Summer 2019

Full summer and a very hot one, not only in Greece but in the whole of  Europe, the USA, Canada, the Arctic and in fact everywhere in the north of the planet, some weeks here, some weeks there, alternating with floods and droughts, and fires and all sort of extreme weather in some ways.

Climate change is accelerating its manifestations and we, on earth, are still in ‘talks’, ‘plans’, and thinking, mainly still thinking, of measures if not to stop it, to mitigate its adverse effects. We are not enlightened enough to disallow vested interests dictate our longer-term survival. We are not civilized enough to allow our ‘togetherness’ implement solutions to global problems like the environmental ones.  We are the savages of this earth, the ungrateful, smart bastards daring to endanger our own homes, to lose it and our lives with it, to intolerance, misapprehensions and indecisive global conferences and consultations; all these for the sake of our consumer needs and habits, and the profiteering of industries that intensively produce to enable us to feed those needs. It seems like that; as we chose to ignore that no one is immune to natural disasters.

Our planet is pleading for help. Are any of our powerful rulers seriously listening?  Because, what is it we’d have next; I wonder: a full blown climate change with all the predicted disasters and loss of habitats and species; scores of refugees escaping nature’s wrath; arm conflicts for controlling the remaining resources; or, perhaps, a third world war and the annihilation of the living planet?   

Multiple fires have erupted almost everywhere during the second part of August, mostly in places trees stood and breathed for ages, forest and woodlands in ruins, even in the Arctic; we even heard the Brazilian forest was on fire, -that important lung that absorbs 35% of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and produces 30% of oxygen, and made our skin froze with the size of the destruction.

Unable to write for long in July despite the air conditioner at my home, I thought it’d be easier in August as seasonal breezes would bring cooler mornings and evenings. But no, there was not to be. It was even hotter and drier now than before, even during the nights.  

          Hate to think of it, but I feel low as I had another two Agent’s rejections for representation and promotion of my first novel, SHARING HER APPLES. So, I better submerge myself into writing, the second novel needs to be continued and finished somewhere soon.