Climate Change: The End of Days?

Climate change. The news isn’t good. Drought, fires, tornadoes, hurricanes, floods. It’s nearly biblical, like the end of days. Wars and rumors of wars …

Is it the end of days? Shocking to think of the earth as a simple planet, the sun as a star burning itself out. Even worse to think we humans could annihilate life on earth by our own actions, and far sooner than we had hoped.

I once counted on the succession of seasons: fall winter spring summer. I could rely on their regular beginnings and endings, their temperature highs and lows, their snow totals and wind chills and heat indexes and pollen counts. Now it’s all mixed up. Summer came too soon, the heat soaring in early June instead of late August. My allergies acted up in August, not June. We’ve had so much rain in Minnesota that our rivers took nearly a month to subside from flood stage.

I feel vulnerable, shaky. I’ve relied on nature to anchor me. Now even the ground moves at my feet.