Instead, nature is the teacher and classes are in session
Is the sky falling?
I have lived in Texas since 2010.
I had previously been a visitor for three decades.
To me, it has always been hot and dry.
The leather seats in my car have threatened me with third-degree burns on more than one occasion. Before I moved here, I wouldn’t dare visit during the summer months.
Then when we moved here, the first year, Gee and I said, no way we would make it here. It was a far cry from New York. It seemed we landed in HELL, but we stayed on, life is good.
Is the damage already done?
This year, 2022 has been the worst drought I have witnessed.
The land is dry and moaning, the trees are dying. The soil has long moved away from the foundations.
There are small craters in the yards and sidewalks. The arid soil has contracted and the sidewalks have moved away from each other as if even they are trying to flee the hot dry climate.
We have had to purchase soil to pack the craters, especially against the foundations.
So added to the inflation we are all facing, there is the enormous water bill and now the required sand purchase to plug the craters and keep your home intact.
We bought a new home in 2018 since the soil was recently packed, that one is fearing better.
The older one we bought in 2004 is the worst for wear. The foundation needs a lot more babying.
In both spaces, we’ve planted fruit trees and a garden.
Each year we reap a bountiful harvest.
This year it is different.
How will first-world residents cope with food shortage?
As usual, our garden is in place.
But the bounty is anything but plentiful.
Zilch, nada, nothing much. The land is not cooperating, it is too dry.
This year I have spent the summer watering those plants like never before.
The water seems just sufficient enough to keep them alive,
Because it is so hot the water evaporates quickly. By lunchtime, the leaves have deflated and flopped over. The plants look a sorry sight. So, I being the human sprinkler system, run out and gives them a drink.
The plants are flowering but the yield has been minimal. The small fruits dry in the heat of the sun.
This year, Texas is giving it a run for its life.
Is the world getting hotter or not?
According to earthobservatory.nasa.gov, air temperatures on Earth have been rising since the Industrial Revolution. While natural variability plays some part, the preponderance of evidence indicates that human activities — particularly emissions of heat-trapping greenhouse gases — are mostly responsible for making our planet warmer.
According to an ongoing temperature analysis led by scientists at NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS), the average global temperature on Earth has increased by at least 1.1° Celsius (1.9° Fahrenheit) since 1880. The majority of the warming has occurred since 1975, at a rate of roughly 0.15 to 0.20°C per decade.
Nine of the ten hottest years or record have occurred in the past decade.
Let that sink in — 9 of the 10 hottest years have occurred within the past 10 years!
I can say Texas has contributed to that number in a significant way.
The sheer number of new constructions has been astounding. Everywhere I look there is a sea of new construction.
The concrete jungle grows wider and the natural jungle gets abused. The trees that would naturally absorb carbon dioxide, are cut down and replaced with concrete which sends even more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.
A continuous losing cycle destined to create even more heat in the atmosphere.
We have eyes yet we refuse to see
In my birth country of Guyana, South America, you could set your watch by the seasons.
This past year it has rained consistently, causing minimal crops to be harvested.
As a large producer of rice and sugar to name a few, the heavy rains have killed much of the farming causing steep price increases in conjunction with the flow of inflation to an already economically strained people.
Additionally, the Chinese are raping nature.
They do it with the full knowledge and approval of the Guyana government.
Cutting the trees to take to China, they mine for gold, diamond, bauxite, and other precious minerals. This creates huge craters in the once pristine and untouched Amazonian land.
In times past the natives and other locals were free to mine these precious stones in small quantities. They did so respectfully and in tandem with nature.
Since the Chinese have extended their claws all over the globe it seems that Guyana is not exempt.
They are monopolizing the lands and the Guyanese peoples; the rightful heirs have been banned from mining. Now they are employed by Chinese companies. Their pockets searched at the end of each shift, constantly watched by security officers carrying weapons.
Destroying the land and filling the unscrupulous government leaders’ pockets with under-the-table monies while the native people live in the mire of poverty.
They are forcefully utilizing lands forever occupied by the native Amerindians.
The Guyanese government is literally giving the lands to investors best able to grease their never-ending pockets and sweaty palms.
Greed is leading to man’s demise.
Final thoughts
We are extremely greedy at heart.
We never seem to have enough, further to that we are the most idiotic creations on this planet.
This is THE only home we know, and how do we appreciate and honor it, by abusing it!
The people WE place in power to rule seem to be the worse of the worst.
Their greed knows no bounds.
How many billions does one need while selling native lands to strangers and leaving the descendants homeless?
The earth grows hotter, a child can see that.
We thought we would leave this mess for our children to deal with, but nature is beating us to the punch, and we are forced to swallow the bitter pills of our own creation.
Droughts, floods, mudslides, wildfires, hunger, and death.
Nature is fighting back and we all know how this will end — she will win!
We may continue to bury our heads in the sands of greed, and allow a few soulless ones to lie to us even as we see the truth while nature packs us up and ships us into the arms of no man’s land…
Other civilizations have come and gone.
A fitting place for us since we seem to love nothing and learn even less with each progressive generation.
Though warming has not been uniformed across the planet, the upward trend in the globally averaged temperature shows that more areas are warming than cooling. According to NOAA’s 2021 Annual Climate Report the combined land and ocean temperature has increased at an average rate of 0.14 degrees Fahrenheit ( 0.08 degrees Celsius) per decade since 1880; however, the average rate of increase since 1981 (0.18°C / 0.32°F) has been more than twice that rate.
The amount of future warming Earth will experience depends on how much carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases we emit in the coming decades.
Today, our activities — burning fossil fuels and clearing forests — add about 11 billion metric tons of carbon (equivalent to a little over 40 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide) to the atmosphere each year.
Because that is more carbon than natural processes can remove, atmospheric carbon dioxide increases each year
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If you made it to the end of this story, thank you. These words kept pouring out like the rain I wish would fall here in Texas.
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Pene Hodge is a mom, a nurse, a writer. She writes because she must. She loves people and is committed to sharing and gleaning knowledge for the betterment of all.
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