CURRENT MOON

Thursday, August 17, 2006

It's The Same Damn Thing Over And Over



Every morning, I wake up and I pray. I write down my dreams. I feed Miss Thing. I eat breakfast on my screen porch, looking out over my herb garden. And I promise myself that I'll find something different to blog about today.

But, everyday, the news provides me with exactly the same thing to blog about that it's provided me with for the last year or so. Environmental News Network reports that: Broiling temperatures and a severe drought have left millions of people short of water and strained power supplies in eastern and southern China, leading to at least two deaths and a blackout in one city, news reports said Thursday.

A blackout was enforced in the eastern city of Hangzhou to protect its power transmission grid after temperatures topped 38 degrees Celsius (100 degrees Fahrenheit), the Xinhua News Agency said.

Power use in China has soared in recent summers as families, shopping malls and hotels crank up newly acquired air conditioners, competing with factories for supplies.
And, In the southwestern industrial center of Chongqing, where temperatures reached 44.5 degrees Celsius (112 degrees Fahrenheit), businesses have been ordered to halt work in the afternoon and at night to ease the strain on power supplies, Xinhua said.

Chongqing and parts of neighboring Hunan province also have been hit by a drought this summer, causing DRINKING WATER SHORTAGES for 7.8 million people, the report said.

In the eastern city of Nanjing, a 30-year-old tourist died of heat stroke Monday, the agency said.

It was the second reported heat-related death after a shipyard worker in Shanghai died while working weekend in temperatures of 38.6 degrees Celsius (99 degrees Fahrenheit).
(emphasis added)

China's future is our own. Short of water and power.

I can't help it. I'd love to blog about how much I hate the current trend towards blue and brown prints in fashion and how ignorant Hermes is to be courting the young youth market with, god help me, Twillys. I'd love to blog about how beautiful the mountains are and how much I need to spend a few days there, in spite of my job. I'd love to blog about how brilliant my grandson is, and how he's learned to laugh, smile, babble, engage the people around him, and revel in the deep, deep namaste of existence.

But, I can't. I can't because I have a grandson. And I don't want him to die of thirst. I'd sell everything I have in order to keep him from dying of the thirst that China's beginning to see. But that's a short-term solution. And I want a longer-term solution for him. So I keep blogging about the coming water wars, heat waves, droughts, and energy shortages. Am I buggin' ya? I hate ta bug ya.

1 comment:

Ripley said...

Am I buggin' ya? I hate ta bug ya

I'm not a fan but I know that line. Heh!

Where to start, though, sister? Environment, human rights, politics, the future, the Others...??

Honestly, I'm so sick of it all that I can't wrap my head around anything enough to blog. All the sorrow and rage and dismay leave me sitting here with.... nothing to say.

And I don't even have a cat.