Reconciliation: 26

When I was ten, they told me that the world might end from nuclear explosions. When I was 21, they told me that I might die at the hands of an unknown freedom fighter. When I was 30, they told me that I might die from the effects of obesity. All my life, people have been telling me I might die.

Each time I faced predictions of annihilation, cool heads, luck, or careful living saw me through. The concept of “mutually assured destruction” (MAD) helped stave off a Dr. Strangelove ending to the planet. Keeping my head down and eschewing volunteering of any sort helped bring me luck, and guided me safely out of a war zone. Thirty years of daily exercise kept the old ticker pounding on schedule.

Now, they say we will all die unless we quit strangling our planet. This one has me worried. The planet has endured five extinctions in its long history and a sixth is looming, according to reputable scientists. The signs are clear.

The polar icecaps are melting.

Coastal cities in the United States are increasingly water-soaked because of rising sea levels.

The South Pacific’s Great Barrier Reef will be dead because of increasing seawater temperatures, within decades, according to oceanographers.

National Geographic has published a map showing what might happen if the ice on land melted and drained into the sea, raising it 216 feet and creating new shorelines for our continents and inland seas. My home town of Pine Bluff, Arkansas, now hundreds of miles inland, would be a seaport.

From the Union of Concerned Scientists: “Every one of the past 40 years has been warmer than the 20th century average. 2016 was the hottest year on record. The 12 warmest years on record have all occurred since 1998.”

Of course, a few scientifically-trained people claim this is a hoax and simply not true. If we are lucky, they will be right.

What we much ask ourselves is, “Do we feel lucky?”

Well, do we?

I don’t. Those who dispute the findings of the established science community largely serve corporations and industries that stand to increase profits be following a path of not addressing the issue.

We seem to be stuck, moreover, in a paradigm in which our leaders can hold, and act upon, two directly opposing thoughts at once. To wit:

The President of the United States, the leader of the ruling political party, is set to withdraw from a world-wide coalition that exists to address global destruction on the grounds that all this talk about climate change is a hoax. I know I have friends who agree and, trust me, I try to understand.

But. the United States military establishment, in the meantime, is spending millions upon millions of dollars preparing to meet new challenges that will result from climate change. Our president has pledged to provide the military with greater and greater funds, some of which will undoubtedly go to preparing for the changes created by new climate conditions.

As my Hispanic friends would say, “Que?”

I have a term to describe this ability to act upon and support opposing opinions simultaneously. I hope it offends no dear friends. It’s not “covfefe.” I call it: “bipolar-illogic.”

I have some future ocean-front property for sale.