Climate Change Doesn't Care What You Think

If you haven't had the chance yet, make sure you watch the series Years of Living Dangerously presented by National Geographic. 

I want to talk specifically about the episode Uprooted. 

In this episode, journalist Tom Friedman explores how Climate Change is already displacing people in Africa. 

Actor Don Cheadle takes on the drought-stricken region of California, where a family is about to lose their farm.  

Be warned, if you are sensitive, this series of shows will be hard to watch. I personally have to stop and take breaks to process it all. But then I dry my tears and take a few deep breaths and get back to it. As much as it bothers me to watch it, I am not living it and my pain is NOTHING ... so I suck it up. 

I want to interject how absolutely hopping mad I get when people run or hide from anything that makes them sad. I understand you have to live life as positively as you can so you don't end up jumping off a cliff. I get that. But there has to be a balance. Disconnecting yourself, deliberately avoiding facts because they are too hard to wrap your head around, is what totally screws things up in the world. It's how we ended up with Trump for pity sake!

You can only run for so long before things catch up to you. At some point, you have to face things and sometimes... you don't get a choice when it will happen. And my little tirade about not sticking your head in the sand is specifically to point out how Climate Change... which is happening right now... is something you can't ignore or avoid no matter how depressed it makes you. The people climate change is affecting right this very second ... can't bury their head. If you think it won't catch up to you, you are a fool. One day, and maybe that day has already come for you, you will be in just as much deep shit as they are. Bank on it. 

We have to collectively figure out how to stop killing the planet. So cry, get depressed, but then suck it up and get involved.

With that out of the way...

Getting back to the episode, the storyline Don Cheadle follows about the farm in California is pretty much what you can guess ... no water equals no farm. The struggle the family has to endure makes it real because you can see what it takes just for them to live, let alone take care of a farm. 

The storyline Tom Friedman follows, well, hit me like a ton of bricks. I guess I didn't know as much as I thought about how Climate Change has already devastated Africa. While the media is always reporting about the refugees coming from Syria, keep in mind that there are other drought stricken areas where entire communities are literally dying. Not in the future. It's already happened. Past tense. If you are worried about refugees from tiny little Syria, you ain't seen nothing yet.

So the break down of the "Climate Change Refugee" goes like this ...

No rain = no water for the farm = no crops = no food for the livestock or the farmers = no income for the families that work the farm = leaving your hometown and land to seek work = no work because everyone is in the exact same boat = families being broken apart looking for any work = people desperate and dying = people willing to do anything to survive = joining a militant group because you have nothing to lose ... 

No matter whether it's California or Syria or Africa ... the climate has changed. Period. Fact.

It really almost doesn't matter what you attribute the cause to on a certain level because the crisis is happening. Whether you think God is punishing us, or China created some hoax, or you actually believe the scientists who say it's man made, you can not bury your head another second. 

If stopping all forms of pollution (that heats the air, that melts the ice caps, that will flood our coasts, that will cause mass die off in the oceans, that causes apocalyptic droughts) is what it takes to save ourselves and the planet itself, who the hell cares what you think, it just has to be done. Science and nature are funny that way, it doesn't care what you think. 

If Trump wants to bring people together, he can start by addressing Climate Change or there won't be a country full of people to take advantage of... I mean govern.

Last point; we all live on the same planet. We can not build a wall to stop Climate Change. This is a global crisis that is already in full swing whether you like it or not or even accept the reality of it. 

What can we do? We have to put people in charge who will fucking do something about it. Period. 


Drought-stricken African nations launch $2.4bn drought appeal

 "The United Nations estimated in April this year that around 60 million people around the world had been affected."

South Africa: Drought leads to failed crops, water shortages

"For the next 10 to 15 years, the situation is likely to get worse," he warned, adding that only days of sustained rainfall can solve the town's woes, despite the occasional scattered shower. "We are in the middle of a crisis."

Read more at: http://phys.org/news/2016-01-south-africa-drought-crops-shortages.html#jCp

"For the next 10 to 15 years, the situation is likely to get worse," he warned, adding that only days of sustained rainfall can solve the town's woes, despite the occasional scattered shower. "We are in the middle of a crisis."

Read more at: http://phys.org/news/2016-01-south-africa-drought-crops-shortages.html#jCp

"For the next 10 to 15 years, the situation is likely to get worse," he warned, adding that only days of sustained rainfall can solve the town's woes, despite the occasional scattered shower. "We are in the middle of a crisis."

Read more at: http://phys.org/news/2016-01-south-africa-drought-crops-shortages.html#jCp

"For the next 10 to 15 years, the situation is likely to get worse," he warned, adding that only days of sustained rainfall can solve the town's woes, despite the occasional scattered shower. "We are in the middle of a crisis."

Read more at: http://phys.org/news/2016-01-south-africa-drought-crops-shortages.html#jCp