Writing in Easter’s sunday, I would like to put down some lines on the start of the spring, at least in this hemisphere. But hey, when you are a latino that grew up in the tropic, is still difficult to remember that, as the dutch say “April does what it will”, meaning that weather in these days is just unpredictable. So we had days of sun and heat, and now we are expecting some snow. The weather changes beyond our comprehension.
What is not beyond our comprehension is that the climate is also changing. So, past year 8 persons died of shark attack in Australia instead of the 90 previous years average of 1. The likely cause is the warming up of the water, which pushes sharks to more human populated areas. And that to use a reference that scares us all, even if still the chances of dying by shark in Australia are about 1000 times smaller than the ones of dying by our own stupidity, that is by car accident. But there are more realistic and concerning numbers. Like the intensity of the tornado season, increasing every year. Or the ever extending droughts and the every-year-being-beaten record of hottest summer. Climate changes and it affect us and it still fails to mobilize us. I wonder if we should start talking about nature’s revenge.
Interestingly, at least in this first world where I live, pretty much everybody agree that climate change is a prime concern. But look at the electoral results of my dutch green party, with a great total of half the votes that it received in the previous election. Are we lying to ourselves when we claim that climate change matters to us? probably. But also, it does not looks like the public believes that the state and the government is what we need to defend us from our own stupidity or greed. At least, not the green party in the government.
Perhaps, now that I write, we political greens need to redefine our aims. Perhaps we should stop arguing why eco-taxes are going to save us or why anti-polution legislation will help the environment. Perhaps we need to go back to the basics once more, and repeat to ourselves that we all have right to the spring.
I think that we need to remind ourselves that this moment, this Easter, Pesach, or simply seasonal joy, this is a moment in which we all, all of us, have the right to get out, to take a break and walk out and see a clean tree and a few birds singing their mating chants. We all have the right to an unspoiled nature, to a new spring.
And not to a silent one.