I have an overactive mind. One thought races into another in a manic stream of consciousness worthy of James Joyce’s Ulysses. Sunday morning,  I am finally watching a DVD of Leonard Cohen’s

 London concert. Where do I begin about him? A few summers ago, ’18? ’17?, the Jewish Museum in NYC had the most mind-blowing retrospective about him. SO fortunate to have been there at the right time purely by chance.

If he had never written anything else other than his verse about Jesus in Suzanne he would have earned a place in the pantheon of poets. What triggered this is his Hallelujah. I cannot listen to it without it bringing tears to my eyes and a gripping emotion to my chest. And kudos to Kate McKinnon on SNL for her Hilary Clinton performance of it. We’ll get back to Leonard.

By now more of you know I had been an environmental activist and had hard science experience in Ecology. There is a pool in Coral Gables across from the Biltmore Hotel (It had once been a VA Hospital (!) where I was on a research team!) called the Venetian Pool. It is carved into the limestone (remains of the bryozoan reefs from the climactic optimum when south Florida was underwater). It is so natural and so beautiful.

During those two years of total immersion in working to save the earth I am swimming there with a fellow activist named Luther and his two young daughters. He was in his 30’s. I’m 21. He is regretting having brought them into an earth he felt was possibly doomed. I argued strongly against his feeling that. I’m there now.

Ever hear of Krakatoa? 1883, Indonesia. It was so powerful a volcanic explosion it threw enough ash into the upper atmosphere that for two years the earth’s temperature was ¾ degree F cooler. In 1816 few know that Tambora was even more powerful and caused famine and death the world over.

I am unfortunately convinced it is too late. That does not mean we should not do everything in our power to mitigate the changes. This may surprise you, but I have been known to be wrong! 😊 The melting of the permafrost in arctic and subarctic regions is the source of my pessimism. Methane is many times more powerful a greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide. There is enough methane trapped in the permafrost from the decomposition of organic material that if released it would easily double overnight the greenhouse effect. End of story.

I have fun asking my Christian friends it they know Matthew 5:5, The meek shall inherit the earth? Then, I segue into climate change and my pessimism and tell them I know nothing meeker than a cockroach, who will do just fine without us (I suggest you see The World Without Us, a book by Alan Weisman). In fact, I tell them that with all the horror humanity has inflicted on itself and the earth I am not so sure we do not deserve it (see Enrico Fermi’s Paradox).

And then there is Leonard Cohen. So just maybe with all the beauty we have also created maybe we do deserve to live.

And if you know me by now you just know I cannot resist a slightly cynical, sarcastic take on this. I suggest Vladimir Putin may be the solution to climate change. Carl Sagan warned the world about Nuclear Winter in the 1970’s (tune in to a future post about when he and I spent an afternoon together at Cornell in August, 1973. You’ll see me say time and again what a lucky guy I have been!) Remember Krakatoa and Tambor? Well the cockroaches will still inherit the earth, but at least they won’t be uncomfortably hot!