GenQ - For the not so straight individual

I’m on msn to a young bloke in Queensland this evening, who has had online conversations with my son for two or three years. The back door is open and a cooling breeze flows through it.

During our chat he excuses himself to go and have a shower, so I send this message between other stuff I’m doing, such as considering an article for GenerationQ.

‘Trust you enjoyed your shower. Nice and warm up in Queensland, I suppose. It’s less than 15 degrees here, in the hills near Adelaide. We’ve had fuck-all rain but at least it’s cooling (I hope, in preparation for rain). It would be nice to have a wet winter for a change.’

I happen to glance at his address, which I’d not noticed during the four or five conversations we’d had previously. ‘offtap� it says. It’s clear enough to read, but I can’t resist asking him, smiling to myself:
‘Is your address ‘offtap’ or ‘offta p’ (off ta pee)?
And he replies:
‘ “Offtap,� and it’s as dry as, up here; we need rain.’ 

I don’t ask whether he’s noted the weak joke or not, because that’s when I realize we’re in a position to discuss something we all know exists; something we have begun to fear, because we are pretty certain it will get worse.
‘Yeah,’ I write, ‘I wonder if, with all the deforestation, multiplied by carbon and methane and other emissions, we might have gone, if not past the point of no return, at least past a point of grave significance.

‘A good mate of mine, 28 years of age (I’m 57) agreed with me when I laughed mirthlessly at the incentives the Government are offering us to plant trees to offset the emissions. It’s so dry that, unless we disobey the water restrictions, the trees will die.’ (I state, here, our ages to illustrate the fact that there’s no generation gap about this subject. Any gaps that might occur are based on ignorance, greed, and immobility through fear.)

‘Yeah it’s bad,’ he says.
‘I have to go. Look after yourself,’ I write.
‘No worries, take care,’ he replies.

And that’s how we are, we wish the best for each other, most of us, and we wish the best for this beautiful world, too, but how many of us are really doing anything about it? We travel unnecessarily. Motor sports continue. Thermostats are set at 20 degrees in the summer instead of 26 degrees, and at 24 instead of 18-20 in the winter. We have laws – stifling, pedantic laws – that prevent us driving at safe speeds in open areas, or 50 where it’s perfectly safe to do 65 if you’re alert and considerate, because fools drive dangerously and other fools overreact to (or react inappropriately in an effort to control) those they don’t understand, and pass laws that do nothing to restrict the first-mentioned fools, and yet we don’t pass laws to limit the capacity of vehicles or restrict the distance one may travel for inessentials. We want to be infants. We want to hope it will go away, or that mummy and daddy will do something about it. But who is mummy and daddy?

And because of our inaction and our actions, none and all of us are the reason the earth is overloaded, and wrinkling, in different ways, but still in manners analagous to the way that a man my age begins to break down.
It’s all to be expected. The only problem is, the earth is much too young and beautiful to die.