Boyle McCauley News

Since 1979 • April-May 2024 • Circulation 5000

Donate

Why Summer Makes Me Nervous

Usually summer inspires in me a rousing ballad of all things green and blooming. It still does. During the last few years, however, I’ve felt some trepidation as summer approaches.

Climate change is our new reality. Despite the agreement in Paris and an assortment of initiatives spawned by various governments, climate change is here. We are living in the time of global climate change that will affect the world for generations to come.

So, summer tends to make me a little nervous. Daytime highs of 27+ degrees in May are not right. Hurricane force wind storms are not right. Seven years of drought is not right. These are extreme conditions I’ve seen just since the turn of the millennium. That’s just locally! What’s going on?

We screwed up. We allowed the spin doctors and PR specialists to lull us for too long into believing that climate change was a hoax, a theory, and no reason to consume less. We were too slow to take action because it was easier to convince ourselves not to change and not to take responsibility because the future, if we believed in climate change, looked frightening.

Funny. The future still looks frightening. As hard as we have tried not to believe and not to see it, it’s still here right before our eyes. It’s in the polluted rivers, in the forest fires that devastate communities, and in the eyes of starving polar bears. As much as our eyes may now be opened, I believe we’re at a point where we will suffer great effects for our inaction. We have passed the point of no return and we will pay a price. We are going to see more droughts, more devastating hurricanes, more hunger and poverty, and greater suffering of all Earth’s species.

So, yes, I’m nervous.

I don’t like to be a downer, but I hate being impractical. This is the future we’re looking at, plain and simple. It’s best we face it. In doing so, we can prepare for it. We can pull together and help each other. We can learn to care for our environment and others sharing it. Maybe we can look forward to summer again, not as a time of turbulence, but as a time of growth.

Keri lives and contemplates the future of the earth in Boyle Street.

Subscribe to our newsletter

News from the neighbourhood delivered straight to your inbox. Sign up and stay in touch!