Now that we've done something about it, everyone still complains about the weather. From being a routine conversational gambit, to a small uptick in green house gasses, to an inconvenient truth, now it rages. The climate reels.

The truth has not set us free. Green house gasses are normally part of the cycle of life on earth. Human activity increases their level of concentration, an activity intentionally pursued by oil companies and their affiliates, with results that can no longer be dismissed as unintended side effects. The consequent harm for all generations, present and future, has Greta Thunberg in the Court of Public Opinion, pleading for a restraining order. If she could be a plaintiff in the International Criminal Court, it would need to add a category for “crimes against all life on earth.”

A person, who by law legally exists, is promoting the emission of harmful gasses, knowing that they contribute to catastrophic weather. Isn't that a crime? The entire planet and all living beings on it are harmed. Should that person attempt to avoid arrest or punishment, then being charged as an accessory after the fact is warranted.

This legal person, in a strategy to avoid being charged, might engage in misdirection, perhaps asserting that climate change is already past the tipping point. It's too late to stop it from progressing. Why not enjoy the winter heat? Blizzards and ice storms and tornadoes and floods are just normal variations.

Being convinced of this, or perhaps fascinated by the bluster of a twice-impeached president, you might be satisfied with riots about something else. Whatever, you will not even notice.

In the meantime, we have a terrible pandemic that cannot be ignored. What does the climate matter if the virus gets us first?

Maybe you wondered at how both the United States and China first reacted, trying to downplay the novel corona virus. It is manageable, said both countries. It's not a big deal, and we don't want people to panic. We want stability.

And now we are inconsolable. Even as we learn to mask up and keep spaced apart, our planet and most of us are still alive. Still, the weather leaves no doubt. Our window of livability is closing fast.

“May you live in interesting times.”

This English expression, says Wikipedia, is supposedly translated from an ancient

Chinese curse. No such source has ever been produced.

So keep your attention on the climate crime. As interesting as things might get, calling it a change is both accurate and misleading.



!