My father-in-law would occasionally opine that younger folks had it easy. He’d say, “When I was a kid, I had to walk to school and it was uphill both ways!” As I’ve gotten older I’ve found that when I was a kid …
Recently, there’s been a thread on neighborhood social media, Nextdoor, about the weather. In essence it’s, “Has it always been this cold here?” And we old-timers cheerfully chime in, “You should have been here for the Halloween Blizzard!” Or, ” Winters just aren’t the same now. We used to get a solid month of below zero weather. Uffda, this ain’t jack!” And we’d be right. Things were different then. Our climate has changed dramatically over the last four decades.
Also, we old-farts can, regrettably, reminisce about perfect summers when the days would be hot and dry with the nights cool and refreshing. Nights when you could count on leaving the windows open to let Mother Nature provide the air conditioning. It wasn’t like that all the time, but it happened a lot. Now summers are hotter, more humid, and the weather more troubled.
We were fortunate to catch the tail end of the Holocene, a period that began about 11,000 years ago with the end of the last major Ice Age. The Holocene was marked by a mild, stable climate that was perfect for the growth of humanity.
Unfortunately, we are also standing neck deep in the first days of the Anthropocene, the first man-made geological age. We’ve altered the surface of the earth, the seas, and the atmosphere to the point that we have become a powerful geological force. Our greenhouse gases are more persistent and damaging than all but the worst natural catastrophes. Super volcanoes and asteroids crashing into the earth are about the only natural events that can compete with the long-term devastation we are visiting upon ourselves.
It doesn’t have to be this way. It will take significant changes and the discomfort of sacrificing old ways. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise. But the payoff is worth it. If we can turn this planet into a desert, we can turn it into a garden.
When I was a kid …
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