I feel odd wishing people a “Happy New Year,” because it seems like such a trivial wish — like visiting soldiers about to be sent to the front and wishing them a pleasant train ride.

We have stirred up some serious stuff with our obstinate refusal to accept and live within ecological limits, but — as the saying goes — Nature bats last.

And Nature isn’t just any batter — no, she’s like eight-armed Kali, standing at the plate with a Louisville Slugger in half the arms and an endless supply of slow curveballs to slam back at us in the others and, boy, is she ever pissed.

It seems highly likely that we’ll be out here in the field playing defense for a looooooooong time — certainly the rest of my life, and probably for the lives of all the rest of the 6.8 billion of us now alive too.

Here’s a link to a report that presents sobering look at a little of what the social sciences suggest might follow from our misbehavior. It’s not an easy read. (H/t to RealClimate.org, the best site on the net for climate change information.)

Here’s hoping that you and yours have an awakened New Year, and that you act on that awakening. These bleak glimpses of possible futures aren’t revelations — we can act to make the future better, but only by acting decisively. Failing to act is acting so as to ensure failing.

This will probably be my last post here, as I’m told that this blog format is changing in a way that doesn’t allow me to continue. I hope that you found something worthwhile here.

This entry was posted on Monday, December 31st, 2007 at 10:02 pm and is filed under Disaster Preparedness, Economy, Energy Future, Environment, Health Care. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.