Found this in my un-posted archives… seemed appropriate after reading this weekend’s NY Times article on the US report on climate change… Now, will anyone in power care that we’re doomed if we do nothing?
June 2, 2017:
Last night I was listening to Marvin Gaye radio on Pandora. Happy hour had started a little on the early side. Gin and tonics for me, straight vodka for him. Fancy local cheese, fresh bread. The weather was beautiful and we decided to blow off the outside world and enjoy our own backyard, literally.
Oh and, we’d just gotten the news that our “president” would be pulling out of the historic Paris Climate accord.
Marvin Gaye radio seemed like a smooth, mellowing agent to our anger and the perfect antidote to all of the NPR I’d been absorbing since the news conference at 3pm.
I used to go out to parties… and stand around. ‘Cause I was too nervous… to really get down.
They started with Marvin, followed by The Reverend Al (Green, not Sharpton) and some Smokey Robinson, Etta James, Ray Charles, Otis Redding. It was like being transported back in time. To the days of cultural revolution and the civil rights movement, a time when people cared about issues. When young people were trying to change the world. I was on my second gin and tonic when…
Oh, oh mercy mercy me… oh things ain’t what the used to be no, no. Where have all the blue skies gone? Poison is the wind that blows from the north and south and east.
We looked at each other. “Ironic”.
People have been advocating for the environment since before I was born and yet, here we are. When I was a kid we’d say, “It won’t happen in our lifetime”. We were wrong. It’s here. It’s happening now. My garden proves it.
The discussion launched back up. Two liberals drinking on a porch and agreeing that we’re doomed. “We’re living at the beginning of the end.” Cheers!
Throwing our fists in the air and quoting Meatballs,”It just doesn’t matter! It just doesn’t matter!” Cheers!
“What in the hell is wrong with people? Don’t they see that these things matter?” Cheers!
After that, we solved all the problems of the world. Gin will do that. It will also blur the details of said “solutions”.
But, to the best of my recollection, (I sound like a Trump appointee testifying before a Senate Committee) it all distilled (pun intended) down to one simple idea.
America is the doomed babysitter on the couch in the living room oblivious to the fact that “the call is coming from inside the house”, and Trump is the psycho “man upstairs” with his finger poised over the speed dial.
Amy Serrago 