I arrived in the sixties. It was common to have snowy winters. The Northeast of the United States had clear and distinct seasons. Nearly sixty years later, the world is a different place. There is a global network of information, but it came with a cost.

Life continues at breakneck speeds with the simple of life being lost in the grand scheme of things. I just read about the European heat wave of 2003. In my busyness of life, raising two boys, working full time and and trying to keep a marriage going, I missed the news feed of this catastrophe, and lost my marriage in the barrage.

It was a simple case and point, that if the earth were to find temperatures hovering above 40 ºC (104 ºF), human life would cease to exist. Nearly 15,000 people died during that heat wave.

Scientific predictions and projections and studies with hard evidence surface yearly claiming that we are headed for the cooker if we don’t do something, like now. Even if we were to turn everything off and just let the sun shine, they claim the temperature will still increase. We just don’t have the technology to remove the green house gases. There just isn’t enough of nature and plants and trees to sequester the gases back into the earth. Our oceans, a major sequester is also in danger.

Even this post is a contributing factor. My computer, the Internet, the technology that brings my words into your mind, are all causes of climate change.

So what can we do? What can I do to make a change and perhaps mitigate the eventual discomfort we are all about to experience?

I can be more economical with my use of energy and resources. I can support those that are trying to make a difference, using green energy where possible. I can recycle to preserve natural resources, but even recycling uses energy and contributes to climate change.

Perhaps I just walk away from the all of it. Turn off the lights, leave the keys in my car, and just find my way back to nature, live in harmony with the earth. It all sounds so simple, but the truth of matter is that we, as a modern society have never lived in harmony with nature. We would have to look at indigenous cultures and how they lived, primitive and without convenience, expending energy to just survive.

I feel this is the only way. Anything else would fall short and like I said earlier, even if we were to shut everything off, temperatures will still rise until the earth can find an equilibrium once again.

So I know this isn’t one of my normal posts. It’s not loving story or poem or thought or ponder, but a wake up call for myself and for others.  A call to say, make a change in your life.

Do anything that moves towards a simpler way of living. It will take everyone of us to keep life afloat and keep us out of the cooker. We can only hope that our efforts will get us through this next transition of the earth’s climate. We can only hope, that what we do, will make a difference.

What will you do?

❤