Thunderstorm

The sweet relief of a cracking thunderstorm after a 36-degree day. A foreboding but distant echo of the looming climate crisis, and a reminder of our ultimate powerlessness when nature wants to do its thing. I revel in the terrifying boom of thunder and the relentless and apocalyptic lashings of rain, but it makes me feel small. Small in the grand scheme of things, powerless against nature. We can take pleasure now in these extreme weather events because they are still a rarity; a couple of times a year mother nature shocks us, but most of the time she still ticks through like clockwork, a reliable worker, day after day, season after season. But... what happens when we don’t have the infrastructure for the undoubted increase in catastrophic weather events? Will we treat climate refugees as we do ones coming from war-torn countries now, parading them across our TV screens as though they were risking their lives for the novelty of it, so that we can have something to focus on as our economy crumbles around us? What happens when those climate migrants become us, an insignificant population stranded on a small island among steadily-rising sea waters? Who will we blame then?

Climate change exerts its effects unevenly and in unseen ways, on countries who often contribute the least towards it (see Rob Nixon on Slow Violence for more information). The pandemic showed us that we can do better; as we return to our busy lives we have to consciously achieve more, hold governments and corporations accountable, to try to make ethical choices in our own lives. The dramatics of a thunderstorm stimulated my thought, but it shouldn’t take catastrophe to ignite change. Pay attention to the scientists, to the activists. The worst that could happen is that we create a better, fairer and cleaner society to live in. Would that be so bad?