How Many Horsemen were there?
It’s hot…well, it’s always hot in Spain during the summer but this week has been particularly hot. This week’s Camino a Ítaca circles the globe and looks at why some have such a problem with the axiom of Climate Change. Click over to read the original article in Spanish in el Hoy or read the English version below. (PDF en castellano abajo)
Imagine drawing a straight
line that circles the globe, crossing such diverse places as Lille in
France, Mainz in Germany, Prague in the Czech Republic and the extraordinarily
restored Krakow in Poland. Then continue the line east through the land of my
paternal grandfather in Lviv, Ukraine and then across the arid steppes of
Kazakhstan and Mongolia before you cut the enigmatic Russian Island of Sakhalin
roughly in half before finally reaching the open Pacific. Cross the ocean and you
make landfall just north of the beautiful port city of Vancouver before
crossing the Rocky Mountains that give on to the great Canadian plains. Under
those never-ending, enormous skies, you then pass through the delightfully
named, yet slightly stodgy, Winnipeg before running out into the ocean again.
The line you would have drawn is approximately the 50th parallel.
The cities that connect
those dots, each with their own identity, all conjure up images of birch tree
forests, thick brown breads, heavy cuisine with lots of butter and pickled
everything. What doesn’t necessarily come to mind are sunburns and scorching
temperatures, but that is just what has happened. This summer we have seen temperatures
hit fifty degrees on the fiftieth parallel. Entire towns burned in places near
where I spent my summers as a child in British Colombia, Canada. Temperatures
that I would have then only associated with things like toaster ovens and car
engines. Just over the pole in Siberia, the Russian one that is, temperatures
have also been reaching the forties, melting the permafrost that has held its
secrets in stasis for millennia. These aren’t cyclical events as some might
claim; this is the planet sending us a very sharply worded message that needs
no translation.
It’s not only the far north.
Half of California is on fire once again and a good part of the classical world in
Greece and Turkey is also ablaze. As you read this, temperatures are also soaring to record highs on this side of the Mediterranean. True, high temperatures are not
abnormal here in Spain, but what about the frighteningly low levels of the reservoirs.
Reservoirs, I might add that not only provide us with drinking water but also help power our prohibitively expensive fans and air
conditioners.
On the other extreme of the climate spectrum,
devastating floods have ravaged India while torrential rain, the likes of which
hasn’t been seen in a thousand years, has devastated central China. Japan is suffering a similar fate. Much closer
to home here in Europe, Germany and Belgium have seen tragic losses of life
during the flash floods that recently swept through the area.
And it’s only the
ides of August.
What is it about climate
change that gives those who ‘have their doubts’ hives and nervous ticks? Do
those who flat out deny its existence have a longer, more insightful view of
the history of the planet than the rest of us? Is it the sheer cost that it’s
going to entail to try and at least palliate the coming armageddon that drives
them to refute such obvious signs? Or is it something less tangible, something
less rational, something more divine? The bushes are indeed burning. What is needed
are prophets brave enough to take concrete actions to divert the coming
apocalypse that some so desire.
