I went to the coast recently. I woke up at first light and made my way over to the sea stacks strewn beach; before the crowds, before the heat of the day, before the fog had cleared.
I had planned my trip to coincide with the low tide for the day, which was around 7 am. When I first arrived, the strangest thing happened. I could hear the churning waves, off in the tide flat distance -- but I could not see them.
This was a bit disconcerting. Something that big, that powerful, that noisy -- so muted and far away.
It was a bit like this clip -- you know it's there, but you can't really "prove it" -- with your own two eyes. Those distant wave sounds could simple be just someone with a huge sound machine, trying to fool the government (and the taxpayers) into paying for even "more lighthouses" ... you never know.
link -- Note: this clip is not from my trip, but kind of demonstrates the same surreal effect, that I experienced for several context-less moments.
Maybe, just maybe, cities DO disappear for a while when the fog rolls in. Afterall if you can't see it, how do you know it's still there? Are we just supposed take it "on faith"?
link
Perhaps, flying a plane through that soup, might not be the smartest move you could make to prove -- or disprove -- that foggy hypothesis, eh?
Then again, some folks just get thrown into such dangerous circumstances -- that are so unusual, so out of the norm, so real-time abrupt -- that they just don't know what to do (how to avoid the danger; or that they are even ARE in danger.)
link -- Warning: this real-time impact may be disturbing to some viewers. Choice 4-letters words are used as well.
Think of a train. Hurtling towards you, at common train speeds. It has momentum -- LOTS of it. It is noisy and scary, with LOTS of jagged unfriendly edges.
Would you just stand there on the tracks -- denying the train's very existence -- simply because the morning fog was blocking its view? Only a fool would do that, right?
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So why do we just stand there on the tracks, as the impactful events of Climate Change, keep hurtling our way -- through the political rhetoric, obscuring fog?
It's not like Climate Denial (and procrastination) have turned us all into Rhodes Scholars, or something. It's just that we can't quite see the "proof of matter," right before our foggy, sleep-filled eyes.
Yet they DO build Lighthouses (and train whistles) for a reason, you know. They warn of the dangers, lurking just ahead, momentarily out of view.
We'd be wise to heed those warning signals calling out from the blinding fog.