Storms, perfect storms

Here in the British Isles it's the season of spring storms. The saying is that March comes in like a lion and goes out like a lamb, and just now in late February the lion is already roaring in wild winds and lashing rain. 

Such weather does a great deal of damage, of course, to roads and buildings. Frost damage creates pot holes and storms bring floods. 

Listening to the south-westerly wind gusting violently up the hill from the sea, I pondered on the exacerbation of storms by anthropogenic climate change. There has always been weather and changes in weather — we move in and out of ice ages which also have their summers and winters, the earth and the planetary system in which it sits have rhythms and patterns that affect us — but it is beyond dispute that the delicate balances of earth's ecosystems, the fragile web of conditions on which our wellbeing rests, are being damaged and dismantled by our our-consumption of resources, our over-intrusion into necessary wilderness.

We have, naturally enough, our climate change deniers, just as we still have among us those who believe the earth is flat, and one must hear them patiently and kindly because their views, arising as they do in defiance of all the evidence, probably stem from primal fear and a deep need for security and for everything to be comfortable and normal. I feel that too. But it is true that deforestation sets the preconditions for floods and droughts, which in turn set the preconditions for forest fires on a massive scale. It is true that temperatures are steadily rising worldwide, and that those who keep records are observing resulting changes in flora and fauna. It is true that chemicalised agri-business, GMO crops and industrialised farming on a giant scale create deserts. It is true that our present rate of consumption of what the earth has to give exceeds the earth ability to regenerate. It is true that unless we slow down we face Armageddon. Regardless of anybody's religious beliefs or political ideologies, these things are happening. 

Positive change is possible too, of course. If, now, we change our ways personally and individually, and work together nationally and internationally, we can slow down the effects of what is happening and extend the years of health and peace and bounty.

But as I sat listening to the persistent deep howling of the wind, it occurred to me that the increasingly violent weather resulting from climate change combines with the de-investment in infrastructure, the irresponsible pursuit of fossil fuel extraction and the enthusiasm for war, that are hall-marks of our corrupt governments, to create the conditions that result in perfect storm.

Greed is, ultimately, at the root of our predicament. It's what St Paul said — "the love of money is a root of all evil". 

Not in every nation of the world but in many of them, greed gives rise to corruption, bringing in its wake poverty, weakness, poor infra-structures, and more problems than we can fix. This is particularly problematic in the case of the Western powers of US and UK, because the damage of deep and widespread corruption in those countries' governments is amplified internationally by our pre-existent accumulation of power and wealth. Our wrecking ball is bigger than those wielded by Angola or Azerbaijan.

The storm sweeping up the valley this morning is the third in a row. English fields are flooded and in some cases homes and roads and public buildings too. Trees have fallen, blocking railways and roads, needing borough councils to respond very quickly. But meanwhile, our government with its policies of de-funding service provision of every kind, makes the response more difficult. Our roads were already in terrible disrepair before the storms. Our health service is in process of being systematically dismantled and sold off. Our weakest members of society — the old, the disabled, the mentally sick, young children, homeless people and people in poverty — have seen their assistance of every kind from government minimised and defunded, causing misery and many deaths. The problems are spreading and keeping all the while the funding to address them is being increasingly withdrawn.

Meanwhile, there is always money for weapons of war — it has always been the sport of the powerful, and war is very lucrative for a small élite. When the bombers left England for Syria our chancellor (George Osborne at the time) crowed in glee, "Britain's got its mojo back." But when the refugees in turn left Syria for the UK, the only investment in response from here was the funding of a huge fence on the French border, to keep out those whose lives we had utterly destabilised, to stop them reaching us. And in the howling storms of winter that we have exacerbated by our over-consumption, those fleeing theatres of war and the violence of instability and corruption exist on the margins in tents and wearing flip-flops — driven out and demonised by the greedy elites that brought this crashing down on their heads.

In times of insecurity and instability people reach instinctively for strength. Around the world, people have been seduced into voting for those who offered the rhetoric of power and security. Lies and empty promises have been swallowed and endless excuses made for the disastrous corruption that if we do not stop it will take us all down. The highway to Mammon's hell runs through the hearts of those currently in power In America and Great Britain. They will take every natural and political resource we have and use it to buy themselves toys. They are agents of ruin.

Building what is good and safe and sane and kind and wise takes a long time and a lot of effort; the disintegration of it can come about in the blink of an eye. It takes vigilance and faithful determination to build up and hold in place a strong society. And, lest there be any doubt, what makes a society strong is equality, care of the vulnerable, health care and education, commitment to peace, willingness to co-operate, integrity in the agents of justice, and choosing systems of manufacture and agriculture that are regenerative as well as sustainable.

If you read the Law and the Prophets of the Christian scriptures, you will find these same themes running right through them. Social justice, care for the poor, refraining from exploitation, the principles of Sabbath and Jubilee giving both human beings and the land a chance to recover. You will also find denouncement in the roundest possible terms of the actions of those who amass wealth without consideration of the poor, who make others suffer through their own ruthless greed. 

George Herbert, who wrote proverbs as well as poems, said: "Who spits against heaven, it falls in his face."  Toinette Lippe, in her book Nothing Left Over, said: "Problems arise where things accumulate." Both those things are true. 

I entreat you not to be one of those who are sleepwalking into the conditions for perfect storm. In case you think I am exaggerating the danger we are facing in the habits of our present governments, I recommend to you this inexpensive book, Moneyland. You can read quite a lot of it on the Look Inside facility without even buying it. It offers food for thought.