Portia likes to play with cords. It’s quite a thing having your own animal. I had cats all growing up in Vermont, but it was my sister and mom who scooped the poop and dribbled the kibble. That, I’ve learned, makes a huge difference.
Portia comes to us for everything. Petting, feeding, sleeping, and most of all, cord frenzy. In two months with us this cat has eaten two ipod headphones, speakers connected to a subwoofer, and chewed half way through Maddy’s computer powercord. It’s intense.
Crossposted from Itsgettinghotinhere.org
Nothing compared to ecosystem collapse that is.
Spreading hands as dry and cracked as the orchards he tends, the stout man his mates call Tank explained what damage a decade of drought has done.
“Suicide is high. Depression is huge. Families are breaking up. It’s devastation,” he said, shaking his head. “I’ve got a neighbor in terrible trouble. Found him in the paddock, sitting in his [truck], crying his eyes out. Grown men — big, strong grown men. We’re holding on by the skin of our teeth. It’s desperate times.”
A result of climate change?
“You’d have to have your head in the bloody sand to think otherwise,” Eddy said.
Ten years ago I traveled to Adelaide, South Australia, the driest province in the driest continent on Earth. I spent five months of my Junior year in college studying sustainable development, environmental politics, and climate change. It was the first time I grasped the issue of global warming. At that time, the drought described by Tank had only just begun.
Now, ten years later, Australia is teaching me a new lesson – as depressing as they may be, articles about climate impacts can still teach us something.
My climate reading for today all started with this news story about global warming creeping into Joshua Tree territory. Have you no decency, Mr. Crisis. That’s my tree you’re messing with.
ItsGettingHotInHere Grist
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