Heart broken for the Earth today

Fifty plus years ago I was a bright-eyed young woman sitting in my first college course, my first day, Biology. Our instructor, a middle-aged man was a big follower of James Hansen, the climatologist that was one of the first scientist to put together the data and come up with Global Warming. Our instructor, on our first day, decided to spend that hour and half telling us about Climate change and what was statistically probably going to happen to the Earth. This is long before the internet was invented and his time line had this week’s occurrences with the bleaching of the coral placed 100 years after I was suppose to die.

I knew things were coming, I think many of us do. My body has spent five years rejecting wheat and dairy and I’ve let go of many of the things that I thought I couldn’t live without.

Last week the reports came back from the Florida keys showing that there is massive bleaching. This happens when the water is to warm for to long. It’s not dead, YET. It’s the phase before it dies. These are 3000 year old reefs, the most stable on the planet, solid white. Hottest month in recorded history in Florida in July 2023

The ocean currents regulate our weather. As the saline in the ocean gets knocked off by the melting of the fresh water at the poles, the current changes position, moving further out into the ocean. This stops the trade winds from coming in. No trade winds, no cooling ocean water, no rain for Florida, more storms for everyone, nothing pulling the rain out or down and flooding in the NE.

This morning the report came in that the water temp buoy in South Florida had NOT error-ed on Monday when it returned a water temp of 101 at night for several hours. Tuesday is returned a temp of 102, at night, for several hours.

Two things happens when the ocean warms up, we can see the first thing this month; stuff dies up near the surface. The second big thing that happens, the methane that is trapped in ice at the bottom of the ocean gets released. That will kill most things in the ocean within a year. Over 50% of our oxygen comes from the ocean, our weather, our food chain is counting on it.

My heart has always hurt for our race; today it broke for us ☹