Is There a Future?

I’m 87, old by any definition.  I can’t even fool around about it any longer. I used to say I was still 39, but in my 46^th 39^th year?? So, now I’m in my 49^th 39^th year?? Yeah, Haha. So, my age always creeps into my thoughts whenever I try to think about tomorrow, or, heavens, Next Year? Yeah, who knows? The Shadow doesn’t even know.

But, until maybe the Pandemic, I could at least imagine the future for my kids or grandkids, and even my Great Grandkids. See, they have an expanse of life in front of them, whereas I have . . . well who knows?

And then that Pandemic thing hit us a couple of years ago. And we had to get vaxxed, and then boosted, and then wear masks everywhere. And we really couldn’t comfortably gather in groups, especially indoor groups.  And so, that future thing became cloudy at best.  Still, the younger sets could still look forward to a future maybe free of masks. I mean that 1918 flu was really awful. According to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC):

“The 1918 influenza pandemic was the most severe pandemic in recent history. It was caused by an H1N1 virus with genes of avian origin. Although there is not universal consensus regarding where the virus originated, it spread worldwide during 1918-1919.  In the United States, it was first identified in military personnel in spring 1918.

It is estimated that about 500 million people or one-third of the world’s population became infected with this virus. The number of deaths was estimated to be at least 50 million worldwide with about 675,000 occurring in the United States. Mortality was high in people younger than 5 years old, 20-40 years old, and 65 years and older. The high mortality in healthy people, including those in the 20-40 year age group, was a unique feature of this pandemic.”

So, we are at least in the same league. We in the US are now approaching one million COVID deaths, and, although it seems to be moderating, it ain’t over til it’s over.

And then we are reading and beginning to see signs of Climate Change.  From the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF)

“The global warming that’s changing our climate is already having dire consequences.

In just the past few decades:

Rising temperatures have worsened extreme weather events.

Chunks of ice in the Antarctic have broken apart.

Wildfire seasons are months longer.

Coral reefs have been bleached of their colors.

Mosquitoes are expanding their territory, able to spread disease.

What’s causing these harmful changes?

It’s mainly us.

We humans are the ones who burn fossil fuels and chop down forests, causing average temperatures to rise worldwide. That global warming trend is increasingly disrupting our climate — the average weather over many years.

Earth has already warmed by about 1 degree Celsius, or 1.8 degrees Fahrenheit, since the 19th century, before industry started to boom.

While we experience the effects, we’re on our way toward 1.5 degrees C (2.7 F) by as early as 2030.

Why a half-degree more is such a big deal

Climate change is breeding storms with heavier rainfall, flooding farms — such as this one, which grows cotton.

A warmer world — even by a half-degree Celsius — has more evaporation, leading to more water in the atmosphere. Such changing conditions put our agriculture, health, water supply and more at risk.

Picture a North Carolina cotton farm that’s been around since 1960, with global average temperatures rising by roughly half a degree since it grew its first crop.

The increased evaporation and additional moisture to the atmosphere has led to 30% more intense rain during heavy downpours in that part of the U.S.

Then a hurricane like 2018’s Florence — already strengthened by warmer oceans and higher seas — dumps this excess rainfall on the farm. The crops get more flooded and damaged than they did half a century ago.

It's how you go from half-degree of warming to economic hardship.”

And we are already experiencing the early effects of our changing climate.  Wild fires in California, extreme weather events delivering heavy storms and flooding in several parts of the globe. For example, in Australia, New South Wales has been experiencing flooding such as they have never seen before.

And so we cope with a deadly pandemic and we face a near-time future of catastrophic weather that seems to want to interrupt our entire lifetimes. And now I begin to worry not about my limited future, but the very futures of my grandkids and great grandkids. And people say, “oh, stop worrying and enjoy today.”  And I am thinking, “well because folks aren’t worrying, and enjoying today, we may have no tomorrow”. We actually need to begin today to act so as to combat this warming trend.  Instead we have idiot-malenfants like Bolsanaro in Brazil overseeing the cutting down of the Amazon rainforest. And what will that do?  From The Guardian:

“The collapse of the Amazon rainforest is inevitable if Jair Bolsonaro remains president of Brazil, academics and environmental activists have warned amid a fresh government assault on protections for the forest.  Despite evidence that fire, drought and land clearance are pushing the Amazon towards a point of no return, they say the far-right leader is more interested in placating the powerful agribusiness lobby and tapping global markets that reward destructive behaviour.

Since Bolsonaro took power in 2019, deforestation and fire in the Amazon have risen to their highest levels in more than a decade. The past three months have continued that trend, though slightly behind last year’s peaks. Given the tinder-dry conditions in many parts of the Amazon, there are fears that the usual peak of the fire season in July and August could be worse than usual.

Scientists suspect the rainforest may be slipping into a series of vicious cycles. At a local level, land clearance and burning led to extended droughts and higher temperatures, which in turn weakens the resilience of the ecosystem and leads to more fire.

At a regional level, this can intensify drought because the respiration of the rainforest normally acts as a pump to drive humid weather systems across a wide area of Brazil, South America and the Atlantic. When the forest weakens, that pump is less effective.

There are also global repercussions because land clearance is turning the Amazon region from climate friend to climate foe. A study published in Nature reveals forest burning now produces about three times more CO2 than the remaining vegetation is able to absorb. This accelerates global heating.”

So this is what happens when you act like tomorrow will take care of itself, while you continue to enjoy today.

And so, I wonder about tomorrow.

And then Vlad the Impaler enters our world, via an invasion of the Ukraine. Now the Ukrainians did not do anything to inspire Vlad, aside maybe from stiffing him. See, Vlad thinks of the Ukraine as part of Russia, because it was at one time. He seems to want Imperial Russia back in the world, only bigger and more powerful. He thinks he got stiffed at the end of WW II, and even more so with collapse of that Soviet Union, that began in 1989 and carried into 1992. Russia was different, and Vlad would say “lessened” after that period. He wishes to move back in time.  And so, with Ukraine acting increasingly independent of Russian influence, and increasingly friendly towards the West, Vlad decided to invaded, just because he could. And now we face a World War of currently unknown proportions.

And I began thinking of the Ukrainians. Suppose you are a citizen there of any age. Have you any future at all?  You have the COVID pandemic laying folks to rest, but more immediately, you have Vlad the Impaler ordering the murder of innocent civilians by bombing them into oblivion. Or maybe just shooting them on the streets of some Ukraine city. And why? Well, because he can, and he just feels like it. And so those folks have no idea whether there will even be a tomorrow for them.

And that’s the state of our sorry planet at the present time.  Such a happy place, huh?  And how will this all end? That’s a tale for tomorrow, I think, because at the moment, nobody knows how the Russian cataclysm will end, or even, IF it will end.

And meanwhile, our republican front, led by Donald Trump, applauds Vlad’s work –“Genius” one says. Huh. Really folks?? And so, I am supposed to stop worrying about tomorrow, and make believe that today is just fine.  How am I supposed to do that??