From the Tractor Seat

Today is the last long weekend of the summer. When the title long weekend was coined the meaning it has this weekend was not intended. Today we are surrounded by fire and smoke. We cannot use our recreation vehicles, nor can we light campfires. Even walking in the woods is risky with the heat and dry forest floor. Yes its hot, yes its a long weekend and yes we are being punished like school kids.

The reasons we are in this fix are many. We decided long ago to not clean out the forest floor, leave things in a pristine state, or leave our waste behind after logging. Well the truth is if we don’t pick up after ourselves Mother Nature will do it for us.

Sadly we chose to ignore Mother Nature for a long time. We at some point decided to turn our planet into our own private garbage dump. We polluted damn near everything we touched. No telling us what to do with our property or the forest. Like the misguided attitude (I am being charitable) I can throw my cigarette buts out the window so I don’t stink up my car.

We have put so much crap in the atmosphere it mixed with all the natural consequences of life and now we have climates adjusting to meet the disposal demands. I am afraid we are going to have a long hard learning curve climb.
I know this is the natural order of things. Unfortunately that is not really true. We, the geniuses of the universe, have upset the balance of what is natural. There was a song put out in the seventies by CW McCall entitled There won’t be no Country music and it has a lot of truth to it.

Face it we have used and abused the world around us and now we are at the mercy of ourselves. Even worse we keep looking to the heavens to go to other planets and do the same thing.
Its true we have had climate change before the world is constantly evolving, but we are hastening the consequences of our actions. Storm meant just that a storm, a drought meant just that a drought. We tinkered we put in regulations to protect us from ourselves. Then the wise guys and greedy showed up and cut red tape (Deregulation) and Texas is a prime example of results.

Bitching about not lighting a campfire, or riding your ATV is not an answer, anymore than wailing against those trying to save water. We no longer have the luxury of ignorance me included. Today the word storm is expanded to Mega Storm, Drought is Mega Drought. We may actually have a choice, we can drown or die of thirst which ever comes first.

Seems to me we for our own survival should be conversing with others as to how to mitigate the damage we’ve done.
Notice I didn’t say correct the damage? We have made such a hell of a mess we couldn’t correct it if we tried. We can slow it down before the seas reclaim the lowlands and the sands of time reclaim the fertile soil we need for food.

We have exploited Mother Nature and she is no longer willing to make excuses for our behavior. It is time to stop thinking about I and think about the collective WE.

Fred Steele © 2017