End of a civilisationist

I know that my friend Ross is gonna read the title of his post and his first reaction is gonna be "Hey! That's the title of my song! And was the title of my blog until 3 or so weeks ago! Why the hell is The Knitting Songbird using it for her blog?!?!" Just before I go into why, let me tell y'all that it's a bloody good song. You can listen to it here: http://www.myspace.com/rossmusician and can take a look at the lyrics here: http://rossmusician.blogspot.com/2008/04/end-of-civilisationist.html

Hope you don't mind me using your song Ross! But I've used it here 'cause, besides it being a bloody good song, it's got a lot to do with what I'm about to write about, sort of goes hand in hand with it you might say. We're at a crossroads in our civilisation and no amount of recycling premium A4 paper's gonna help us...so here's where the story begins...

As you may or may not know, hubby "officially" got his PhD diploma last week even though he's been a PhD for almost 2 years. He's been working at the Forestry Institute for a while now, just over 10 years, and has done a lotof research on many aspects of forestry but his specialty is soil and water science. He also recently became part of an EU task force working on climate change and its effects on various aspects of forestry.

Yesterday night, he came home a bit tipsier than usual, one beer too many you could say. When I asked him what was going on, he told me he has to write a chapter in a book to be published by some fancy publisher on climate change and it's a bit difficult for him. Not because it has to be done in English (although, it is a bit difficult for him to write in English sometimes!) but because of the data and information he has at hand. What frigging data? So he showed me a presentation he gave in Vienna a couple of weeks ago on the current situation regarding Croatian forests and climate change. And, I have to say, I couldn't sleep all night after having seen it.

There are sooo many things that the mainstream media, in Croatia in particular, has been keeping out of the news to make way for supposedly "important" stuff. Stuff like Wall Street, tourism income, the latest gadget, Brittney Spears and a plethora of other insignificant crap. Well, you can put Wall Street and the rest of them where the sun don't shine - Mother Nature has a more important message for us and we better bloody well sit up and listen.

Here are a few pretty scary facts that you don't see in the Croatian news:

• 2003 was the hottest year in history since 1500 (that's apparently when they started taking climactic measurements). Have a look at the table below table to get a better idea of where we're headed. Anyone who tells me that man has had no influence whatsoever on climate change can go to hell. Just have a look at where the temperature's gone since the industrial revolution...what temperature the mercury's gonna hit in future is anyone's guess:
  

• So the temperature's been going up - what about that thing that comes down, you know, rain? Here's a table to show you exactly what's been happening. Namely, Northern Europe's been swimming in it, while us Southerners have been praying for it:

• Okay, the temperature's have been going up, rain hasn't been coming down. But here's a true illustration of what climate change is all about. There were three consecutive years of drought in Croatia since the year 2000. Then there was a major flood the year after. Great, you may say, water, just what we need. But it ain't as great as it sounds. See, in terms of forests, the droughts wiped out a lot of oaks, a tree of major importance in Croatia, which made way for hornbeams as they need less water. Goody, at least there's something left, nothing as important as the oak, but something at least. Well, a year later a flood came and wiped out the hornbeams 'cause they like drier conditions. This is what some of the forests look like now:

And that's the thing - 'cause the climate's gone amuck, we can't really predict what's going to happen in future - is there going to be a drought? Is there going to be a flood? Seems there's more to climate change than CO2 and human influence, things like sunspots, tidal wave movement, meteorite activity Ivan explained. But the problem is he added, is that there's never been this much human influence at any point in history and that's why we don't know what the hell is going to happen, can't predict a bloody thing. But Ivan let me in on a secret in his drunken stupor last night, a secret that not many people know about, something that may give us a bit of a key as to what's gonna happen in future and we'll be able to, if nothing, predict things a bit more accurately. If there is a drought in Croatia in 2010, that means that man's influence outweighs nature's. If not, Mother Nature's mucking round with us as she well should.

My personal theory is that Mother Nature is giving us a message and her message is this - you reap what you sow, man, you reap what you sow. We have to pay for the pillaging, drilling, cutting, asphalting, dumping and all the rest of the crap that we've done to her. That's her frigging message, whether this climate change has more to do with her or us. Problem is, are we listening?

On a happy note, Ivan is quite optimistic about it all. Says that we should be able to adapt, Croatia at least. The population is going to go down 10 or percent in a few years. And apparently, despite the forest dieback I talked about above, there is 10% more forest land in Croatia than there was 15 years ago, due mainly to the war. Basically, people moved away from areas like Slavonia, the bread basket of Croatia, to major cities and as such, arable land has turned back into what it had always been - forests.

And now I'm gonna sign off. I'll leave ya with the folkmeister Pete Seeger and his universal song of peace and love, "Where have all the flowers gone?" Yes, when will we ever learn...