Forget the science of climate change, just step outside
The world it is a changing while political and corporate leaders fiddle, fake concern and deny reality.
On January 5, 2012, 98% of the United States had temperatures above freezing – in January! On this same day in January 2011, 46% of the United Sates was covered in snow but this year only 19% was covered. That’s good for lizards and sunbathers, not so good for polar bears and skiers.
Rick, there are two good reasons to believe in climate change. And you can forget the third one.
What’s happening? Somebody tell Rick Perry that he doesn’t have to believe that climate change is a science, he only needs to step outside and stick his finger in the wind to know that the climate is a changin’. Rick, remember those Texas wildfires? Well, they, and this current weather, are two of the reasons climate change is a reality. The third reason – the science – you probably can’t remember but two out of three should work for you.
Couple of other facts: 115 cities across the country set record highs on this same day and the national, average temperature was 40 degrees – forty! – higher than last year. We also had blizzards as recently as last week and as early as Halloween with an inordinate amount of green in between. So Rick, if it helps, you can pretend that what you see is not science, it’s simply the real world, including Texas, changing before your eyes. Or you can read more about why people who are a tad brighter than you believe that the planet’s climate is warming and that there is a 90% certainty that we humans, Texans included, are the primary cause. Because of what we do to increase greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, particularly through deforestation (economic greed) and the burning of fossil fuels (unabated pollution). It’s sad – pathetic – that people running to be president of the United States can say, with a straight face, that there is not enough evidence that humans are a primary cause of global warming. The same is true of leaders in Canada, China and dozens of countries. We are the only species ignorant enough to destroy the very resources we need for survival by putting our need for gratification ahead of our descendants’ need for long-term survival. Of course, that’s only human.
“People are the worst”
Coming 2026
My personal history is the stuff they write books about. And that's what I am doing. The working title, "Chains of My Father: Marry White."
"The ghostly image of the tragic mulatto trapped between two worlds." - Barack Obama
This perspicacious line from the Prologue of Barack Obama's "Dream from My Father" wrenched my aspiration into action. I started writing, furiously. Unlike Obama's perspective, my pain had been for the opposite reason: I was not seen by whites as a "tragic mulatto," rather I lived every day of my childhood hoping whites were not "searching my eyes for some telltale sign" that I WAS mulatto. This is my story.
It's historical fiction because I cannot find enough records to substantiate all facets of the story. I've combed the genealogy, traveled to my father and grandmothers' birthplace, walked the graveyards, searched the churches and ... well, all the facts aren't there. I have written three books based on the genealogy of other families but my ancestors emerged from a journey that left too few records – slavery.
My paternal, great grandmother was a "freed slave." My grandmother, Amelia, was born to a mixed race slave named Mary (we do not know her last name) and a white, French plantation owner, the Count de Poullain, in Grenada, West Indies. Amelia was raised in the "Big House" and in adulthood, in an attempt to escape her black heritage disowned her mother, telling her, "Get out and never come back." Amelia, as a mother of twelve children, enshrined into the family commandments, "Marry white." Many did, including my father. My mother was a lovely, white, Anglo-Saxon protestant born in England. They met in Canada where my dad studied and became a doctor.
It has taken five generations for the descendants of Mary to free themselves from the stigma of their black heritage but today my children embrace it. Unfortunately, the past 250 years have been a wasteland of bigotry, racism and bullying. But, on closer look, we see not only the brutality, fear, violence, and murder but also the self-respect, dignity, love, kindness, perseverance and indomitable spirit.
As of the spring of 2025, the depth of historic perspective and the sweeping inspiration of oppressed people has created a two-volume duology of which I have only arrived at the middle of the 19th century. 1840 is the year my great grandfather was born, the beginning of Volume II, and he's pushing me to make sure our story is published by the summer of 2026.
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