The realities of climate change appear beyond comprehension

The intellectual dynamic that prevailed in
Victoria's Black Saturday bushfires
prevails as the world's coast cities
face certain flooding.

Climate change is going to impact on humanity in ways that seem almost beyond comprehension.

The impacts are so extreme that they are outside the contemporary frame of reference for most leaving them seemingly unable to even grasp that the certain unfolding difficulties are warning us of could possibly be real.

There is another complication, for psychologically we all seem to naturally disallow ourselves from considering anything that doesn’t fall within our purview of what is rewarding and satisfying.

Beyond the fact that we may see a unique bonding among people as they work together to confront the evolving challenges of our damaged climate, there is distressingly little good news to report.

The broad optimism presently pervading the world is about the profit and growth of business as usual and the pessimism, and sadness, associated with the collapse of that paradigm seems necessary before we can switch to being optimistic about an entirely new way of life.

The death of anything demands a period of mourning before we can see a new dawning.

Considering that, it was unsettling to read in the Huffington Post that “14 U.S. Cities That Could disappear Over The Next Century,Thanks to Global Warming” and nothing truly effective is being done.

Looking back to Victoria’s Black Saturday bushfires we see an example of a similar problem – many people could see the smoke, but seemed convinced such a disaster could never befall them; the people in those American cities can “see the smoke”, but seem intellectually unable to process the information.

Considering our knowledge and the realities of science, nothing we could do in the short term will save those cities.

However, nothing seems to be done in preparing the cities and those who live there for what is going to be a momentous change to their lives.

The intellectual and emotional state the doomed many in Victoria’s Black Saturday bushfires is going to play our again for the world’s coastal cities, only on a massively destructive scale, as our seas continue to rise as a result of climate change.