Have you noticed the plethora of rainbows descending on us in Berkshire County lately? For every one I happen to glimpse, I see a dozen more in striking images snapped by my Facebook friends, glowing in majestic, shimmering Technicolor over Main Streets and fields, mountains and lakes.
The rainbows remind me how blessed we are to be living in such a beautiful corner of the world. Their frequency is also an indication of how perfectly balanced our weather has been lately: warm sunny days followed by drenching rains in the afternoon, with the sun returning by evening to set those rainbows alight.
You can see in the exuberance of our gardens and the deep contented green of our forests and fields how nourishing this weather is. Looking out into the world, it almost feels like we’re living in a little enchanted bubble, lovingly tended by a powerful fairy godmother like Glenda the Good.
Because in other parts of the world, things are not like this. I have been watching with amazement and a deep sense of concern as temperatures in the Middle East have climbed to what one observer called “some of the hottest urban temperatures ever endured by mankind.” In the Iranian city of Bandar Mahshahr, the heat index level has been hovering for days in the region of 165 Fahrenheit — the heat index level being an attempt to measure what the temperature feels like when an actual air temperature of 115 degrees Fahrenheit is combined with a dew point of 90 — in other words, with suffocating humidity.
Being a northerner who wilts at the first sign of humidity, I find it hard to fathom how people are managing to function in this kind of heat, which is widespread over the entire Gulf region thanks to what forecasters are calling a “stationary heat dome.” The government in Iraq imposed a mandatory four-day “holiday” last week, with the heat essentially shutting down the country. And this is a region where few people have access to air conditioning.
This is what climate change looks like. And it’s happening everywhere, not just in the Middle East. Climatologists proclaimed 2014 as the hottest year on Earth since records have been kept, but now NOAA is predicting that 2015 will top 2014, probably by a significant margin. The western United States is baking in record-breaking heat and what some scientists are calling a “mega-drought,” a drought that lasts more than 35 years. Wildfires in California are already three times more extensive than last year, forcing the evacuations of thousands, and in Alaska both temperatures and wildfires are off the charts, with temperatures in the 90s and wildfires burning more than 3 million acres so far, an area the size of Connecticut.
When I read about what’s going on all around us, it makes our quiet, blessed little ‘Shire seem more and more like an oasis in the midst of an unfolding climate disaster that is picking up in intensity each year. What should we do with this uncomfortable knowledge, as we sit peacefully in our blooming gardens and wait for the next passing shower?
World leaders presented us with two starkly different models of response this past week. On the one hand, we saw Russia moving in to drill for more oil in the rapidly melting Arctic, submitting a claim to the United Nations for more than 463,000 square miles of territory in an aggressive challenge to the U.S., Canada, Denmark and Norway, all of whom are also jockeying for Arctic drilling rights. This is mutually assured destruction of a new, 21st century variety, with nations competing to extract the most oil, the burning of which will certainly send our planet over the brink into climate chaos.
On the other hand, we saw President Obama, who thank heaven just refuses to give up and cry Uncle, gamely trying to push through regulations to substantially reduce carbon emissions from power plants, phasing out coal-burning plants in favor of natural gas, renewable energy and possibly nuclear energy. His Clean Power Plan has been endorsed by many businesses, including giant corporations like Unilever and Staples. But it was also immediately attacked by Republicans from coal-mining states, as well as fossil fuel producers, who threaten to hold it up in Congress and in the courts.
The Obama plan isn’t perfect — I’d like to see us move more quickly away from natural gas and nuclear and towards solar and wind. But at least it’s a credible step in the right direction. As Al Gore, Bill McKibben and a host of scientists have been warning for the past decade or so, the only way to stop the juggernaut of climate change, which like it or not has already left the station, is to stop burning fossil fuels. We must leave the oil and gas in the ground, tempting as they might be in terms of short-term profits.
For too long, human beings have had an immature attitude towards our role on the planet. We take and take and imagine that our Mother Earth will always be there to keep giving us more. Those of us who are protected from the full frontal force of climate change, like we lucky ones in the Berkshires who have the luxury of watching the wildfires and the heat waves on a screen, happening elsewhere — we have a responsibility to wake up and do what we can to set humanity on a sustainable path.
That may mean becoming politically active, voting for local, state and national politicians who are willing to stand up to the fossil fuel giants and their henchman, insisting that they reinvent themselves as renewable energy companies, not later, but now.
We can also take actions on a smaller scale, close to home, that can model the kind of world we’d like to move towards. I’m thrilled to see the citizens of Otis, Massachusetts, taking the lead on renewable energy in our county, investing in the town’s future — and our planet’s future — by voting to install a $6.4 million, 1.7 megawatt wind turbine that, as reported by The Berkshire Edge, “is predicted to save the town up to $100,000 annually in electricity costs and pay for itself out of the surplus energy that it provides to regional municipalities and school districts.”
Maybe all the rainbows we’ve been seeing lately have a message for us about the pots of gold, both real and metaphorical, that await us on the other side of the storm of climate change. If we use this peaceful summer time to envision the kind of world we want to live in, and begin to take concrete actions towards realizing that vision, there is still time to make a difference.
Out beyond the rainbows, in the mirage of the future still unfolding, I can hear the voices of future generations calling to us, asking us — begging us — to do all we can to ensure that they too have a chance to enjoy the delights of a balanced, green, harmonious planet. Surely it’s not too much to ask.
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The weekly EDGE WISE column is curated by Jennifer Browdy, Ph.D., associate professor of comparative literature, gender studies and media studies at Bard College at Simon’s Rock and the Founding Director of the Berkshire Festival of Women Writers. Women writers interested in publishing in EDGE WISE can find writers’ guidelines on the Festival website, or may submit queries or columns to Jennifer@berkshirewomenwriters.org.
