Everything Else Is Frosting

Everything Else Is Frosting

It was another fall morning. I had opened the windows the previous evening to take advantage of the cooler night time temperatures. I am sitting at the kitchen table looking out the window onto the backyard and an old apple tree whose leaves have begun to blush yellow. 

I must admit I am a slave to habit; coffee, radio news, more coffee, watching the birds at the feeders and fountain, all events encapsulating a time in my day that allows me to balance both reality and fantasy, mainly from the news, while hoping to remember the difference between the two.

I listen to KRSP, a radio station known for its groundhog day humor and a satirical interpretation of what used to be news but has morphed into a form of propaganda that is particularly divisive. Commonality has been replaced by propaganda depicting our differences of opinion as crimes against the state, perpetrated by many of those that have been elected to provide truth and justice to all.    

Who or what to believe has become a board game.  We can pay two hundred dollars and still go to jail or refuse to pay, and go to jail or worse, be deported to your genetic point of origin. I wouldn’t object to the segregated practice, if it were not for the fact that if everyone were to return or be returned to their place of origin, we would as a country once again be inhabited only by the native peoples from Mexico, Canada, and what we now call America, and perhaps a few individuals, the more adventurous types from the Nordic ranges of the world. I am sure this would make the indigenous peoples of the earth ecstatic, and possibly the world would return to the sustainable nature of its native peoples, but putting all the spilled milk back in its container is impossible, and we would also have to reverse the notion strongly held by citizens of the world, that all progress is good, and not to mention the price of milk.  

KRSP provides, other than what they refer to as “so called news,” a call-in forum where people are allowed to express their views, as long as they do not encourage vengeful action or rhetoric directed at individuals or institutions by name. It is OK to generalize but encouraging people to become vigilantes, to show up at someones house with a military grade weapon proves to not be conducive to productive dialogue.

For the most part it is a talk radio show meant to be educational; allowing differing views on topics that affect the residents of our region or the country as a whole. People are mostly respectful of their fellow citizens and refrain from using words like stupid or ignorant, preferring the words like ill-informed or are your heads at where the sun don’t shine?

I’m usually on my second cup of coffee when the show begins. I have yet accrued the arrogance necessary to express my opinions on matters that I see, not only demeaning to our society, but its citizens as well. The sun has just found the feeders, and the hummingbirds that remain are coming to fortify themselves for the long flight south, where the air is biscuity warm, and the water swimming pool green. 

I couldn’t help but be reminded of the irony we find ourselves living through as a nation; a country of immigrants deporting those attempting to improve their lives or in most cases survive the dangers of their homeland by leaving; our ancestors a few generations previously, had done the exact same thing. It seems impossible that people cannot see that what the immigrants are attempting to escape, is following them like a plague and is headed not only in our direction but straight for us as a people. We should see it as a wakeup-call, but I’m afraid self-deception will prevent that from occurring. 

As I look out the window, a squirrel has once again been foiled from robbing my bird feeder by my having duplicated something I saw on the internet; a plastic bottle with the bottom cut out and placed on the pole, neck up, that supports the feeder. The squirrels attempts are thwarted by his entrapment in the plastic jug and the eventual recognition that he has encountered an obstacle it is unable to overcome.  Perplexed, it retreats to the neighbors where seeds are plentiful and with a degree of ingenuity, it will be as successful as it has been in the past.

The introductory music preceding the show has captured my attention… please continue to look out the window; the seed is in the garbage can just inside the door.

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“This is KRSP…good morning fellow travelers! Today we are breaking from our usual protocol. Opinions will be encouraged, but only after our guest speaker enlightens us about the upcoming disaster of our lifetime, which is the reason for our break in protocol. His timely warning is concerning what he believes our future will hold; and I’m not talking snow. I’ve had the privilege of hearing him speak previously and found his assessments to be reasoned and informative. 

Pay attention if you will, to Mr. Jesse Cortes, he has some insightful words and predictions about where we may be headed as a species, and why. I give you Jesse Cortes. Good morning Mr. Cortes and welcome to KRSP’s open mike.” 

“Thank you, I hope not to disappoint your listeners by restating the obvious. What I’m hoping is that by broaching topics that have to this point been considered conjecture by many of our fellow citizens, if nothing else, listeners will begin to question the priorities we are asked to consider as essential, when the obvious and most impactful influences on people and their ability to survive is being ignored or worse. The warnings are depicted as a hoax perpetrated on the people of this country, by those who have taken facts and manipulated them, choosing only what they require to build a scenario that will frighten you into adopting their agenda, which is apparently a more sustainable life. A life that would reduce or stop our ability to advance and become a more prosperous and enduring country. Fear has been used over the ages to invite a guttural reaction based on emotion, not reason. 

You may have noticed that it no longer just rains but pours. No longer a cliché or nursery rhyme meant to call our attention to something considered excessive. Six inches of snow has become a light dusting, compared to the two feet or more we now receive at a time. Houses along the coast are being inundated by an expanding ocean caused by glaciers melting.  Their rapid demise is do to the increasing temperature advances occurring in spring, summer, fall, and winter. This year records show the warmest temperatures ever recorded at the poles. 

Our skies glow a reddish hue as the smoke from the increasing forest fires refract the sun’s rays, mimicking the flames below. What we are witnessing has been predicted for more than 70 years, and we have done nothing, either as country or globally, to mitigate the contributors of our demise. If anything we have made the situation worse.

