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GUEST COLUMN--With the unprecedented damage caused by hurricanes Harvey, Irma, and now Maria to Texas, Florida, and Puerto Rico literally nobody in either the government or media is willing to even suggest what might just be the irrefutable reality and truth of our future. Example: Humans may not be able to continue to live places like … Puerto Rico.
Throughout human history, whatever the magnitude of either natural or human caused disasters like earthquakes or war, there has always been the belief and possibility that although things might be difficult, we can rebuild that which has been destroyed.
What has never occurred to our species in the past, but which might very well be the unprecedented reality of our future, is that places like some areas of Texas, Florida, and surely Puerto Rico might never again be habitable in the future due to human caused and carbon fuel based global warming that is not only not getting better, but is actually getting worse, when measured by rising global temperatures and the ever increasing havoc it is causing.
Put simply, does anybody really think that with scientifically verifiable worsening global warming we will go for any extended period of time in the future without the recurrence of hurricanes with as much or greater force than hurricanes Harvey, Irma or Maria?
Given the unprecedented damage that just Puerto Rico has sustained and given the astronomical costs of rebuilding there, how long would you have to go between hurricanes to reasonably amortize the recuperation costs of reconstruction that would make continued human habitation there practical?
Native Americans and other "primitive people" have always known that you must walk softly on the earth, because the earth is the giver of life. The problem with Western society, religions, and philosophy is that we have believed that we were created by G-d and are, therefore, exempt and not subject to the immutable rules of nature.
Will we see the error of our ways in time or become the next mass extinction of an otherwise beautiful and creative species?
Hopefully we can learn to be primitive enough to survive.
(Leonard Isenberg is a Los Angeles, observer and a contributor to CityWatch. He was a second generation teacher at LAUSD and blogs at perdaily.com. Leonard can be reached at [email protected]).
-cw
