There is this great old movie, starring Paul Newman and Jackie Gleason, called “The Hustler”. Newman plays a young pool shark who moves around the country playing and beating local pool stars and building his reputation towards his all-consuming goal – playing a “winner take all match” against the one and only Minnesota Fats (Gleason). Love that movie. Newman is excellent. Gleason is sublime.

The reason I bring up that film is because Newman’s character speaks a line of dialogue that I have been recalling more and more frequently over the last few years when thinking about climate change. When he finally gets to play Fats, Newman opens the first game on a tear – sinking a bunch of shots and scattering the remaining balls. When he finally misses, he turns to Fats and, with a smirk, says, “Fraid I didn’t leave you much.”

I’m afraid that line sums up the generational message about our current global environmental state. The people who have been in charge of policy and resource management throughout the world for the last 50 years can turn to our children’s and grandchildren’s generations and say, “Fraid we didn’t leave you much.” In fact, we’ve left you all a “hell on earth”.

Last week was the hottest week on record for the earth. Wednesday was the hottest day ever on earth. That’s bad enough, but here’s the kicker – it’s going to get hotter. Those records will be broken soon, probably before this summer is out. We are in such a terrible situation that scientists are rushing to determine at what temperature human life and human society can no longer be sustained. Heat waves in India are intolerable. Life is becoming impossible for the poor in large urban areas like Mumbai. Add to this nightmare is the prediction of about 100% likelihood that one of the next 5 years will be the hottest on record. There is no relief in sight.

Don’t know if you’ve noticed it, but Canada is on fire. Wildfires are scorching our neighbor to the north and the resulting smoke is impacting large areas of Canada and the Northeast and Midwest US. That’s only fair since the rapacious use of fossil fuels by the US is the main reason for our worsening climate globally. Climate change respects no man-made boundaries. Our energy use has impacted all countries and the effects will be felt by all living species. Of course, the US isn’t alone in ridiculous energy consumption. China and India are now leading the way, but we set the bar and we have been too politically inept over the last 40 years to adequately address our problem. And the problem worsens, literally by the day.

In the last 15 years the Antarctic sea ice has shrunk by more than 1 million square miles (22%). The rate of melting of our glaciers and sea ice is increasing. None of that is coming back.

Not that America cares, but there is an ongoing 4 year severe drought in the Horn of Africa. The 2022 rainy season in Somalia, Kenya, and Ethiopia was the driest in over 40 years and 5 consecutive rainy seasons have failed. More than 20 million people are facing acute food insecurity and water scarcity. Tens of thousands have already died and many thousands more will undoubtedly perish. A study by an international team of scientists has found that climate change has made this drought at least 100 times more likely than without a changing climate. It is not as simple as whether climate change is responsible for the lack of rain. The impact is that the higher temperatures have increased the water evaporating from the soil and plants causing the crop deaths, livestock losses, and water shortages. At least 8 million farm animals are estimated to have died from this drought.

There is no good news. This country led in the creation of the problem and now leads in ignoring the problem. No rational human being can look at what is happening and believe that we, as a species, can afford not to act. Yet, we won’t. There is not a chance that, given the current state of affairs, human beings will adequately address climate change before we experience impacts beyond our experience or even comprehension. I do believe the situation is that bleak.

Human beings exist in an incredibly complex, inter-related ecosystem. We are one species in that system. It is very clear that this ecosystem, as it evolved over millions of years, did not develop for one species to have complete dominion over all other species and even control the physical factors impacting that ecosystem. Nonetheless, that is what has happened over the last 200 years and some humans even believe they should hold that type of dominion over the earth (some stupid bible passage). What we’re seeing now is Nature correcting this mistake. Good luck stopping that. I’m betting on Nature.