My Well Started To Run Dry And I’m Freaking Out
Climate change comes for us all
Climate Change
My Well Started To Run Dry And I’m Freaking Out
I live in the New Jersey Highlands, a rare geological formation in the northwest of the state. It’s a vital area for water runoff, and groundwater recharge, and supports diverse floral and fauna in New Jersey. I love where I live but climate change is starting to wreak havoc on my beloved slice of paradise.
This summer we had a wicked drought. We’re still in a drought but we’ve been getting more rain. The reservoirs are not as low as they were before but they’re still low enough. We have a well and try to conserve water usage as much as possible. Overall, my family is pretty frugal when it comes to natural resources but we know people who waste water like no tomorrow.
When the State of New Jersey declared a drought emergency and told people to use water sparingly, the deniers all flipped their lids on Facebook. It was a liberal conspiracy! There’s no such thing as climate change! Look at all the snow we had last year! Blah, blah, blah.
They might not believe it but climate change is coming for me, them, and all of us. The real question is this, will the deniers end up taking all of us down?
After all, climate change doesn’t exist UNTIL IT HAPPENS TO ME.
I ran into my neighbor at a BBQ this summer. They live up the hill and are on a well too. They’re pretty frugal when it comes to their water use too but I was shocked when they told me they ran dry a week before.
They’re just up the road from me, sit higher up in elevation, and probably have a shallower well than I do. They’re tapping into the same groundwater reservoir I am.
They ran dry.
Over the course of the next few weeks, I began to notice a clay taste in my water. I started to freak out because it meant we were sucking up sediment from the bottom of our well. That wasn’t good news because we were starting to run dry.
We didn’t run dry but it’s a warning. A BIG FUCKING WARNING.
We got some well-needed rain after that incident. I live on the edge of a set of fractured rocks that help recharge the groundwater. The water runoff gets sucked up by the ground and then percolates into the groundwater reservoir.
The clay taste subsided but I’m still worried. I’m still worried that we haven’t learned our lesson, collectively. Deniers and the rest of us are all in this together. We need to change our ways before it’s too late and we’re getting very close to it being too late.
What happened? Nothing. As soon as the rains fell the deniers started to sprinkle their lawns again. They need to make sure they have a perfectly manicured lawn to show that they live a perfect life, in the perfect town, with the perfect family.
What bothers me is that we’re seeing more and more red warning signals and the majority of us do nothing. We expect the rains to come and they do come eventually, but what will happen when they don’t come? What will happen to all of us?
Christians and a bunch of other religions always speak of paradise, the Garden of Eden, and all this lush life and perfect world. That sounds wonderful and all but in order to get it, you have to die first and be part of the right religious affiliation.
I don’t believe in that. I believe paradise is right here, right now.
We live in a world filled with wonder and so much complexity. As far as I know, there’s no place like here in the universe.
The excellent part of our humble little world is that it self-regulates itself. It clues us to how well it’s working and warns us when things are getting out of balance.
For the first time in our known history, a bunch of apes evolved to have critical reasoning. We created science, we discovered math! We did all these wonderful things but for some strange reason, we ignore the warnings.
Our life support systems — all life support systems — are blaring a big red warning light and we continue to do nothing.
Climate change is coming. It’s coming to take us down, deniers and all.
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