The Earth Cries

Since Hurricane Sandy hit me right in my soul I have been contemplating the life my child and all our children will live. I have watched as climate change continues to take the lives of people globally. Not long after Hurricane Sandy there was Typhoon Bopha that hit the Philippines with heavier rains in the strongest storm of the year in a country where climate change has been making itself known and a country where its people have been begging the international community to do something about it. 1500 people dead and still hundreds missing. And yet, we continue to sleepwalk.

Extreme rains continue to pummel Britain, Scotland, with major heavy snows in Moscow not seen in decades while people in Southern Europe search for bathing suits due to the warmest temperatures seen at this time of year.

Droughts and floods becoming more extreme, monsoon rains becoming erratic or such deluges due to heavier rains that loss of life is increased while crops decrease. Half the Arctic is missing, drought still pervades over sixty percent of the US, floods hit Baghdad and extreme weather globally is now said to be the "new normal" without there being anything normal about it.

All this while the US dithers, waging a fake political war over a fiscal cliff that is nothing compared to the climate cliff we are approaching. I have made it my life's work to speak out, educate and do all in my power to make people understand that the world we are making is not going to be a place friendly towards our wanton arrogance and wastefulness. There are many "crying in the wilderness" as we watch that wilderness becoming smaller. Is this the new age the Mayans predicted?

The Earth cries as people now prepare to dress up in cheap metallic dresses to go to the place where the monster Sandy tore out our souls to praise a lit ball signifying complacency as if October 29 was nothing but a bad dream. How I really wish the river that ran through the streets and tunnels of New York and the sea that washed over the heart of New Jersey had washed away our arrogance, complacency, hubris and denial instead of our memories and our lives.

I don't know how many times this message must be relayed, but the situation we find ourselves in is one of our making. This is our world, the only one we know or have to give us life. Do we hear the Earth's cries? Or is the din of distraction and political division truly more than we can overcome? We are running out of time in which to answer this question and make up our minds that we love this planet and wish to keep it.

We should not celebrate a new year coming unless we are truly committed to taking new steps to become more cognizant of our participation in seeing the error of our ways and truly bringing about a new age. That age cannot come without respect and caring for the Earth and the rivers we are killing. I still hope.