What amazed her was their persistent insistence on boosting the self when the world—and this country, in particular—was in disgraceful shambles. The progressing, ever-widening gulf of disparity in every sphere. And were we not also on the verge of an environmental apocalypse? People seemed more fixated than ever on notions of “self-tend, self-care, self.” In the current context, wasn’t naked pursuit of health obscene? The self-contemplation down to the microbiomic makeup of your alimentary system, yet such contemplation was divorced from any reflection. This seemed, now more than ever, the most American of myopias, this unapologetic—boastful, even—attention to the surface self. It sort of made sense, though. A retreat to the local. The hyperlocal and controllable: your heart, your lungs, your flesh.
— Dana Spiotta, Wayward: A Novel (Knopf, July 6, 2021)
Notes:
- NY Times: “European Floods Are Latest Sign of a Global Warming Crisis.” BERLIN — “Days before roiling waters tore through western Germany, a European weather agency issued an “extreme” flood warning after detailed models showed storms that threatened to send rivers surging to levels that a German meteorologist said on Friday had not been seen in 500 or even 1,000 years. By Friday those predictions proved devastatingly accurate, with more than 100 people dead and 1,300 unaccounted for, as helicopter rescue crews plucked marooned residents from villages inundated sometimes within minutes, raising questions about lapses in Germany’s elaborate flood warning system. Numerous areas, victims and officials said, were caught unprepared when normally placid brooks and streams turned into torrents that swept away cars, houses and bridges and everything else in their paths. “It went so fast. You tried to do something, and it was already too late,” a resident of Schuld told Germany’s ARD public television, after the Ahr River swelled its banks, ripping apart tidy wood-framed houses and sending vehicles bobbing like bath toys.”
- Photo: Trier, western Germany. Ernst Mettlach / AFP / Getty Images via NBC News
- Photo: Rachel, Selfie @ March 16, 2021, Yellowstone National Park
Live & Learn 
These unprecedented catastrophes are happening in terrifying regularity. Mankind is staring at the repercussions of climate change and global warming.
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That appears to be exactly the case. And like gun violence, we seem to be getting increasing numb to it all.
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Proactiveness and intense awareness about the imminent danger, by the citizens of the world is the need of the hour. It will certainly force the hands of governments to take corrective steps like reducing carbon footprints and reigning in the errant industries.
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Thanks for sharing.
What happened in Germany is a result of what we did to our climate. Fridays for Future, Greta Thunberg, is right we have to change our lifestyle immediately to prevent the next catastrophe.
Nevertheless wishing you a happy week
The Fab Four of Cley
🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂
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Despite all that, we NEED a happy week! Have a good one.
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🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂
Thank you
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…which brings me back to the frustration of duality despite its inevitability – this horror that we have brought to the very planet upon which we tread and the seemingly immortal thread of hope that still winds its way around our thinking. That said, I also think that Americans are the most myopic of people….and among the first to offer help. My head hurts.
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Laughing. That about captures it.
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‘a return to the local’ as a survival technique, hunkering down, closing the rest out. – we can’t forget we are not the center of the universe but we do impact it
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That is so true Beth.
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Reblogged this on It Is What It Is and commented:
Holding my breath!! … ““European Floods Are Latest Sign of a Global Warming Crisis.” BERLIN — “Days before roiling waters tore through western Germany, a European weather agency issued an “extreme” flood warning after detailed models showed storms that threatened to send rivers surging to levels that a German meteorologist said on Friday had not been seen in 500 or even 1,000 years.”
“This seemed, now more than ever, the most American of myopias, this unapologetic – boastful, even – attention to the surface self. It sort of made sense, though. A retreat to the local. The hyperlocal and controllable: your heart, your lungs, your flesh.”
— Dana Spiotta, Wayward: A Novel (Knopf, July 6, 2021) … and more!!
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Yes, I know
We did well, the human tribe, to destroy the very soil and environment we were given to care for! NOT
What we need, all of us who go on two legs, is to reimagine our place in creation. We need to enlarge our conscience so as to bear, moment by moment, a regard for the integrity and bounty of the earth. There can be no sanctuaries unless we regain a deep sense of the sacred, no refuges unless we feel a reverence for the land, for soil and stone, water and air, and for all that lives. We must find the desire, the courage, the vision to live sanely, to live considerately, and we can only do that together, calling out and listening, listening and calling out.
Scott Russell Sanders, Writing from the Center
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That.Is.It. Thanks for sharing Kiki
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It is scary what is happening around us… and I have to agree with Mimi!
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That it is…
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Mimi, you nailed it! A conundrum of the most difficult type. We need Miss Marple or Hercule Poirreau…
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