I know plenty of people who do. But check out this latest article on the Greenland ice cap, now moving at an average speed of two meters per hour, or about 15 kilometers per year, except for periods of far faster movement. One scientist reportedly recently witnessed a “surge” [why do I absolutely hate that word today?] of over three miles in just 90 minutes! When I was growing up, there wasn’t a glacier on the planet moving that fast.
Despite the laudable rising public awareness and international protests, I doubt there is anything that can be done to reverse the process at this point. The die is likely cast, in other words. Does everyone know what that would mean? I’m not just talking sea level rises, now certain to occur far earlier than anyone had imagined, but changing ocean currents, which have the potential to dramatically alter weather patterns over the entire planet. Traditional weather wisdom is about to go out the window. Utterly.
Global warming doesn’t necessarily mean that it gets hot everywhere, you know. I’ve seen studies that predict that if the Gulf Stream breaks up, most of Europe, most of eastern Canada, and the northeastern United States could become virtually uninhabitable, unless people are ready to adopt the Siberian model. Imagine hundreds of millions of people needing to relocate in the space of just a few years! Pretty much makes everything else irrelevant, I’d say.
We’re all living balanced on a razor’s edge, anyway, all of us (rich or poor, strong or weak), and it’s really always been that way, all the time, every second of every day. The universe changes in a nano-second, and “solidity” is a shared invention of the mind. I wouldn’t be surprised to find myself flying through the clouds of Venus before I finish this post.
The other night I saw the Milky Way rolling from horizon to horizon, the way it shows up here in northern New Mexico on moonless nights: is there any human being on the planet who thinks that vastness would be diminished in any way one might care about if none of us walked the Earth?
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I very much like the thought that we are living on the razor’s edge and that change is the goddess that rules our mortal lives. Each of us with our individual histories is unstable, in flux, evanescent, bound to oblivion, “eterne in mutabilitie” as the poet said.
But I myself know of no way to understand this truth of our condition except in human terms. Rock, water, flowers, earthworms, polar bears – understand none of this. Their insensibility is a lovely thing to contemplate, but if we weren’t here to contemplate it, it would be nothing at all. Nothingness – the death wish – is perhaps where it’s all heading, whether in decades, centuries or eons none of us can know, but why celebrate it, why praise it? Nothing can come of nothing.
Now Ken, how do you know a rock is insensitive?
I kicked one once, and it didn’t seem to object to the experience. Maybe it was just being more civilized than me.
focusing on your thoughts of the Milky Way on moonless nights above New Mexico, i once iisten to a speaker describe the night sky above Machu Picchu, know to the ancient Inca as the Celestial River or Mayu, as having air so clear at those elevations, the stars appeared to be the size of large snow balls.
i have always tried to imagine a mystical view of the ancient night sky above Machu Picchu.
having only spent one feburary night in Albuquerue i sadly say i don’t remember seeing the night sky until the morning after waking to the rising sun, then driving west bound into the shadow of the rocky mountains where the stars appeared.
how would you describe the size of the stars above Taos? do the night lights of Taos block your view of the night sky? Have you captured the Milky Way with your camera?
Actually, Ken, that was a serious question. A mite uppity, but serious. We take way too much for granted.
David, I don’t know about stars the size of snow balls. Seems like they’re fairly normal here, size-wise. At first glance, the night lights of Taos don’t have much of an effect on seeing the stars — on a moonless night, they’re quite amazing. However, we used to live north of Taos in San Cristobal, and THAT was a revelation: the stars didn’t twinkle, they strobed… If that experience was any indication, pre-industrial humans must have witnessed a night sky display unlike anything most of us can imagine. Just another indication of how separated we are from nature. Hell, we can’t even see it.
And no, I’ve never tried night photography of those stars. But a Milky Way that goes from horizon to horizon is one incredible kick in the head. No way I could get all that into one photo, of course.