As I’m posting this, a large portion of the United States is about to experience an extreme weather event. Temperatures are expected to drop to well below freezing and stay there for the next eight days. On Sunday (January 25), snow and sleet will move across many states and affect millions of residents. I wonder why the anticipation of bad weather has not been made less scary by now, when we could have been fixing things before they become concerns.
Our world, for all its modern technology, has not turned within to make life safer, choosing the development of AI over basic ecology to protect the planet we use that AI upon. Right now, millions of us are holding devices in our hands and hoping we can keep them charged without the power going out. I’m using mine to post this, so I’m equally guilty, but my purpose in calling attention to this is twofold.
First, our electric supply system has gone solar in many places, but we still rely on above-ground power lines connecting power to homes and which can be affected by extreme temperatures and high winds, not to mention rain, ice and snow. In summer, power outages mean the inconveniences of excessive heat in some areas of the country, but in winter those outages place lives at risk. This means not only residents freezing in their homes, but repair crews who are tasked with climbing poles in dangerous conditions to restore power.
So, we have people at home with no power, heart and breathing conditions compromised, women and small children turning into ice pops, and men and women slipping on poles yards above an uncompromising icy wasteland trying to save them and not endanger themselves. Those residents who try home remedies such as heaters, fireplaces or generators may succumb to fume poisoning. Carbon monoxide indoors in winter is as silent a killer as low temperatures.
It’s uncertain whether the mysterious disappearance of our trash into the oceans is partly to blame for our extreme weather, but it may well be contributing to it. We are so fast to cast anything aside without a care about what happens to it afterward; I suspect we are paying off disposal companies to “make it go away” and then turning a blind eye to what they do with it. I have had nightmares about people in 2069 seeing trash from 1999 appearing in the tides as the sea gives up its unwanted waste. We aren’t burning it, and places such as India are living among piles of e-debris nobody wants to salvage. We’re a throwaway race of humans in a world which can’t accept what we are discarding in such huge quantities. The seas grow warmer, and nature fights back with extreme cold. It’s a paradox that is making our seasons challenges to our existence.
If we don’t corral these discrepancies, our winters and summers will become worse. If Disney can have all their power works underground, we can certainly come up with a way to preserve 24/7 power for the rest of us. If we can make trash, we should also be able to unmake it. A philosophy in Frank Herbert’s Dune mentioned that whoever can destroy something has control over it. Why would we make plastics nobody wants to process once it’s used and instead toss them into landfills or feed them to our marine life? These extremes in weather may mean that our planet is fighting back, so our best defense is to give it no reason to.
But that is a bigger question that needs a much larger answer than this short blog post.
So, what was the second reason?
This event, as I said before, may change lives. I don’t know what will happen during this next week. There is an actual probability of catastrophe. People may die this coming week. Your best bet is to stay where you are. Don’t drive in icy conditions and need somebody else to come after you. Layer up. Hunker down and hope for the best. That’s what I will be doing.
Here’s hoping for the best in the worst possible conditions.
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