What a way to end November this year. The serious windstorm that kept me up all night, not because of the noise it made but because of how far the trees above my bedroom seemed to sway back and forth. I awoke to flickering power after hearing a couple of trees fall during the night, I wondered how much longer until it was out completely. I thought about the possibility of the power lines starting a forest fire. Within 20 minutes a friend burst into my house and frantically described a slash pile that was now burning the forest. With the worst of the windstorm not over we gathered our troops and the 7 of us headed up with our shovels and McLeod tools to see what we could do. We arrived to see lots of smoke and could hear the crackling of flames in the thick smoke. The fire was about 100 yards away from a house on Love Creek Road and maybe a quarter mile away from the top of Blue Lake Springs. Chopping a fire line we slowly made our way around the acre or so that had been burning. Finally, as we encircled the whole fire we narrowly missed keeping it from spreading to a brush thicket that was close to a more wooded section of the forest. And then Cal Fire and Ebbetts Pass Fire showed up with water and con crews. Our job was done here.
Now back to the windstorm. It was scary to drive back as several trees that had been standing on our way to the fire were now fallen on our way home. Since the fire crew arrived several trees and some power lines had fallen on Love Creek Road. For the rest of the day we listened to and watched trees get uprooted, broken and whipped around in the wind as if they were child’s toys. And when the wind settled there was a whole lot of destruction. Houses crushed, outbuildings crushed, whole canopies in the forest were altered, the power was out, the phone was out. How did this happen? How had some of the largest trees in the forest get uprooted completely?
It is a direct consequence of climate change. As our planet warms and creates less stable conditions we see more and more expressions of that instability with windstorms, floods and the like. Unfortunately we as humans have been occupying climate change for quite some time and we are beginning to see the effects of that more and more throughout the world. Climate scientist Jim Hansen has claimed that if Canada’s Tar Sands are exploited fully then it is essentially game over for climate change. Occupy climate change? Or Occupy Earth? The topic is under serious discussion in Durban, South Africa at the COP (Conference of Parties)17. “Organized by the World Business Council for Sustainable Development, the conference brings together United Nations delegates with representatives from the world's biggest polluters, including many corporations involved in Canada's tar sands.”-contributor, The Boundary Sentinel. Why, I ask, is the most destructive endeavor ever undertaken represented at the global climate summit? It seems obvious to me the tar sands has no place in a future without runaway climate change. Many have said that we are close to a tipping point in climate change if we haven’t reached it already. Some say this conference is the most important conference in the history of the world. For if we don’t do something about climate change now, our actions in the future may prove to be futile.
So can we just sit back and hope that the conference goes well and they figure it out for us? I don’t thinks so, and I’m not very convinced that the players involved with the climate summit really represent our best interest. Can we wait for the government to make the changes necessary? Can we wait for so-called “green” businesses and technologies to solve our problems for us? I think not. When the bottom line of green businesses and technologies are about making profit for investors, I find it hard to believe that the best interest of the planet is incorporated. Granted there are several technologies that can help us curb emissions and decentralize our power systems. I’ve recently heard about free energy devices, which has been hidden from the eyes of the public by the powers that be. But we can no longer wait for the economy or governments to help us make the change. It is now or never. The solutions to climate change exist today and are real. It is up to us to make this change, we can’t wait for a president, an invention, or a savior anymore. We are still the one’s we’ve been waiting for. So simplify, collaborate, co-create, just keep your vision of a life that can be great. Yes, we are the one’s we’ve been waiting for so let’s all step though that door.
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