Narrowing Our Focus

 


There was a time when we had the luxury of worrying over where the Soviets were positioning their tank armies or how fast their newest bombers flew. We had time for all sorts of things back then whether it was pillaging the Third World for its resources or propping up compliant dictators and bumping off small-country leaders we found unreliable. It was a big, wide open world back then and we were masters of all we surveyed, whether it belonged to us or not.

That big old world is suddenly shrinking. We once caused problems - for others. Now we're on the receiving end. We're becoming our very own distraction. 

When Detroit gets inundated with flash flooding* while the rivers and reservoirs in the southwest start failing, drought savages your agriculture, the citizenry are hammered by killer heatwaves and wildfires proliferate almost to the point they're uncountable, you may not have as much free time to devote to pushing around other countries or bickering over trade deals.

As we become further entangled in the climate emergency our global focus will narrow. What we're seeing unfold this summer is the multi-faceted nature of climate breakdown. It extends to our fields, our forests, our lakes and rivers, our coastal waters and marine life, and to our homes. You can't run, you can't hide. It's everywhere.

The climate catastrophe is an every man for himself ordeal. No two countries will experience it in the same form. Some will get hit sooner, some later. Some countries will sustain a lot of infrastructure failure, others have very little infrastructure to lose. I think we're going to learn a lot about resilience. We may learn to appreciate nuance again.

The neoliberals, with their globalism fetish, insist that we can't take drastic action. That might upset the global economy. Nonsense. Nature is going to upset the global economy and it's already off to a good start.  We really don't have the time or money to waste defending the indefensible. We have squandered a decade, probably two, in which we arrogantly neglected the opportunity to put our own house in order. It's the bottom of the ninth and we have a lot of catching up to do.


*Along with the flood water, Detroit has experienced explosive growth in its mosquito population. Detroit on the bayou.

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