OK so the Amazon Rainforest did not get a whole lotta rain earlier this year and now it is literally on fire.
Bangladesh has flooded out after continuous rainfall for at least a month.
Hurricane Beryl (July 2024) is the first F-5 hurricane of the season, hitting the Caribbean hard almost two months prior to the hardest of the hurricane season (September).
There are massive heat waves slamming a wide swath of the US, Europe, and parts of the Asian subcontinent. I think New Delhi hit just about 50°C (for you metric heathens) / over 120°F (‘Murica!! Truck Yeah!!))
Yet Andrew Wilson insists that it’s all just hyperbolic hysterical hype.
Yah, OK. And where do you live, Mr. Wilson? Hopefully not Miami, with an average elevation of just three … yes tres / drei / tree / sáam … feet above sea level, and recent rains within the state have proven just how unprepared city-dwelling humans are for the changing environment.
Some models predict that by 2100, major coastal cities – the aforementioned Miami, Jakarta, Venice, New Orleans, Rotterdam, Lagos, Houston, Atlantic City, NYC – could be … if not entirely submerged, severely impacted by flooding, so much so that a major migration from those areas to higher lands is conceivable, and city managers need to plan accordingly.
On a more insane scale, Mr. Wilson is of the opinion that the single, greatest, highest purpose of a human being is to replicate.
Wat. DFQ? YehNo.
Methinks Mr. Wilson’s pollyanna outlook is based on his projection … an extremely evolutionarily masculine mindset.
Men cannot “replicate” without women; ergo, to wit, women must replicate.
Surprisingly, not all women actually want to do that.
Methinks not a coincidence that once a society makes education, opportunity, and reproductive autonomy available to women, women have fewer children.
Indicative, perhaps, of women’s true feelings re motherhood?
After all, Eve’s original sin has cursed all women {Genesis 3:16}, a notable percentage of which who seem to have decided that particular generational curse shall end with them.
Or, maybe-just-maybe, women are listening and have heard their own mothers complaining, incessantly, about the difficulty of carrying/birthing/having/raising children, responding in turn with a Meh, I’m good.
Methinks perhaps one reason men are so insistent on women having children is because parenthood’s heaviest lifting is generally done by women. Mothers are the default de facto parent, in almost every household, and – as long as the bills are paid – dads get to check in and out at their leisure, and enjoy the big piece of chicken.
And women, certainly not all but interestingly en masse, have elected to place that burden at the feet of those very special ladies who choose it.
Another consideration? Maybe would-be mothers love their children too much to bring them into an uncertain and dying world.
Palm Springs just hit a record 124°F/51°C.
Death Valley recently lived up to its name. In early July, a motorcyclist died from heat exposure, one of several members of a party touring the wasteland on bikes. Nine of the 10 hottest summers in Death Valley have occurred over the last ten years.
Oh and Chile and Argentina both froze in July, recording the lowest temperatures on Earth, apart from the North/South Poles … folks dying from hypothermia, farmers using axes to break the ice in water troughs for livestock, animals freezing in place. Ummm … ?
Perhaps pragmatism, realism, compassion, and awareness – as opposed to mere replication – would be a wiser course … the debt to future generations may be turning the focus to fixing the world for the generations living in it now. Mindless, reactionary breeding is so très passé.