Global Warming Grief

I want to know if the corporations and our foolish government who are fighting any significant--or even insignificant--changes to our basic lifestyle, even as simple as requiring higher fuel economy, are willing to pay for therapy for the millions of us who are depressed at the loss of our environment and life as we knew it.

I gather it's just a question, now, of how bad. Within 30 years we in the Pioneer Valley will either live in Washington DC, weatherwise, or North Carolina. The maple syrup industry is on its way out--the warm days and cool nights of late February typical in New England just won't be happening as much any more. This past spring they had half the sap they typically get. Skiing, cross-country and downhill, is taking a heavy hit. Berkshire East, where Lily took skiing last January, had to close the slopes on several occasions because there just wasn't enough snow and their snow machines couldn't make it, not in 70 degree weather.

I never understand when I hear people say they could never live in New England because it's too cold. I don't get it. I moved here for the cold. New York City was getting too hot. I moved here for the snow and the strikingly different seasons, the deep fall colors and the bleak winter landscapes, the excuses to layer and wear heavy sweaters, the newly-green spring and the lush and abundant summers. I moved here for snow storms and snow days and fires in the fireplace and swimming in the local rivers and chilly days picking apples. I really like the variety.

Those days are going fast. The summer was fine, mostly, as far as I can remember. The fall has been not so great for my morale. In a word, it's been hot. It was 73 when I came in tonight at 10pm and it's been like that for days. It's been very dry, which means the leaves are all falling prematurely; when it rains it downpours like a monsoon, like a tropical rainforest downpour. It's pretty sudden, quite intense, and it doesn't last long. Did I mention it was warm? When it was seasonably cold last week people in the office were relishing wearing sweaters. Now it's muggy and warm--did I mention warm?--and it just feels so wrong to wear shorts in early October (never mind January).

Dave is sick of me moping about this so I am dumping on you, my loyal readers. Hear this: I am suffering from weather orientation dissonance (it'll be in the DSM V) and I need a trained professional to help me work through my feelings and accept the reality--and my overwhelming sense of utter helplessness. Does anyone really think that if we all rode our bikes to work and chose paper over plastic it would help stop global warming?

Netflix sent Network with Peter Finch last week--remember the famous "corporate cosmology" speech by Ned Beatty as the head of the company that owns the network that airs Howard Beale's show?

"You have meddled with the primal forces of nature, Mr. Beale, and I won't have it, is that clear? You get up on your little twenty-one inch screen and howl about America and democracy. There is no America. There is no democracy. There is only IBM, and ITT, and AT and T, and DuPont, Dow, Union Carbide, and Exxon--those are the nations of the world today!"

Change a few names and this is what I believe and I don't think there's anything I can do about it.

We need a complete about-face, internationally, a values-transplant, and I just don't believe that's going to happen in the big arena. I do believe in spreading love and acceptance person by person, and that's pretty much what I've devoted myself to these past few years. Trying to be a better person so I can help everyone I know, or interact with, or simply momentarily encounter, have a better day. We are all one, says Buddhism, so what hurts me hurts them, and vice versa.

Maybe I just need help getting unstuck from the grief stage. Maybe I gotta reread 1984. I'm sure George Orwell has some wisdom for me. Sorry to be so depressing. Now you need therapy, too! Can't we get all those corporations to pay for it?