California. The Summer of 2021 has brought upon the world raging, uncontrollable wild fires on every continent but Antarctica.
Many areas of the world are becoming unlivable. Millions of new immigrants have already fled their homes, cities and livelihoods because of this cataclysmic devastation.
Life on Spaceship Earth requires two things: food and water. We are quickly running out of water, which means we may soon run out of food.
Continental USA is not immune from water scarcity; quite the opposite. The mighty Colorado River is indispensable to the social, economic and environmental life-blood of the American West. It runs for almost 1,500 miles, from the Rocky Mountains, snaking its way through several western states, and ending in Mexico.
All along its torturous route, the Colorado supplies life-giving water to 40 million people, irrigates millions of acres of agricultural fields using 70 percent of its flow, and produces low-carbon hydroelectricity.
Exacerbated by prolonged drought beginning in 2020, and extreme temperatures, climate change has reduced water levels in Lake Mead, the largest fresh water reservoir in the United States, to its lowest points since the Hoover Dam was built in the 1930s. For the first time in its history, Federal agencies in charge are shutting off flows from these “lakes of life” because there is not enough water to maintain the usual flow down the Colorado river’s arteries of subsistence.
An initial reduction of 20 percent is planned (what is called Tier 1), although many experts believe this extraordinary move is just an omen of greater troubles ahead. Solving this mega-problem will require unprecedented cooperation between the Federal government, multiple state governments and all the share-holders.
The tragic reality challenging the west is that detested rules, such as limiting some non-essential crops, is now unavoidable
Most of the world’s populations doesn’t have sufficient potable water, and most children of the world go hungry. As a vengeful Mother Nature continues causing wholesale destruction and havoc, really unhappy folks will continue to depart the hellholes where they struggle to eke out a living.
These hungry and very angry folks will start to pay unwelcome visits to places where they hope to make a new life. They may not be received with open arms by the folks already barely living in those places. Rather they will be unwelcomed by persons holding other kinds of “arms.” Catch my drift?
The Middle East does not have sufficient water to meet the needs of its citizens. One of many reasons the Muslim states comprising the “Middle East” are failed states, is that many are engaged in some type of warfare.
Once thriving states of Lebanon, Libya, and Syria, are no more. What a shame; the Levant, an ancient landscape comprised of these states was the birthplace of the so-called “Neolithic Revolution,” the domestication of plants and animals. This was the beginning of humans’ transition from hunter/gatherers to sedentary farmers.
And that, boys and girls, was the beginning of the overpopulation of Spaceship Earth, on which exponential increases in human overpopulation continue today at warp speed; eight billion souls and counting.
“Wake up, little Susie, wake up
Wake up, little Susie, wake up
We’ve both been sound asleep
Wake up little Susie and weep
The movie’s over, it’s four o’clock
And we’re in trouble deep
Wake up, little Susie”
We should have listened to the Everly Brothers back then. Today, there is no doubt that we are seriously “in trouble deep!” One of my political mantras is: “When all is said and done, a whole lot more gets said than done!” That is where we are today in trying to create an effective US “action plan, let alone a world-wide one, to appease Mother Nature. Lots of talk; little done or even planned.
Failure to appease her anger carries existential risks. Attending to this menace will take unprecedented cooperation from every country in the world. That has never happened in human history; can we expect a “first” miracle?”
Human-induced climate change is real and remains the greatest threat to life on Spaceship Earth. Many experts believe that the “point of no return” has already been reached for regaining normalcy for certain climate systems.
Like “little Susie,” we better wake up soon and do something miraculous to mitigate Mother Nature’s unhappiness with humankind. Her message is clear and unambiguous. Ignore it at the peril of life as we know it.
“Well, all I know is what I read in the newspapers.” – Will Rogers.
David M. Taub was Mayor of Beaufort from 1990 through 1999 and served as a Beaufort County Magistrate from 2010 to 2015. You can reach him at david.m.taub42@gmail.com.
