Gia's Revenge

I’m trapped here in my room for the months of July and August. Actually, it started in late May when my body refused to comply with the ‘acclimatization program’ to which I was submitting it. So, all said, I will have lived primarily in my room for the better part of three to four months.

Get me not wrong.  ‘Living in my room’ means, quite literally, just that.  I cannot go outside for more than 15 minutes before my body starts sweating profusely.  Within 30-60 minutes, my heart is pounding, and I am drenched.  Much longer, and I start feeling dizzy.  Last Sunday, I stayed out for two hours and suffered heat exhaustion for the next two days.  So, yes, when I say ‘living in my room’, I do mean just that.

This circumstance was not one that I ever, ever considered in all my imaginings of how this journey might unfold.

‘No,’ my body said. 

‘I will not tolerate heat, nor humidity - period.’

‘And, while you ponder that, can you please infuse me with an IV drip

  as your little experiment has left me severely dehydrated.’

So, among the many blessings for which I give thanks, the air conditioner in my room ranks high, along with the bottled water filling the empty spaces on my floor.

Yet, here I sit under what I have to consider to be the ‘house arrest’ of those weakened by the heat by that notorious and merciless assassin, Climate Change. 

This god, Climate Change, was unleashed by Gia after years of gentle, but persistent warnings to her ungrateful, willfully ignorant, and self-indulgent children.  No longer can she withstand the continual and brutal assault.  No more patience has she for children run so afoul.  And, so she sends her god, Climate Change, not as a teacher, but as an assassin to cleanse the earth of that which soils the sacred gifts so freely given.

The god, Climate Change, is growing in force and impact.  It lays siege not just to the millions in developing countries who are hidden from view by the world’s wealthy, but now to millions in highly industrialized countries. 

Climate Change has no favorites.  The privileged position so favored by the highly industrialized countries does not shield them from the angry rejoinder of Gia to our arrogant and mindless destruction of the very forces she offered to protect us. 

Climate Change has many faces, severe drought, torrential rains, scorching heat, flash floods…  And, as only a god can, Climate Change dons those many faces simultaneously, inflicting sorrow and death across the globe with a litany of equally callous, yet always destructive assaults.

Make no mistake, Climate Change is not a political debate.  Climate Change IS a henchman, cloaked in black and carrying a broadsword dripping with blood.

My heart weeps with daily news of the devastation unleashed by this war god.

But, my heart is crushed by the unequal share of the brutality apportioned to those who had no part in unleashing this vicious god.  The poor and voiceless all round the globe, by definition, could not and cannot partake in the outrageous and arrogant behaviors that led to this debacle.  Yet, they remain the most vulnerable to Climate Change, the first to suffer the assaults of Climate Change, the least capable of withstanding the devastating blows, and the most likely to die.

My God, my God!

What have we done?!?