That brutal home stretch of winter, when we catch brain freeze from breathing through our nose. It took a while, but last week¹s temperatures tipped below 25 degrees, and that old feeling came back. That part of you that wonders how you managed to forget once again, to remind yourself that this year you were quitting your job and moving to the Florida Keys. That time of year when you wished you hadn¹t skimped out on buying the remote start feature on your car, so you could fix your tie in your warm bedroom while the car heats up in the ice cold driveway.
Tomorrow, Malverne Mel will come out of hiding and tell us how much longer we¹ll have to warm our socks on the radiator before we pull them on. And of course, there¹s the inevitable encounter with that tired old joke. You¹ll be making your morning coffee at the deli or pumping gas by alternating freezing hands, and the person next to you will say: ³What global warming?²
Let¹s make it a New Year¹s resolution to not laugh at that joke anymore. With more data pouring in every day over the validity of global warming, it¹s just not funny anymore. It¹s not that we can¹t laugh at its irony, it¹s just that we can¹t afford to laugh. Not anymore. Of course it¹s just an ice-breaker joke, something a person says to another person to feel connected, to be friendly. But it¹s a reflection of something more serious happening in our national dialogue. Just a few weeks ago, a personality on FoxNews Channel used the uncharacteristically freezing temperatures in Texas, Arizona, and California to air a segment that challenged whether or not the ³hype² over global warming was just that‹hype.
In a sense, every time that joke is told, something of global warming¹s seriousness is lost. Segments such as the one on FoxNews is just the tip of the iceberg, no pun intended, of a larger attitude we hold towards our treatment of the climate in particular, and of nature in general. It is the symptom of the geo-centric. If it¹s not happening here, then it¹s not happening. Soon we will be watching a morning show and there will be a report on the genocide in Darfur. The anchors will turn around at their desks, look out of the 5th Avenue window, and say: ³What genocide?² If this image seems horrific, we need to be equally horrified at the casual way in which we dismiss the damage we are doing to our world.
I was thrilled to report about the recent acquisition of funds to renovate and beautify Hall¹s Pond Park. It is just one of the many parks that will be getting much needed support in Nassau County. More than that, it¹s symbolic of our respect and desire to create places we can go for sanctuary, and to be reminded of how beautiful our world can be. These things are important: as important as financial security, as important as world peace, as important as freedom. For what is the benefit of world peace, if we have no world to enjoy that peace?
Scientists say that by the year 2100, our sea levels will have risen to dangerous heights, particularly in low-lying areas, due to the melting ice caps in Greenland and Antarctica. When I think of the laughter some may get out of worrying about what happens 93 years from now, I am reminded of that native American saying. ³We don¹t inherit the land from our forefathers, we borrow it from our children.² The restoration of Hall¹s Pond is just the beginning of that great loan.
Comments about this story? Mal-wheditor@liherald.com or (516) 569-4000 ext. 205
