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“And though her eyes are fixed upon Noah’s great rainbow/
She spends her time peeking into Desolation Row.”
The lines are from Dylan’s “Desolation Row,” a song from the album, “Highway 61 Revisited.” God brought the flood to cleanse the world of evil (how that did work out?), but God gave to Noah a beautiful rainbow, to seal the pact between God and all animals that are on the earth. (Do you know there is blessing on seeing a rainbow:
Baruch Atah Adonai, Eloheinu Melech Haolam, Zocher Habrit V’ne’eman Bivrito V’kayam B’ma’amaro.
Blessed are You Adonai, our God King of the universe, who remembers the covenant, and is faithful to His covenant, and keeps His promise.)
Today, we are looking at Desolation Row, and there’s no rainbow. The oceans are rising, and the ice caps in the Arctic, and Antarctica and Greenland will melt, and island nations will be swamped. The coast cities will be swamped. I fear for the Everglades. The droughts will increase and will be longer in duration. The wildfires will increase and will burn many thousands of acres of timber. Climate change will affect agriculture negatively.
A recent report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change said the risk of triggering climate tipping points becomes high with two degrees centigrade (about 3.6 on the Fahrenheit scale) of global heating. The tipping points include the melting of the icecaps, affecting Amazon Rainforest and coral reefs, diminution of the oxygen content of the ocean, and other bad things.
I am sorry to be so gloomy, but climate change is the biggest issue that we need to face. Write your representative in Washington. We need to forestall or prevent climate change for the sake of our children.