Leonard Pitts, Jr., who writes for the Miami Herald, has written a column that appeared in the San Jose Mercury News on Sunday, July 31, 2022. Pitts' column was headlined, "The year (bleep) got real."
In my own headline, I have taken the liberty of substituting out that "bleep" and providing the word that was actually on Pitts' mind. I have also provided pictures illustrating three of the things to which Pitts referred in his column: (1) massive wildfires, occurring everywhere around the world; (2) massive flooding events, likewise; and (3) just plain hot temperatures, putting lives in danger and making it almost impossible for people to function. That, too, is a worldwide phenomenon. Click the following link for a New Yorker article that illuminates the dimensions of the problem. A click right here will take you to what The Guardian recently published on this topic. Or, you can click the next link, to read my blog posting about Kim Stanley Robinson's book, Ministry For The Future.
As presented in the Mercury, Pitts' column was also labeled with another phrase, identifying what the column was all about: "Grim Truth."
I commend Pitts' column to you (and I recommend all those other articles and my earlier blog posting, too). As Pitts says near the end of the column:
None of the other things that gobble our attention — Donald Trump, abortion rights, gun violence — matter as much as the inarguable fact that this planet is rapidly growing inhospitable to human life. That grim truth has hit like a hammer in recent days.
Let's assume that Pitts is right, and that global warming has just "gotten real," meaning that it can't really be dismissed or discussed as a kind of theoretical and long term problem. If that is true, then we, too, have got to "get real" in doing something about it.
Getting "real" about global warming means, and I hope we all understand this, that each one of us, individually, and all of us, collectively, must set aside our "normal lives" and make radical changes in almost everything.
That's what you have to do when shit gets real.
On the upside, we now have a fantastic opportunity to realize - to the depths of our bones and souls - that we are, truly, "in this together." The global warming crisis that is putting our individual lives, and human civilization, in danger is a worldwide phenomenon, and Pitts makes the point with an epigraph that I have featured rather recently in one of my own blog postings:
There's a choice we're making. We're saving our own lives."
Think about it! We ARE the World. We are in it together. That's actually a happy thought, when shit gets real.
(1) - https://www.cnn.com/2022/07/23/us/oak-fire-mariposa-county-yosemite/index.html
(2) - https://www.wdrb.com/news/death-toll-rises-as-flood-recovery-efforts-ramp-up-in-eastern-kentucky/article_f663ef70-0f24-11ed-b5aa-afc3e41f0f0b.html
(3) - https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-news/canada-roasted-record-466c-temperatures-24418214
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