John Constable
1824
Goodness gracious, what is happening in the United States? I have never seen a country so beset by extreme weather as those folks -- hurricanes, tornadoes, floods, forest fires, blizzards, extreme heat, extreme cold, hail, wind storms, rain storms -- it just seems to be never-ending. They just get one community cleaned up and rebuilt, and another one comes under siege. Now they have extreme flooding in Tennessee.
Gosh, all they need now is a plague of locusts, and I might begin to wonder if something very strange is going on.
My heart goes out to all those folks.
21 comments:
Don't forget earthquakes, Jo. I have thought for a long time that all the systems were breaking down as we are increasingly seeing acts of nature which are more violent, and often in places where they have never happened before. I am not an End Times prophesier, but very definitely something is happening.
It's particularly strange that they are not happening to the same degree in Canada when we share a land mass and but for political boundaries, Canadians and Americans live in one land.
I live in Tennessee. Fortunately, my house is at the top of a hill, so it hasn't seen any flooding, but I can't say the same for the rest of the town. I have never in my [short] life seen anything like this before in person. It's crazy! Just the small creeks around my house are up at least 6 feet!
I agree with heartinsanfrancisco - "something is happening". God is angry with America. I hope it's not a sign of an approaching civil war and/or economic disaster.
I despise it when the only answer people can come up with is God is angry blah blah blah...everything on the earth is explainable by scientific evaluation. Jet streams change, seas are warmer,greenhouse gasses are still increasing, ice caps are melting.
Before I would blame God for the actions of men I would certainly accept that possibly the earth is trying to shrug the virus we have become off her shoulders.
Yet the truth is we are witnessing the beginning (maybe we accelerated it) of another cycle in the natural order of the cyclical mature of the earths eco system.
I'm in Eastern TN (not where the flooding is) and I'm a little tired of our bipolar weather. One week we are unseasonable warm in the high 80's and the next week we are unseasonable cold in the low 30's. It is a little crazy.
And then just because not enough is going on, we deal with a massive oil spill in the Gulf.
Honestly, Jo, it makes you wonder about all that 2012 stuff. Maybe we shouldn't be snickering.
Perhaps there's a big shakeup afoot. I don't buy the end of the world interpretation, but I'm open to the possibility that some cycle is coming to an end and things are rearranging.
How interesting that we got to be here to see it.
It's very curious that it all seems to be happening at once, but I think that what some call "global warming" is more appropriately called "global weirding" causing weird weather in many places, and the US is not alone there. Canada, however, seems to be untouched, you're right about that.
I have to agree with The Walking Man. We have done it to ourselves, with our addiction to oil and "devil may care" attitude. The polar ice caps are melting, due to the pollution and toxic substances that are continually being spewed into the atmosphere. And our obsession with paper and wood products that has destroyed the trees that are so necessary for the ecological balance of the earth. And the list goes on and on! And unless there are radical changes in the way we think and live, we can expect more of the same.
It does give one pause. I grew up hearing the fire and brimstone preachings of doom and gloom. Maybe I should have paid closer attention?
The walking man: totally.
Jo: I'll tell you what's going on. It's us. We're the ones inflicting such damage upon ourselves. Global warming does actually cause more disasters. I've read thousand sod such news articles.
Some don't realize it, some are too ashamed to admit it, some simply don't care. When in truth, we should be stepping up and doing something, because our Earth needs our help.
Susan, I wondered about the same thing. *Knock on wood*, here in Canada we don't seem to have the same weather disasters, and we are on the same land mass. I don't believe in the supernatural either, it's perplexing why this seems to be happening in the U.S.
Thunderkleez, when I saw the images on the news last night, I just felt heartbroken. There was even an image of a school floating down the river. It's just awful...! Stay safe...!
Duta, I would hope to think God is not angry with America. However, the jury is still out with me as far as I am concerned as to whether God really exists. I know that sounds awful, but... I think these weather patterns are strange anomalies of nature.
Mark, "Before I would blame God for the actions of men I would certainly accept that possibly the earth is trying to shrug the virus we have become off her shoulders." I have been saying this for years. The next will be epidemics of disease that we have never seen before.
Dudette, yes, it's the same here in Vancouver too. Here we are in May, and it feels like December. In January, when the Winter Olympics were here, it felt like May. Very odd!
Susan, yes, I think we are in the middle of a strange cycle of something. And that earthquake in Chile caused the earth to change its axis a little bit. How do we know how slight a change can cause a huge difference in the earth?
DJan, global weirding. I like that. And yes, I do believe it is all man-man. About 20 years ago I saw a fictional movie about what global warming, or weather change, would do to the earth, and what is happening now is just as the movie described it.
Marguerite, I think the realization of what we have done may come too late. We don't seem to be slowing down, or changing things. We are becoming more of a consumer society, and with that comes the need to make more "things". We definitely need to slow down!
Kathy, the odd dichotomy is, even if we don't believe in the fire and brimstone preachings of doom and gloom, the inevitability of what human beings are doing to the earth is very real. It's kind of scary.
Nes, unfortunately there are far too many people who don't care, and even more who deny it's evening happening, so they continue on doing more damage. It's unbelievable, isn't it!?
We will survive.
How can anyone give anthropomorphic attributes to the planet, and call belief in God a myth?
Read of the world news disasters and you will see, there's no need to fret about in America.
I have friends in Tennessee who posted picture on Facebook of their pond that used to be a garden. Drowned okra! And their garden gnome is currently doing the backstroke. Fortunately their chickens have a coop & are safe - for now. Scary!
Someone very close to me always says, that the Americans are karmically in the red, so Mother Nature sends them the worst she can... :/
I think in America, we've been all to greedy and way too lax in preservation of our precious land.
We've chopped down trees; challenged the cliffs and slopes by building homes on them with the Pacific or Atlantic ocean just ready to knock them down.
We've made a demand for material things and robbed our land; upset the eco-system, and now we're getting what is due us.
Yes, we did it do ourselves.......
...whoops...TOO GREEDY AND TOO LAX....forgot to remember the 'to', 'too', and 'two' - and I do that all too often. Smile. Diane
The water in Constable's painting is looking rather black... black like oil... guess he was painting the future...
It's the prelude to Armageddon!
I tend to think these are the consequences of our own irresponsibility, environmentally speaking. It is rather scary; who knows what will happen next. Perhaps we should offer up gifts to the gods of weather?
There are natural disasters all over the world, not just the US. It's just that CNN cares more about 1 dead American than 100 dead Bangladeshi.
Constable's painting is most appropriate! It does seem that the weather has thrown many communities in turmoil, but typically good weather, which many spots in the U.S. are now enjoying never makes the headlines.
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