We are presently witnessing energy costs escalating due to distribution chains being impacted by war and climate, driving up the cost of all products and the uncertainty of availability and the inevitability of unaffordability. While the oil companies make huge profits off the last remaining oil reserves, our ability to sustain our life requirements are eroding. We are as the lyric states, “on the eve of destruction.”

I am aware that many of you have been warned that the times are changing and by 2050, then 2040, and now in 2030, we could be past the point of no return, where global climate changes make areas of the globe, including areas in our country, unlivable. I believe in an effort to delay mass chaos and instability, the predictions have been erroneously optimistic; we are reaching or have reached, a point of no return. The climates tipping point has arrived and the predicted slide toward the effects of an unsettled and unpredictable environment is being surpassed.

Numerous scenarios have been proposed to turn or slow the deterioration of the environment and begin to reverse its affects. I believe the hope provided is earmarked as the, “little too late” scenario, that we should have begun to plan for decades ago. Having the normality of life altered is the least of what we will experience. We have been alerted to the eventuality of the ocean currents changing or even stopping, which will result in drastic changes, to not only our environment, but subsequently our lives and livelihoods.

We have begun to see homes along the eastern seaboard fall into the ocean, buildings in Florida disappear into sink holes.  The earth’s crust is no longer capable of supporting infrastructure; the groundwater beneath is being extracted for the irrigation of crop land and our velvety green lawns. Square miles of ocean have become infested with algae blooms from excessive fertilizer run off, causing economies along the ocean to suffer or fail, as well as the sea and animal life adjoining it.

We have watched over the last ten years, people from areas, mainly from the southern hemisphere, migrate in an attempt to survive; the climate making subsistence food production impossible. The inevitability of what we will have to endure is evident, and yet we continue to deny change is taking place or worse, making no plans for the mass migration of people from vulnerable areas to areas of a more survivable nature. 

I believe that it is too late to reverse the present trend and efforts should immediately be undertaken to plan for this migration.  The habitable areas of the earth are quickly disappearing, which translates to more populations depending upon less productive land upon which to survive. 

The ramifications of a mass migration we have witnessed previously during the famed “dust bowl days of the twenty and thirties,” where large areas of Oklahoma, Kansas, and Nebraska, were impacted by poor farming practices, encouraged by monetary incentives, and furthered by drought, causing the soil to become dust; the wind causing it to become airborne, accumulating like drifted snow against buildings and fences.

The adjoining states were also affected by the migration from the dust prone areas. Local governments levied restrictions limiting access by immigrants, as documented in John Steinbeck’s novel the Grapes of Wrath. Fences were erected in Oregon and California to keep people from entering areas in search of a way to survive.

The population at that time was approximately a 100 million people; we have three times as many people today that will be impacted by environmental instability, and the repercussions of climactic change. 

Given the political and social dysfunctionality in the country, and the erosion of civil liberties, I can only imagine the chaos we will be forced to endure. During the depression of the thirties the majority of the population lived in rural areas and were capable of providing, if only minimally, basic survival needs for themselves. Today, 95% of the population live in urban settings; many believing that their food is produced in stores. The connection between rural and urban communities has been severed and is unlikely to be restored in time to avoid a catastrophe, when the grocers shelves become empty. 

Given our relationship with one another, I would expect an increase in violence in an effort to maintain a failing way of life or to simply survive. I would not expect a communal effort to remedy a situation that benefits everyone. We are on the verge of a massive disruption and prefer not to recognize it or plan for its implications. 

I know there are people listening who are shaking their heads and attempting to convince themselves that what I’ve just reiterated is another attempt to install a liberal agenda, which is attempting to frighten the population into abandoning the tried-and-true exploitive ways that have catapulted us into becoming the most vibrant and prosperous country in the world. 

I ask you, what is to be gained by creating chaos and disruption that only adds to our current and forthcoming problems. All I urge you to do is look around and observe the warning signs that should encourage you to prepare for the inevitability of debilitating change, and to consider cooperation as an alternative to a violent reaction, which will only address the short-lived aspects of inevitable change, without offering a lasting alternative.

If you must find blame to satisfy your suspicions, ask who has the most to gain by disrupting the stability of our distribution systems, by increasing the prices of all commodities by the increased costs of energy?

I do not wish to frighten you, should you accept my prognosis of upcoming events or disparage the opportunity of responding progressively.  I only hope that you will begin to think about the ramifications of climate instability and the changes it will demand and not be swayed to inactivity or the expectancy of technology to save us from ourselves; remember, technology is why we are facing the dilemma we have inherited. My hope is that future generations experience only the slow methodical changes the earth incurs on its own, and in its own time.

Thank you for your attention to this matter.”

“That was Jesse Cortes, and this is KRSP radio’s Open Mike. I hope that gives you some food for thought. The phone lines will once again open to take your calls in response to what Jesse has just ask us to consider. 

I would also like to take this opportunity to thank you for listening and ask that you be respectful of other opinions. The purpose of this program, some call it a show; I call it a program, is to open avenues of communication built on facts not conjecture or what used to be called “old wives tales,” without the tent-mentality we have become used to being subjected to.

Our first caller is Wilson from rural Montgomery county. What is your response to the dire predictions of Jesse Cortes and our seeming inability to relate survival to environmental challenges… and do you see any hope in the future for us?”