Just when you thought things couldn’t get worse after 2020, the year 2021 arrives and said, “Hold my beer!”

In the last month, alone, there have been 91 wildfires across the western portion of the United States. Wildfires engulfing Greece. Of all the weirdest places to have a wildfire, the winner goes to Siberia, a cold and isolated expanse of land. It is burning and is currently the largest wildfire in all of earth. 

Greenland is experiencing its most significant glacier melting event of the year as temperatures in the Arctic surge. The amount of ice that melted recently, would be enough to cover the entire state of Florida in two inches of water, according to scientific reports. The western portion of the U.S. also experienced severe heat waves and drought, this summer.

Over the weekend a 7.2 magnitude earthquake shook the grounds in Haiti. It toppled already fragile and deteriorating buildings to the ground, killing roughly 1,300 people, possibly more. As the Haitians frantically searched for survivors amid the rubble, the island also braced for Tropical Depression Grace which was expected to impact the area possibly as a Tropical Storm or Hurricane.  

All this while also dealing with a killer pandemic which already depleted hospital resources and medical staff. Saturday’s earthquake hit approximately 60 miles west of the epicenter of an earthquake in 2010 which killed around 300,000 people on the island. Saturday’s earthquake was so strong it was felt in Eastern Cuba. 

Florida is getting ready for Tropical Storm Fred, while another storm is forming by Bermuda.

As of July 31, the U.S. has experienced 411 mass shootings, the Delta Variant of the COVID virus is rapidly spreading infecting those who have received the vaccination and killing the millions of people who remain unvaccinated. The cases among children are growing. Children under 12, who have no access to vaccines, are now dying. 

We need to get our heads out of our backsides to fix our world and take care of our fellow human beings. But we can’t seem to stop making everything a political statement.

“Look that asteroid is coming right for us,” a concerned Democrat pointed out.”

“Well, that’s because Joe Biden is President,” replied a far-right Senator. “He hasn’t done anything; he is too senile.”

WHAT?

What does being a Democrat or Republican have to do with controlling wildfires and stopping global warming and climate crisis? These aren’t or at least shouldn’t be party-line issues. These should be - our future generation will have no planet left to live on if we don’t fix these problems, and PRONTO!

Each year the summer heat breaks temperature records, more glaciers melt, the winter blizzards are harsher and we zip through the entire alphabet of the Atlantic Hurricane names. Heck last year we made it all the way to the Greek Alphabet of Hurricane names. 

The entire world is in chaos, not just the U.S. and the entire world needs to come together to solve these problems. But that isn’t going to happen if we keep pointing the finger at each other, just for the heck of needing (or wanting) to place blame on the other side and say, “I told you so!”

There is hope!

And it comes in today’s youth. YEAH, I SAID IT!

They seem to get it and they notice how the adults are behaving like children and threatening their future livelihoods. They can see right through all the bull and the propaganda and the gaslighting being spewed by both sides. They are the ones stepping up and demanding we do better!

I think it’s time we listened to some of these future leaders of tomorrow who definitely seem to have more common sense and better moral character than some of our life-long career politicians still pushing the, “We are right they are wrong,” song and dance.

It’s also time we fix the system. No one should be allowed to hold an elected position for their whole life. If we have term limits for the President, we should have term limits for the others too.

When you have politicians who worry more about who and how they are going to line their pockets and lose sight of a decaying planet and the importance of human lives over profits – it’s time for them to go!

- Patty Leon