Anna Chen — 8 October 2024, Hurricane Milton and climate change
Climate change, like Covid-19, still with us
Does everyone remember when America was going to work with China on combating climate change? Anyone?
Following in the wake of Hurricane Helene’s trail of destruction, an even bigger Hurricane Milton is brewing in the Gulf of Mexico. Smashing into the lowland Tampa coast tomorrow, winds of 180 miles per hour are set to sweep across Florida on Wednesday in a 300 mile-wide tornado and sea surges 15 to 20 feet high.
This is more than Biblical. Closer to a practice run for Armageddon, a million people will be on the run. Where to? Nobody knows because, not only is government leadership hardly to be seen, some county politicians actively voted against what little help FEMA has to offer. “Head for the hills” isn’t much use in one of the United States’ lowest terrains.
Nevertheless, some bosses are insisting their employees work right up to closing time tonight without enough time to evacuate themselves and their families. People were lost to Helene under the same demands only a few days ago, but we know workers are mere collateral damage in the relentless hunt for a quick buck … which, by the way, may be biting the dust any day soon at the rate nations are dumping the dollar.
Learn from the dinosaurs, grasshopper
Some think a divine entity may have pointed an angry finger at Mar-A-Lago. Others of a more scientific bent are asking: waddya expect if you keep poking Mother Nature with your dirty fossil fuels?
In an epic pile-on along with wars about to go nuclear, and the SARS-CoV-2 virus that the West allowed to rip, maiming those of us who don’t immediately die with Long Covid like HIV in slomo, yet another Horseman of the Apocalypse bears down on a cowering humanity. I can hear Brexit Brenda wailing in the background, “What, another one?”
Another extinction event originated off the Yucatan peninsula 68 million years ago where an asteroid the size of Everest crashed and wiped out the dinosaurs. Is this a cosmic clue as to what’s in store if we don’t get our act together? Are we just the beta version being swept aside for A-list Sapiens destined to evolve from the humble cockroach? Are someone’s bats coming home to roost?
I don’t know whether we’re in a Karl Marx movie or a blueprint for humanity drawn up by Douglas Adams. Ooh, I know. Is it 42, Duggie?
Throwing caution to the wind-turbines
Even as the next dead line approaches, the US trashes the deckchairs on the USS Titanic. Forget linking arms and taking on climate change together to protect the species, we got short-term profits to make. Ach, screw the grandkids, they can fend for themselves. Me? I want that unsinkable yacht with the tallest mast in the world and the retractable keel.
I want to buy a thousand refrigerators just so I can leave all the doors open at once. I want to empty our drinking water into the sea and shit in our rivers. Who cares if China’s supplying cheap Electric Vehicles, wind turbines and solar panels? I’m gonna fockemup, big time. Burn, baby, burn! Cutting off my nose to spite my face? I’ll carve off the whole Mount Rushmore edifice.
Bring on the sanctions, light up the skies with gas flares and bombs and let’s party like it’s late capitalism in decline.
