Weathered Newsletter №2

It’s been a while since I sent you all an edition of the Weathered Newsletter. In all honesty, I forgot about it because I’ve been swamped with taking care of my aging mother while juggling family life and work. I’m sure many of you in similar situations can relate and I feel for you!

Just because I’ve been busy with life doesn’t mean I’ve ignored the extreme heat and crazy ocean water temperatures we’ve been having. I’ve been following the news reports about 101F ocean temperatures in Florida and the Antarctic sea ice collapses. The sad part is that El Nino hasn’t fully kicked in yet and we can expect an even wilder hurricane season this year.

All over social media (but not much on the news) I see young people freaking out about what’s happening. They’re pissed and concerned about how the weather and global life support systems are starting to destabilize.

They’re mad at the politicians and their misguided policies. They can’t understand why we’re not “doing something,” and I agree. What are we doing? Nothing.

We’re still pumping CO2 in the air (and that doesn’t include other greenhouse gases like methane) like business as usual. We’re just now climbing higher than our 2019 peak oil consumption.

I get it, it’s hard to pivot off this cheap energy, but what are the alternatives? Solar farms and windmills? That’s all a bunch of greenwashing at a mass scale. Building acres of solar farms or wind farms just spreads a different level of toxicity around. You have to mine and process all those rare earth minerals. That generates toxic water that has to be stored but usually ends up leeching into the groundwater.

Damned if we don’t and damned a different way if we do. It’s so frustrating that I feel helpless sometimes.

Yet, I believe that all is not lost.

Last week I wrote “We’ve Tipped But All Is Not Lost” and I truly believe it. While things might not look good, there’s still time and things we can do at all levels if we team up together.

Here’s a short list of the things we can do, right now.

First, we need to elect politicians who will support and vote for sensible climate change policies.

Second, we demand term and age limits for all politicians and judges, including the SCOTUS. I’m tired of angry white men who are out of touch with reality, dictating our lives.

Third, we have to support women’s rights. We have to roll back the dangerous laws governing women’s medical healthcare and make sure they have unfettered, unharassed, and safe access to abortions.

Fourth, we have to organize amongst ourselves. We have to join with like-minded people and start making our communities sustainable.

Fifth, we need to ride bicycles more.

Sixth, we need to stop having children. One and done is fine but we need to collapse the global population to 2 billion or fewer people, and finally;

Seventh, we need to grow more of our own food again and learn to preserve it.

I spent another 4 hours in the emergency room with my mother yesterday. I think this was my 6th trip to the ER with my mother in the last 10 months. She’s 85 and in poor health. My sister and I whisper about eventualities, which is always a hard thing to talk about. With the sudden death of our father almost two years ago, we wonder just how much time we have left with our mother.

Last night I had a dream, more of a nightmare, seeing my mother’s face in pain. She was writhing in her hospital bed, screaming in pain from a crumbling spine. I woke up in a sweat and realized just how fragile her life is, how fragile all life is.

She grew up in a time when life was peaking. Food was plentiful and the world was stable after WW2. There was no COVID and the good times were starting. Now she’s winding down her life at the beginning of climate upheaval, at a time of warnings where famine and ecological system collapse are talked about.

She tells me that all this is prophesied, it’s what her gloom and doom religion speaks about — all the freaking time. I can’t stand her religion but she feels so righteous about it. Her crackpot religion wants to world to end because then Jesus can come back and turn it back into a paradise where they get to worship some invisible sky bully for eternity.

She has no idea that it’s all bullshit and that paradise is right here, right now.

That’s right, paradise is right here, right now, and we have to fight to keep it. The frontline is everywhere. We have to collapse our environmental footprints and stick it “to the man.” We have to change while we still can but prepare for the worst.

Right here, right now is where we must make our stand.