BREAKING NEWS
Tuesday, August 10, 2021
I awoke yesterday to learn that the UN IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) report is a ‘clarion call’ of horrors.
I don’t doubt their record-keeping or beliefs – yes, the climate is changing.
Who knew?
Yes, humans have had an impact.
But the sun doesn’t come up very often.
Well, sure it does.
It rises daily.
But it rarely comes up in discussion or news coverage on global warming and climate change.
One might think it should be the first thing.
When we are not fighting pandemics, NEWS-cycle drum beat global warming, wildfires, drought, despots, wars, billionaire space rides, politics, economics – then back to global warming, climate change, and whatever chest-thump story passes for breaking news.
But, humans have been increasingly active at cleaning up their act – more recently than in decades past, and it’s probably too soon to know if all our collective actions are going to be enough.
Some suggest it’s already too late – irreversible.
Maybe not …
What I see missing when these reports come out is data on what the sun is doing and accounting for the accruing impact on what we have done and what is in progress.
I don’t mean to suggest we humans cannot do better work because we can. We are.
But what is the sun’s role, both now and throughout 4.5 billion years of ice-ages, rises and falls in temperature?
That should be weighed in the balance.
Yes, yesterday was a Monday in August – a slow news day, humans and the sun went about their daily business. Humans are working at a super-human pace to improve practices, clean up the world, supply the needs of nearly 8.0 billion people, and balance budgets while fighting a global pandemic and ‘Variant D’; yes, it’s the UN Secretary-General duty to bring things to our attention.
I read news releases that ‘we should do the right thing’ – the World Economic Forum urging us to invest in carbon removal from the atmosphere. If it was just one issue and just that simple, maybe we should, but maybe it’s not only THAT issue and not THAT simple. Yes, we need to do lots, do more, and do it right now.
Lately, there is always someone telling us the world is going down the drain on a speedboat – as if it’s our fault. Most of us are not responsible for causing this, yet most everyone is doing something about it; we’re paying taxes, buying less plastic, recycling more, using less energy and taking part in the discussion. We’re living life smaller, smarter, and leaner than we ever have; our governments are enforcing that we all do more, do it better, and do it greener than ever.
The sun will come out tomorrow.
It changes too, and climate has been changing – as are we changing how we manage what we manage, but somehow, the politicians and bureaucrats think we will do what they want on climate because they can’t seem to do it with a pandemic.
We are tools for climate change, and ballot boxes are too.
So is the sun. It changes in ways we scarcely understand.
We can’t change it, so we have to change.
That isn’t breaking news, but a reality we already face.
The climate is changing.
We know.