HERESAY TWO

The fol-de-rol evaporates. Though not everyone would agree, or wants to. It's meaning varies from person to person and can't be exactly defined, as can the boiling point of water which, at 1 atmosphere, is 100 C, or 212 F. Now in the backyard, in the shade of two large trees, our air is at 96 degrees F.

I don't remember another September with heat like this. Yesterday was the same. And across the globe, people reluctantly agree: weather records are breaking day after day. When water evaporates into the atmosphere, the vapor is a greenhouse gas, accelerating the effect. It includes all of us. Imagine pre-packaged dreams, schemes, beliefs, strategies, programs, rules, advertisements, accidental discoveries that happened to work, ways to conquer, rule or save the world – all evaporating.

The ghost of a whisper follows my reason.

It's taking the world by storm. The greater mass of humanity, if I may say, is being rudely awakened. Not everyone, not yet everywhere, not all at once, but inevitably no one escapes. The eventuality becomes actuality, and -- before you know it, heresay.

Young adults recognize what's happening, what they're in line to inherit, and they are not meek. They're not content to hear some valedictorian hope they're our future. They're already out in the streets, in the media, at the UN demanding practical solutions now. How dare we hand them this disaster? This accumulation of fossil fuel waste, fairy tales of infinite expansion, the flood of money purposed only for making money!

If I may guess, our climate and civilization will take their place in a cue of exocivilations. Our galaxy (as described by Wikipedia) contains between 200 and 400 billion stars and at least 100 billion planets. So far, however, we're all we know. Aside from whether we're unique, what is the context of our human consciousness? In this vast universe, what are the odds? Is it not remarkable to have a human body with a mind capable of contemplating this universe, itself, other beings and minds?

Our civilization, now facing a bottleneck of possible self-annihilation, is inextricably part of the climate we are changing. It is of course, because this world and the universe are not separate things. If this is realized, the causes of our crisis, though relevant, ought not be reduced to reasons for retribution. We are all to some degree, knowingly or not, willingly or not, causal agents. We can wake up and move on. What we need above all is co-operation, not hate crimes. We can refocus on this conscious universe, that we are this conscious self, not cut off from the whole.

Above all, it will be coming down to how we are.