In this prolonged post-pandemic world, we continue to be globally equalized by economic trauma and an accelerating climate crisis. Wildfires, floods and boiling seas have even the most dedicated and fanatic deniers scratching their bald heads. They can’t tweet faster than the evacuation levels rising for their towns. This could an ISSUE. In my early Twittering days, I learned writing in “caps” is online shouting. It’s rude. Oops! Didn’t mean to wake you, but HAVE YOU SMELLED THE COFFEE? Like, really shoved your snout deep into the cup and taken a hefty sniff? A fully caffeinated reality check. It’s time to Wake The F Up! I only ‘yelled’ a little. This might change later. No promises.

Tik-Tok kitten videos no longer distract from encroaching reality. Trust me, I try. Fully grown cats are clawing at the back of our brains. The “Over There Syndrome “is stretching its wretched fingers around the world and scratching on everyone’s front door. Sharp teeth gnashing. Winter is coming.

We, the proverbial riffraff masses are the first bitten. Our pain tends to be immediate, difficult and sometimes impossible to recover from. Burnt homes, drought-stricken farms, electric grid crashes and lost jobs. As stoic Americans, we personally manage our shit-storms or cluster-fucks with some level of ingenuity, determination and a little help from our friends/ local community. A simultaneous combination of these two challenges requires not only a new acronym (SHIFCK) but a wider view on present and future resources.

The Administration has splashed out some conciliatory ink called; “The Inflation Reduction Act of 2022” aka H.R. 5376(117). It targets prescription drug costs and provides, among other things, tax credits for clean energy development on a broad scale. “Development” is the operative word I stumble on here. Yes, we need these things. Desperately. No argument from any versions of the Peanuts Gallery. However, it fails to sufficiently address immediate effects of the climate crisis. 2025 -2028 look great on paper, but it’s not just eggs frying on the pavements. These days, we are all getting cooked. The wok is global.

Sen. Joe Manchin (W.Va) assures us this bill will accelerate green tech manufacturing. It will provide Union jobs in solar, wind and critical minerals processing. A hefty $10 billion investment. Calculate an additional $3 billion in grants for environment health issues, $3 billion in transportation grants and $3 billion in grants for air quality control near ports. Plus a few paltry millions tossed out for the Defence Production Act. Revenue to pay for some of this theoretically will come from fees and fines targeting companies over-stepping carbon dioxide and methane emissions thresholds. Ok, cool. Personally, not sure how money can compensate for already polluted rivers and poisoned soil. Moot question, I know. Oil and gas companies have been thrown a Texas size steak to grizzle on with the reinstatement of the Gulf of Mexico offshore lease sale of 80 million acres. The largest lease sale in our history. There’s a wide strip of fat on that steak, so why am I still hungry?

Ironically, that hourly wage battles We The People, recently fought has been lost in astronomically rising inflation costs. $15 per hr barely buys a few ugly vegetables (PDX made that a popular thing!) and squishy white bread (minus the avocadoes). Steak is moseying off the weekly shopping list and hitching a ride to the yearly Birthday Wish List.

I seem to have missed paragraphs in the Inflation Reduction Act addressing wages, At Will Work practices and general survival tactics in the global climatic apocalypse. Just saying, do we stock up on toilet paper, bullets, or Ramen noodles? Inquiring minds want to know. My Costco membership is about to expire.

Detached global government leaders sit immobilized as crisis burns into crisis. The heat shimmers around their cracking citadels. They seem woefully unprepared and even unwilling to face our New World Order. A bunch of deer in the headlights. Are they too old or blind to care? Gen Z may have a valid argument here for acceptable ageism. The Center for Biological Diversity indicates that 30-50% of our planet’s species may be extinct by 2050 due to destroyed habitats. Remember the furore about the bees? Yep, another HOLY SHIT moment. Yes. I shouted. Reality Bites!

Democratic countries are birthing autocrats and supporting a “me-me-me” attitude. Borders are closing and resources (not toilet paper) being hoarded. This initiates critical effects both abroad and at home. Grocery shelves start looking like communist co-ops.

A global financial crunch, pandemic, climate crisis and military tensions all bubbling together at high heat while the cooks have left the kitchen.

Personally, I don’t give a damn about political popularity polls when all the pots are boiling over and nobody remembers where the diplomatic fire extinguishers are. Russia/Ukraine are not the cause of our situation. It is simply a singular manifestation of the global crisis. A disease spreading via China, the US, Africa and the EU. On a planet, what goes around does, come around. Like it or not, we are connected. We all need each other to survive this New World.

It sounds domestically patriotic to blast a political “Us First” call and an “Us Vs Them” solution scenario. As if destroying another country will solve either domestic or global issues. Kindergarten taught us that not sharing has unpleasant consequences. Age tends to make us forget these early lessons. Gen Z, I may be “old” but I hear and support you.

Globalization is the business version of sharing. You have what I need or want. I have something you want or need. Let’s trade. Oh yes, there are spats over who has the most candy and which flavour is best, but all in all, everyone goes home happy. Jobs are created, goods manufactured, and Italian pasta can cosy up with Hunts canned tomatoes on the supermarket shelves. We can pound the New York pavement in California Reformation shoes and a French Sezane dress. A global market of new, sustainable choices is possible.

It’s not globalization we need to do away with, it’s our perception of it as a short-term corporate profit system. It’s time for this noxious weed to hit the compost pile and make way for a global, circular economy to bloom.

Which, oddly enough, brings us full circle in our conversation. Will the I”nflation Reduction Act” help us The People and The World? “Maybe”. Do we have time to wait for “developments”? Uh, “No”. Does it matter what is happening Over There in; Asia, Russia, Africa and the EU? “Yeeeessss”. Can we as a planet in a climate crisis continue to view our neighbours as destroyable enemies? “Hell No!”

We have to keep our doors open. Front doors, back doors, side doors. Punch one in the attic if you need to. We must foster a global community of shared resources and inter-connected climate solutions. Not tomorrow or in 2040, but today. We are not “self-sufficient” individuals and countries. We are “intermutually- sufficient”. (Yes, I did just make that phrase up) Go cuddle a kitten and then WAKE THE F UP AND SMELL THE COFFEE!

Oops, I shouted again... END

* Before you ask, what can “I, one person do?” I leave you with a wicked thought. Imagine if nobody shopped for anything online for two measly days.... The power to make a change is in your hand and wallet. 1+1+1= ∞

DON'T YELL, IT's RUDE