Note: This was one of my first blogs; however, due to the changes in policy (and Presidential administrations, this is the revised version.For all you non-Superman folks out there, this is Superman 101. It’s pretty spooky!
Superman is born Kel-El on the alien planet Krypton. His parents, Jor-El and Lara, brilliant scientists whom everyone ignores for years, become aware of Krypton’s impending destruction, and Jor-El begins constructing a spacecraft that would carry Kal-El to Earth. (Apparently the planet is overheating and is about to burst…hmm…sound familiar?)
During Krypton’s last moments, Jor-El places young Kal-El in the spacecraft and launches it. Jor-El and Lara die as the spacecraft barely escapes Krypton’s fate. ( Marlon Brando’s big cameo in the original movie). The explosion transforms planetary debris into kryptonite, a radioactive substance that is lethal to Superman. Note:The people of Krypton were portrayed as living in a cold and heartless society. Though they were masters of science (or so they thought… and then Boom!).
The foreshadowing of the 1938 writers remarkable. Like a lot of science ‘fiction’ literature, it’s become quite real. Today, despite the overwhelmingly conclusive science that global warming is man made, too many politicians (backed by fossil fuel donors)still proclaim which of the following:
A. It’s a hoax.
B. It’s just a natural cycle for Earth (a vicious cycle!).
C. Admit it, sort of, but claim it’s not man made.
D. Believe the melting ice caps will make for a good investment in real estate (hmm, who could that be?).
E. If we do something drastic, like move away from fossil fuels, then we lose too many jobs!
The answer of course is all of the above.
Here is what dominates every A Block of the national news: the wildfires and drought in the West, the ubiquitous tornadoes in the Midwest and Southeast, the flooding in the Southeast, and the storms in the Atlantic Coast? ‘Earthlings’ boil the atmosphere and get the hottest years on record, each year topping the year before, only it is growing faster and faster. Al Gore and Jor-El (Superman’s father) were warning us years ago in The Inconvenient Truth. (Note: reverse the names Al Gore and Jor-El…spooky!)
Don’t just believe me, follow this link because according to N.Y. Times’ David Wallace Wells, it’s “Time to Panic”:
Opinion The planet is getting warmer in catastrophic ways. And fear may be the only thing that saves us. By David…www.nytimes.com
Wells quotes a familiar voice of Earth’s stewardship, “At the opening of a major United Nations conference two months later, David Attenborough, the mellifluous voice of the BBC’s “Planet Earth” and now an environmental conscience for the English-speaking world, put it even more bleakly: ‘If we don’t take action,’ he said, ‘the collapse of our civilizations and the extinction of much of the natural world is on the horizon.’”
So clearly the real “national emergency” is part of an international call for immediate action.
So what does America need to do besides look for another planet to eject our kids? Here is the obvious suggestion, other than personal recycling, reusing, downsizing, etc.
- Elect a President who will reengage America in the Paris Climate Agreement, which the current President has abandoned. Accordingly, “the stated objectives of the Paris Agreement are implicitly ‘predicated upon an assumption — that member states of the United Nations, including high polluters such as China, the US, India, Brazil, Canada, Russia, Indonesia and Australia, which generate more than half the world’s greenhouse gas emissions, will somehow drive down their carbon pollution voluntarily and assiduously without any binding enforcement mechanism to measure and control CO2 emissions at any level from factory to state, and without any specific penalty gradation or fiscal pressure (for example a carbon tax) to discourage bad behavior.’” * Yes, enforcement is an issue but we have start in 2020.* (wikipedia.org/wiki/Paris_Agreement)
I know what you’re thinking: we won’t agree until the other big polluters ratify and enforce. Seriously? I thought we were the leader of the free world…the one Superpower…the great inventors…visionaries…. America’s actions saved a world order tipping toward fascism perpetuated by Nazis. Who is going save this world from the willful ignorance of antiquated energy sources that will choke the earth’s inhabitants?What does America use its power for?
2. Support the Green Revolution. Some argue it is too ‘pie-in-the-sky. Some argue it will cost jobs. Some argue it is dead on arrival in the Houses of Congress. Some argue that we are just one country. My answer: so what? There is no alternative. We do what must be done or my adult children and their children will be devastated.
Again for the folks who don’t remember the saga that was Superman, the planet Krypton blows up and pieces of Kryptonite naturally land on earth, along with a space capsule cradling a small baby, soon to become Superman. In 1938, his creators saw fascism growing and perhaps wondered what the world would become. It became WWII, and its climax was the beginning of Atomic Age.
The destruction just now peeking over the horizon is a cataclysm that not even Superman was meant to stop. After all, he can stop a speeding bullet and fly faster than a speeding locomotive and leap tall buildings with a single bound…. Ah, but that’s kids’ stuff.
In the meantime, the clock is ticking…
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