Those on-going Californian fire storms are really scary. Winds up to 100 km per hour are unbelievable and so frightening. At least 25 lives have been lost and many more are missing, perhaps gone forever, burnt to cinders. Billion dollar properties gone up in smoke and a whole town wiped off the map.
It’s happening now on this planet where we live. Yet, besides this floods are inundating deserts. I watched the news about the flash flood in Petra, Jordan, and the swiftness with which it took place – within 3 to 4 minutes, a whole gushing torrent of water cascaded down the flood channels that could barely contain it. People had to run for their lives to higher ground. They were lucky, but others were not. The flood left a mire of mud in its wake where the search for those swept away was a dangerous, arduous task.
It makes me wonder, how safe are we? We already experience unusually high tides…an indication of rising sea levels? Yet we seem to carry on altering our landscape, deforesting, creating islands, reclaiming land, cutting and concreting hill slopes preventing the absorption of water into the ground. Despite the shock of the 26th December 2004 Tsunami, we seem not to have taken it seriously while neighboring countries north and south did their best to prepare themselves for the next wave of natural disasters. These came continuously in typhoons, floods, more earthquakes, tsunami, and the submergence of small atoll islands. There were unexpected sudden drops in temperature in tropical places, even here on the Peninsula. There was snow in the Middle East, where it never snowed before. Why do we continue to pretend that we are safe from the winds of climate change?
Watching “The World’s Deadliest Weather” on BBC Earth, it hit me – human beings are like mere ants being swept away on a flood. We can’t control or fight Mother Nature. We are too small and the more we disrespect Her, the more dire the consequences. WAKE UP! WAKE UP! THIS IS NOT A TV SHOW! IT IS HAPPENING HERE AND NOW!
Winking at Life 