The Melting Pot
I am not a climate activist. That is to say, while I try to do my part—recycle, use energy sparingly—I don’t spout angry epithets on paper or in person as a daily crusade. I don’t bombard congress with strong suggestions to save the planet.
But I do understand that multi-billion dollar industries have tried to guilt the general population into thinking we are the ones responsible for saving our earth. Then they produce plastics that cannot be recycled but have us turning circles to figure out how to get rid of them.
And I remember all those legislators who refused to believe (or at least refused to publicly admit they believed) that climate change was real. I hope they have now been forced to face reality.
Recently, my car thermometer told me it was 107 degrees. Maybe the thermometer exaggerates—maybe not. That same day, I talked to my daughter Down Under. She said the temperature in Melbourne was colder than it had been in decades. A symptom of climate change.
And the temperature extremes have us moving in the wrong direction, relative to the cure. One very hot day in Britain, when people (and roads and railways) were melting, newscasters explained that British households are not equipped with air conditioners. The way USA homes so commonly are.
This jarred me into recalling that I do actually have a window unit in one small room, and I turned it on. Now, when the kitchen and living room are at 95°, I can take a break in the “music room” where the instruments are basking in a more reasonable climate. Tootsie-the-Wonder-Dog has been grateful—and has learned to open the bi-fold door that separates the cool room from Hades.
Then it occurred to me that as our world gets hotter (and colder) we will be using more and more energy to compensate. At some point even the Brits might air condition their buildings as a matter of course.
I went to visit my mother in the hospital recently. She kept complaining of the cold and wishing she could go outside in the 100° heat. I kept covering her with fuzzy blankets. In July. Am I the only one who sees the absurdity in this?
So I have given up. It’s bigger than me and my 95° house with all its windows open. I watch deer in my flower garden and no longer chase them away. They’re hungry, and there isn’t much out there to eat. I have even been tempted to put a tub of water in the garden bed so they can have something to drink, too. But I don’t want to encourage mosquitoes. (Why don’t I sympathize with mosquitoes?)
I am writing at 6 a.m., under the ceiling fan, breeze blowing through the open window, thinking about moving back to the seashore. I’ve already lost one home to a vicious hurricane, but if the choices are to swelter inland while the landscape turns brown, or wait for a windstorm to wash me out to sea, I think I’d prefer watching the gulls diving for fish in the interim. Unless the ocean has become too warm to support seafood.
Maybe young people, who can’t remember the time before central heat and air, will see this as a new frontier, and continue the fight. But I’m tired. And fear humans might be a day late and a dollar short.
I learned the USA is the “Melting Pot,” but I got the meaning all wrong.