April 22, 2020
Today is the 50th anniversary of Earth Day. I am proud to say I’ve celebrated at least 48 of
them, possibly all 50. In 1970 Galyord Nelson – Wisconsin senator and
environmentalist – put the Earth on the map by founding Earth Day.
Tom Lehrer – Pollution
Another radical environmentalist has spoken out. This celebrity recently used his bully pulpit
to tell an interviewer, “There is an expression in Spanish: ‘God always
forgives, we forgive sometimes, but nature never forgives.’” This unrepentant tree-hugger was none other
than Pope Francis.
The Pope added, “We did not respond to the partial
catastrophes. Who now speaks of the fires in Australia, or remembers that 18
months ago a boat could cross the North Pole because the glaciers had all
melted? Who speaks now of the floods? I don't know if these are the revenge of
nature, but they are certainly nature's responses. This is the time to take the decisive step, to
move from using and misusing nature to contemplating it.” The Pope might be off a bit on his assessment;
this virus might be the Earth’s revenge for Chrump.
The anti-Pope, perhaps the anti-Christ – Donald Chrump – has
demonstrated his unwavering hatred for the environment every chance he gets,
not to mention the almost endless emission of toxic fumes from his face sphincter
(and one assumes from the bottom end of his feeding tube).
The current virus pandemic has not interfered with Chrump’s mission
to destroy the planet. Since the 24/7
news has been blindly obsessed with the coronavirus, Chrump has been able to
get away with more murder on the environmental front, as a side-hustle to his
flagrant murder-by-virus gig. Of course, it’s not
just Chrump, it is the entire Republican’t death machine, which has been fighting
against the Earth for decades.
One group of researchers, who published a commentary in the
journal Nature, warn that there is increasing evidence that irreversible
changes to the Earth's environmental systems are already in motion, and that we
are at this very moment in a “state of planetary emergency.”
A while back we discussed the Doomsday Clock, which measures
our proximity to total annihilation due to global thermonuclear war and/or
climate disaster, being closer to midnight – i.e., The End – than it has ever
been since it was created in 1947. Now there's another doomsday thing going on that just might nudge the Doomsday Clock in the wrong direction.
This clock isn't the only doomsday thing nipping at our heels
Now listen my children and you shall hear of the Doomsday
Glacier, the end is near. The Thwaits
Glacier has been nicknamed the “doomsday glacier” by scientists because of the
threat to planetary status quo its accelerating melting poses.
Thwaits “Doomsday” Glacier
It is not melting as rapidly as
the Wicked Witch of the West…yet
The world is presently ignoring an incredible lesson while
suffering through the COVID pandemic. In
a mere few weeks, the air pollution in many major cities has been drastically
reduced. Los Angeles has the cleanest
air it has seen in probably a century – at least. The drastic reduction in fossil fuel usage
has had an immediate impact. Almost no
one is talking about this. And it is
unlikely the subject will make and serious headlines any time soon, and
probably even less likely to get the exposure it deserves once things settle
down. The global climate crisis, if not
already, will surely be responsible for far more deaths than any virus ever
will.
The
Air
There might be some other good news if we choose to make it
important. For one, a massive tree-planting
movement could offset much of the dangerous carbon dioxide we are creating.
Some contend that even better than trees, massive swaths of hemp could absorb
substantial quantities of CO2, while at the same time replacing trees,
cotton and non-renewable sources of energy, which would further improve the Earth’s
health.
Plastic recovered from the
stomach of a dead sea turtle
The Netherlands-based nonprofit The Ocean Cleanup says its
latest prototype was able to capture and hold debris ranging in size from huge,
abandoned fishing gear, known as "ghost nets," to tiny microplastics
as small as 1 millimeter.
Elsewhere in the world, the absence of hairless apes from Thailand's beaches has had positive effects on sea turtles there.
Elsewhere in the world, the absence of hairless apes from Thailand's beaches has had positive effects on sea turtles there.
If the Earth could talk, it would probably tell us that
humans are nothing but ungrateful parasites, or maybe a virus. We have latched on to an unsuspecting
hostess, replicated with reckless abandon and appropriated every bit of
available sustenance with no regard whatsoever to the health, or even the very
survival of our hostess. Most viruses
learn not to kill their host because without a host, bye, bye virus. Humans as a species seem sadistically disinterested in
preserving the planet that has provided everything anyone could ever have asked
for – food, shelter and endless beauty. Nice planet we've got here, it’d
be a shame if something happened to it, but we appear bound and determined to
see to it that it does. And that, as
Dick Smothers used to say to his brother Tom, is not a compliment.
The good news for American politics is the "doomsday glacier" is melting much faster than imagined, which means the red states
are about to get much bluer when all the coasters are forced to flee inland to
escape the 10-foot rise in sea level.
The concept of a mortgage being under water will take on a whole new
meaning.
In other potentially helpful news for our planet:
I. Mangrey, Earthling, reporting.
I rest my case.
The Police – When The World Is
Running Down,
You Make The Best Of What's Still Around
You Make The Best Of What's Still Around
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