Reminder: 290 and 67. The 290 represents how many U.S. House of Representatives members it takes to override a presidential veto (all Representatives are up for reelection this year). It takes 67 U.S. Senators to override a presidential veto (35 Senators are up for reelection this year with 22 of those being Republicans—the ones we have to concentrate on the most). These numbers are very important this year at the ballot box because it will take this number of votes to help right this vast ship of a country for all of us, not just the billionaire class.
Last week my husband and I traveled to Indianapolis for the Drum Corps International World Championship Finals. It is an annual trek and is attended by thousands of drum corps and band enthusiasts from around the country and the world.
Inevitably, being summer in the midwest, it rains, and often it pours. This year was no exception, with some rain, but only one major downpour. That is until the Tuesday when we were getting ready to leave.
While we were waiting at the airport, I was scrolling through Facebook. As I was scrolling, I started to see quite a few posts, pictures, and videos from where I grew up in Ohio. There was major flooding occurring as they had received something like six inches of rain in less than 24-hours with more expected to come.
It was then that an announcement about a flight being loaded came over the loud speaker. The gate attendant was telling people to please hurry in their loading so the flight could take off before a bad storm coming through arrived, which would delay the flight (our flight had already been delayed by 30-minutes).
My smart husband, hearing this, saw the flight was going to where we needed to connect and got us on the flight so we could avoid any additional delays that might cause us to miss our connection. This was quite prescient because, even though we got on the earlier flight, which didn’t beat the storm after all, causing an hour delay to the flight, we still made it in plenty of time for our connection. Those on our original flight would not be so lucky as the flight ended up being delayed by about two hours.
So, you are wondering, where is this leading? Although Indiana now has major flooding across the state, it was a post about my Ohio hometown area that made me engage where I normally wouldn’t.
People kept posting, in regards to the flooding pictures around the area, about how one of the affected area’s elected officials were spending money, such as so many millions to build a much needed new high school, or the millions spent on a new firehouse. It appeared they were complaining that the city hadn’t spent funds more appropriately to fix an area always prone to flooding during a little bit of heavy rain. However, these storms were not the usual kinds of storms, they were storms dumping huge amounts of rain in very short periods of time (like the six inches in less than 24-hours of this storm).
These comments got me for some reason, maybe because these storms and the resulting flooding cannot be fixed by City Hall. These storms are scientifically proven to be the signs and results of climate change. As the science shows, the more heat generated by the planet, which we are having record breaking heat this year (and the past several years), which sucks the water right out of the ground. That excess moisture (common evaporation) is collected by the clouds and must go somewhere, which results in storms with massive amount of water the cloud can’t hold, resulting in excessive rain falling in short periods of time rather than a steady rain over several days.
What caused my reaction was what felt like a lack of critical thinking about what has been happening over just my short lifetime, and the lifetimes of the people who reacted to my comment.
If anyone over the age of, let’s say, 40-ish, stops to think about what the weather was like for them growing up in Ohio, they can compare then to now. When I was growing up, we had four distinct seasons. To be sure there were times of heavy rain over extended periods of time causing flooding, but not like now. Rain was also rare in the winter time. Growing up we had blizzards and lots of snow from at least November sometimes into March. And when it snowed, it didn’t melt overnight, it could take weeks, sometimes months if cold enough, for the snow to go away.
Now, my hometown rarely gets major snowstorms, nor does the snow stick around (which causes flooding due to the quick melting). When it does snow now, it can be many inches, but all at once like the rainstorms, rather than accumulations over several days. Then as quickly as it fell, it melts just as quickly. These are all the result of climate change.
When one of the responders to my comment told me to “lay off the crack pipe,” I felt really sad and also resigned to the fact that there are people who can’t be reached, or can’t be bothered to both notice what has happened in their lifetimes, or what the science says overwhelmingly. It makes me seriously wonder if we are going to survive as a species, or to what extent Mother Nature is going to take to rid itself of what she most likely considers a major parasite, humans.
The frustrating part is there is still a small window of time where we as a species could slow and reverse climate change. But, until people put two and two together, believe the science and that humans really are to blame, then take personal and collective action with behaviors and consumption, the only result will be loss of life, livelihoods, food and water, and extreme extinction of plants and animals. As humans, we still haven’t learned that Mother Nature has, and always will, win in the end. Which of us is “on the crack pipe” in the end?
Until we learn this lesson and work with, rather than against, her, we will continue the insanity of doing what we have always done expecting a different result. Go figure…
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