It is 6:45 AM. The temperature outside is 72°F. The high temperature will be 97° today, and the "feel-like" temperature will be 110°. That's August in central Virginia. The hottest days have not arrived yet. On the hottest days, the actual temperature will be above 100°.
Here (image left) is an example of a hot day in Virginia. The air temperature is 108° and the heat index (misery index, I call it) is 111°. The humidity is low, only 23%, so the heat index isn't much higher than the real temperature. The humidity today is forecast to be 62%.
I don't think I've seen any June bugs this summer. When I was young, I would see a lot of them every summer. But they've almost vanished, just like many species. Butterflies used to be plentiful. Now I rarely see one. Probably the flowers they depend on for food (nectar) are vanishing, as people don't plant them as much today and the wild places where they used to grow have been paved over for houses and shopping centers. So there is a collapse in Nature's web, as the small creatures vanish, most never to return. We will leave a very different world to our next generation than the world that we inherited. Those next generations will never know the beauty and diversity that has been lost, except through photographs. "This is how it used to be ... this is how it used to look." I'm sure today's people feel that they have replaced what they've lost with more interesting things, like cellphones and comic-book action movies. They're wrong, of course, but they'll never know it.
What will today's world look like in fifty years? Sixty years? Seventy years? Will there even be a world fit to live in? Will there be a world that you and I would want to live in? Will all the animals be in zoos, and will all the butterflies be in photos? My friend Nuria in Costa Rica has a sister who feeds hummingbirds in her back yard. Will there be hummingbirds in fifty years? Will people even care?
Sometimes I think humanity may have taken a wrong turn, may have gone down a bad road. Sometimes I hope I'm wrong. Sometimes I think it doesn't matter. Everything balances in the end.
There is a video about a Hopi (Native American) prophecy. I like it, and maybe it will mean something to you. It's beautiful, if nothing else. I'm embedding it below, but you can watch it full screen if you click on the box in the bottom right corner of the video player.
1 comment:
This time I did not want to make a comment about your blog because I think it is a very deep topic. But I changed my mind because your readers need to know what it is in our thoughts. The spirit is the breath of our bodies, so thru it we can act and do things. It gives us energy or it makes us feel without it, also depress, sad, happy and other things like to keep us alive or maybe I am wrong, many people will think that the spirit doesn't exist and that is why our world is changing a lot and fast, maybe there is not going to exist in fifty or sixty years and because of us. We don't care and appreciate what the nature has given to us and we destroy it. It is too sad how unscrupulous people are destroying the earth and their spirits are dying with them too. shame on them!
It impressed me the inspiration that you had to write this blog and the video you chose. marvelous post!
TA
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