A Convenient Exit
This week’s SoCal Connected takes a look at our environment. I gotta say, hearing experts prognosticate on our planet’s fate, is anything but reassuring. And I secretly hope that the heart-breaking photo of the polar bear stranded on a shrinking chunk of ice is staged.
But personally, I figure with 20 to 30 years of tolerable temperatures left, I’ll be checking out just in time. My life expectancy will deliver me to a conveniently-timed exit before the earth moves too far into uncomfortable. And with no kids, I don’t sweat the future like parents do.
But it’s not even the temperatures that would bother me. Heck, I spent several suntanned childhood years in El Centro, dubbed “Hell Centro” for good reason. Nope. It’s not the thermometer I’m afraid of. It’s us -- human beings. Under good conditions - you know safe neighborhoods, decent jobs, comfortable shoes -- human beings are really nice to each other. We throw parties, hold charity events, and help find each other’s lost pets.
But... put us under a heat lamp, add some economic pressure, and dollop of intractable inequalities and we’ve been known to snap into animal mode. We can be downright rude. Not to mention criminal. And if things get really bad we’ve been known to riot, rob and click into a mob mentality hidden not so far beneath our psychic surface.
If Homo sapiens could manage to remain relatively civilized and calm while we sweat through the solution to global warming, our chances of curing this self-induced fever would be greatly improved. So a good part of our preparation for global warming has got to be psychological and social, not just political and scientific.
In the meantime, does anyone know if that stranded bear ever got rescued?
