Responding to Climate-Driven Crises
The southern Indian city of Chennai (formerly Madras), the country’s sixth largest, is in crisis after its four main water reservoirs ran completely dry, which has resulted in a severe water shortage, lasting weeks at this point. As reported here: “Millions of people are running out of usable water in Chennai, which is currently experiencing major droughts and a rapidly worsening water crisis.”
Glenn Doty responds:
If times were remotely sane, and our government were run by decent people or certainly if it were run by people who had any concern for Christian charity… we’d be offering the help of the Corps of Engineers and low interest loans for major capital investment in India’s water infrastructure…Not only would that be a win for basic human decency, it would also serve to generate goodwill with the nation that is certain to be the third most powerful economy in the world for most of the next century (until they replace the U.S. as the world’s second largest economy). Instead, we will just watch as they suffer and die, keep a log of the death count, and perhaps we will clap when the rains come. The U.S. will be faced with decisions EXACTLY like this every single year for centuries. We need good leaders, not fascist imbeciles like the ones in the Trump administration and the Republicans in the Senate, to be making these decisions.
Excellent points all around. This isn’t a one-off issue; it’s just one example of a series of tragic events that ensues as the conditions driven by climate change continue to worsen, and it raises the question: What, if anything, will the U.S. do in response to the ever-growing surge of human suffering around the globe?
The concept that we need the good will of the rest of the world seems to be completely lost on us at this point. We certainly had a lot more of it until 2016 when we began to actively dismantle it with:
• The Paris Accord and dozens of other environmental horrors
• The Iran Peace Agreement
• Cruelty at the southern border
• Endorsement of white supremacy
• Coddling the world’s great dictators
• Insulting and getting laughed at by the United Nations
• Disparaging treatment of NATO
• Unequivocal support of Israel in its repression of Palestine
• Support of Saudi Arabia in the humanitarian crisis in Yemen
• Other violations of international law, and God knows what else I’m missing
We can only hope that the trajectory of America on the world stage isn’t a case in which the future isn’t simply an extension of the past.
I have heard that the monsoon rains are finally beginning to fall.. so the worst of the crisis there may be over, or at least ending.
For now.
This was at a point where every delayed day would see an exponentially increasing body count, and it was getting VERY dire. I’m glad the rains finally came.
But the point about us doing something is still just as valid. In the past, the U.S. has always been swift to rush in and offer aid, under both republican and Democratic administrations… We had wealth and power to spare, and we could spare a little bit to help out a country that was suffering.
We aren’t doing that any more. That’s not a wise choice.
Doing the right thing was more affordable before we started looting the Treasury to please the billionaires.