For the Future--too often, Waiting for the Rain

If I hate my own species, I have gone rogue, never a good thing.
And I haven't.
Too many people are on the earth, and this is impacting the world as I know it rapidly.
Animals, plant life are dying. We sort of see that.
We are killing the oceans, too. We dump our trash, our cremains, have oil spills, get all  excited about one or two shark attacks and start eradicating, and, huh?
I doubt my great-grandchildren will ever eat much seafood that was ever wild.  Weird, but that means it won't be as healthy, either.
With climate change, wildfires are taking out more homes, businesses, even communities. No way around it.
Time was, Syrian refugees could have been resettled in vacant land somewhere, some continent. Doesn't exist today, so we all have to move over. I don't blame them for leaving. Common sense applies. But we are still surprised and caught offguard when the street people move into our mansions, so to speak. We understand they are desperate, but they make us uncomfortable.

In my lifetime half the wildlife that existed when I was born will become extinct, except in zoos and refuges. Well, through the century they will continue to die.
For Southwesterners, it is so personal. No one my age didn't play with horned toads. Scratch 'em between the eyes, watch their bliss. Texas has a football team, the Horned Frogs.
No one thought they would die. Even my oldest son played with some. But they were gone when my younger son grew up.
I look at the world, at the universe, which my specie has given me an eye to, and it is exciting. I don't know what will happen in the future, even if we don't blow ourselves up.
But as so-called "stewards of the earth", mankind is pretty poor. We have littered for millennium.
The world will survive. Maybe people will, too.
I know in the past, each generation has thought they were making a better world for the next generation. I am so proud of my sons and granddaughters, and I think the world ahead for them, screw the economy, is going to be so much harder.
What I do know is that problems sometimes are easier to see than solutions we never dreamed of.
It got us here. I hope it gets us out.
This is a scary world to live in. It is not unhopeful.

A Largely Unreported Disaster of Sorts

Texas has unimaginable square miles of dry grass and vegetation in the winter. High winds and a single spark can decimate miles and miles in a day or two.



The fires more commonly happen in West Texas and the Panhandle, which are more sparsely populated. The rest of the state also gets the fires, which are more vigorously covered by media when a lot of people in a small area are threatened or affected.



I was surprised when I turned to page 2 in my local paper last Sunday and learned 200,000 people were evacuated in Amarillo on Saturday because of grassfires that totally destroyed 58 homes, damaged others. Live power lines on the ground made it difficult to get emergency aid to the people. One fire burned 45 square miles before it was contained. Lubbock was seriously damaged, too.



The firefighters did well--containing over 75 grass fires in 2-3 days that consumed more than 700,000 acres. One litttle five-year-old girl died in a car crash near Midland when the vehicle she was riding in crashed in the heavy smoke over the highway.



Talking to a woman yesterday, I asked if she knew about the fires. She said she was, primarily because her ears pricked up when fires were mentioned in the Lubbock area and her brother lives there. She said she called and he said he and his were all right. The fire came within five miles, but they were unscathed. Friends on the other side of town, though, had their home burn to the ground. They lost everything.



When something similar happened a few years back, media attention was aroused when the wind continued for several days. Grassland the size of the state of Rhode Island was burned to the ground, including the cattle, sheep and horses therein. Some of the homes destroyed were more than 100 years old.


The winds last week blew for a blessedly short interval. Few Texans paid attention, much less the rest of the country.



Burn bans are now in effect over half the state. Accidental sparks, however, can ignite fires from the most innocuous events. More fires are likely. More high winds are also likely. According to the forecasts, our usual quota of spring rains is unlikely.



I guess, overall, we are still the West. What happens here doesn't get out to the rest of the country necessarily, despite our World Wide Web. It would have been a little dangerous to stand and video the approaching fire and consequent destruction of the family home. Even for a chance to go viral on YouTube. And maybe it wouldn't even have done that.



It makes me wonder what other big events go on that no one knows about, sees, reports or notices. I expect quite a bit, actually.

Huh.