13 Years

Many people are surprised to learn that I am part Haitian.  My mother was born in Port-au-Prince to a American mother and Haitian father.  She lived there until she was about 15 years old when her mother returned to New York City (her second hometown).  Many years ago, I visited my Aunt Rona who ended up marrying a Haitian artist and spending most of her life in the Caribbean.  I mostly remember that life was not easy in Haiti.  A trip up into the mountains to visit a family cabin took 3 hours over very rough roads with huge potholes that wound through the mountains with lush greenery all around.  It wasn't the distance that made it a 3-hour adventure, it was the terrain and lack of good roads.

I visited Haiti in the late 90s and stayed with my Aunt. My Aunt's house had plumbing but no running water. Stationed in the kitchen and the bathroom were multiple 5 gallon buckets that were filled at least weekly from a garden hose in the neighborhood.  Water had to be boiled for cooking and consuming but the buckets in the bathroom could be used to bath and manually flush the toilet after use.  Since I visited in the summer, the cool 'showers' were welcome relief to the end-of-day stickiness.  I use the term shower lightly because bathing consisted of using a small bowl and splashing myself with water before lathering and repeating with the small bowl to remove the soap as thoroughly as possible.  Flushing the toilet took a little more skill than I seemed to be able to learn and often had to have my aunt's help in that department.  She skillfully raised a bowl filled with water practically holding it at shoulder height then letting the water fall into the bowl like a chef sprinkling salt from above a dish to disperse it where it needed to go.  The oddity for me was having my aunt, who was often dressed rather elegantly considering the circumstances and heat in Haiti have to help me flush the toilet in this manner. 

After this eye-opening trip and witnessing the earthquake that ravaged Haiti in 2010 from the comfort of my home, I have often been known to say that when I go to the sink, turn on the faucet and water comes out, it is a good day.  Even a few years ago here in Austin when we had to boil water for several days, I still felt the same way because at least I just had to take water out of the faucet and just boil it for use.  We could still use our showers and toilets the same, luckily my daughter and I were able to adjust and I boiled water and saved it in containers around the kitchen for use when needed.  The reason behind the boiling of water was due to historic flooding in the outskirts of the Austin area that ended up filtering down to the water treatment plants for the city.  Around the same time of our Boil-Water situation, a report came out about the urgency related to climate change.  Loosely explained, we had 13 years, now obviously less than that, to lessen our carbon emissions and lower the temperature of the earth because for every .5 degree difference in our temperature, more and more climate change events would happen.

Since the report, we all can read the news related to all the events around the world that are happening.  Some include but are not limited to melting of Antarctica, historic temperatures all around the world, more hurricanes of greater strength, locusts swarms in Africa, fires in Australia...the list goes on.  Recently on Facebook, I posted a story about an initiative in Ireland that will plant 22 million trees every year to combat climate change.  I was very disheartened to get a comment from one of my high school science teachers stating that climate changes have been going on for billion of years thru cycles over and over.  While I don't disagree with the premise of her statement, I also feel like the trend is that our earth is heating up and the ripples could be catastrophic.

This deniability of climate change and global warming reminds me of the scene in Indiana Jones and The Temple of Doom where the young Maharaja as well as Indiana Jones are in a trance.  Short Round has to has to use a lighted torch to burn Indiana to pull him out of his trance in order to wake him up and keep him from hurting others. I keep wondering with the climate change deniers will wake up and realize the are existence is being threatened by this issue.  So many are brainwashed, for lack of a better word, into denying climate change, vaccines, etc.

I have thought in the past a lot about my faith and that many teachings center around positive ideas like the golden rule.  If there is a God and a heaven, then Hallelujah, if not, doesn't it help society to follow many of the teachings of many religions and faiths?  If there is no heaven, then at least we've created a heaven on earth of sorts when we focus on loving one another rather than perpetuating hate. I believe the same is true for climate change if you think about it.  From a book called the Healing Power of Trees by Sharlyn Hidalgo, the phrase that we have paradise on earth can ring true.  From scientific facts, it points to the earth getting warmer.  If humans are the cause, we should take steps to do something about it.  If in the end, the science is somehow wrong or this is just a cycle we are going through, treating our planet/home with love and respect can only benefit the human race.  Much like religion and a higher power, belief in global warming or not, it wouldn't hurt to decrease our carbon footprint, use more energy efficient and renewable power, use fewer plastic straws/plastic in general and be kinder to our world. If in the end, humans aren't causing the problem,  and there is no God or heaven, we still don't have to be assholes about it and treat our world and other humans better.

Yesterday, while out with my daughter prom dress shopping, I brought up the subject about current events like the election, coronavirus and climate change.  When I asked her if any of her friends were talking about the election or the coronavirus, she remarked that mostly what they discuss is the fact that the world is going to either be ruined by some sort of small thing, like a virus, or a big things like war and that many in her generation feel hopeless.  Obviously this makes me extremely sad. 

This discussion with her reminded me of a college essay response that she shared with me related to a book called The Road by Cormack McCarthy. "It was McCarthy's nihilistic messages and desolate imagery that unsettled me. The Road is the story of a father and son on their way through an effigy of what was once America. The entire novel details their journey through a post apocalyptic wasteland of ash and fire, where no plant or animal can survive, and what is left of humanity has turned on each other in acts of enslavement and cannibalism. There is no hope. Their story is one of an aimless search for a reason to live, a chance at salvation. But it never comes. To me, these themes of hopelessness made the unit where we read and analyzed this book the most disturbing of my high school english units. In our current climate, I found the themes even more unsettling. Climate change, nuclear war, and societal collapse are all real threats to humanity in my lifetime, and this future could be my own. So, through the entirety of reading this novel, through the extensive descriptions of the scorched earth, through the graphic detailing of half-eaten people held hostage in a basement, all I could do was think about how that horrible, singed future could be mine.--"

This is what young people are thinking about.  In my opinion, the current administration is doing NOTHING to calm the fears of young people. Nothing.  At this point, any of the Democratic challengers to our current President is an immense improvement and will bring me hope that someone will address the most important issue and that is addressing global warming.  All other issues are important, don't get me wrong, and saving our planet should be priority one on day one.

"The good news is that the future hasn’t already been set in stone. Climate change is an inescapable present and future reality, but the point of the IPCC report is that there is still a chance to seize the best-case scenario rather than surrender to the worst.... Grave threat, or unmissable opportunity for movement and funding? There is still time to decide, although the window is narrowing rapidly."

From the Five Reflections on the IPCC Climate Change Report By Justin Adams, Executive Director, Tropical Forest Alliance (Currently seconded to the TFA from The Nature Conservancy) | October 24, 2018

13 years is now only 10 or 11 years, perhaps even less.  For all of our children, grand children and future generations, we need leadership in the White House is will not call climate change and global warning a hoax nor deny its effects like a virus rapidly spreading and becoming a pandemic before it is too late.