Amidst the typical news shenanigans as of late, out crept a nice CNN piece on population displacement due to impending climate change: https://www.cnn.com/2015/11/09/world/climate-change-create-poor-homeless/index.html.
These are the types of issues that keep me up at night, and hopefully are keeping others up at night too. It’s very easy to get wrapped up in the propaganda of climate change and go for the passive ride through this short foray we call life on Earth without doing much more than chatting about doomsday around the dinner table. Taking real action is an entirely different animal, but real action is indeed what we need.
Who is ‘we’?
Well, every living being on Earth.
It’s a fact that we are amidst a rapid rate of climate change trending towards increasing temperatures [debate on causes subject to other discussions]. What that means could have massive implications on our species by way of significant displacement. For centuries, humans have trended towards establishing civilization on and along waterways and coastlines, and for good reasons – trade routes, food sources, fertile soils, entertainment, and a pleasant day at the beach. Today, these coastal civilizations are composed of massive cities and their infrastructure – and they are in harm’s way, much the same as many ancient civilizations (now submerged) were throughout the Holocene. Sea levels have risen, cities have submerged, and humans were displaced. To think we are immune today by gawking at conspiracy flavored news on the television rather than taking action is flat-out ignorant.
Then again [sarcasm], we can take the passivist view, do nothing because our time here is short, and leave it for someone else to deal with later on. That’s fine until you read the news piece and realize that there are very well likely discussions going on about what actions can be taken to limit temperature rise to 2 degrees, rather than the projected 4 degrees, and with that X millions of lives will be spared. So, the people in power out there are essentially hedging the investment into lessening the impacts of climate change with an acceptable degree of risk – lives lost in this case – millions and millions and millions of them.
Conspiracy theories and doomsday prophecies aside, we have a very real problem. It’s fair to say we’ve already started down the slippery slope, so, where will we go?
It’s no coincidence that we have our eyes set of Mars and beyond – this ‘panspermia’ may well be what resulted in Earth becoming habitable in the first place. But why bother so long as we have our cup of coffee and flat screen tv’s at our fingertips?
It all boils down to consciousness of humanity and being afforded the opportunity to achieve human destiny. This may sound like me being a bit dreamy, but it really is as simple as sitting back to reflect and ask ‘why are we here to begin with?’ At the end of the day, and at the end of days, there’s something at the root of all of us that reminds us to keep our chins up, heads high, lending a helping hand, and trying to leave behind something better than we had for ourselves.
So, for God’s sake people – do your part. Stop blowing up airplanes, shooting little kids, consuming more than your share, and leading the life of excess…spread some good around and remember that 2 degrees is right around the corner. I’m sure fate will have its way of enacting the laws of natural selection as it has time and time again.
