Dispatches from a Disordered Planet

Today will bring us the warmest Super Bowl ever--highs are forecast to be in the mid to high 80's in L.A. today, and there is a heat advisory and a Super Bowl there.  Just another dispatch from a disordered planet.

Of course, I say it's a disordered planet because I've been alive for awhile, and I remember Super Bowl Sunday where we could serve chili and not need to turn the AC on.  I went out onto our balcony just now, at 5 a.m., and it's humid, no wind, like a summer morning with a temp already in the 70's down here in South Florida.  It's mid-February, and we've had about 3 chilly mornings, and it's occurred to me that we might not be getting any more this winter.  Sigh.

I think of the population 100 years from now, people who will be amazed that we could play a huge football game so close to the traitorous coast, people who will see highs in the 80's as temperate, not hot.  I heard a news report yesterday about the millions of dollars that a Super Bowl ad costs.  Will those costs continue to rise?  Will populations 100 years from now look back and be astonished at what companies paid for ad time and be amazed that so many of us cared?

I heard a podcast yesterday that talked about inflation, not the inflation of Super Bowl ads, but regular inflation.  One of the podcasters said, "Inflation has never been this high in our lifetimes."  I thought, easy, there, youngster, of course it has.  I remember gas lines both from childhood (early 1970s) and teenage years (early 1980's), and I know that steak cost more then than it does now.  When we bought our first house in 1993, we got an interest rate of 7%, and I said, "We will never have interest rates this low again."  The house we just sold had a mortgage with an interest rate of 3.9%.

We had gotten used to super low prices and supply chains that could deliver us goods the next day, and we had gotten good at not realizing how fragile it all was.  Another type of dispatch from a disordered planet.

I think back to a presentation at the onground intensive in January at Southern Seminary in Columbia, SC.  I think about the presentation by the man who created  Axiom Farms. They have all sorts of initiatives to reach out to underserved, minority populations, to bring them healthier food and information about how to grow one's food and most importantly, to inspire people to have hope. They have created a garden on the grounds of the seminary. There's plenty of room--the seminary sits back from the road, and between the buildings and the road is a huge expanse of lawn. 

During the presentation, the man said, "We can grow everything we need right here!"  He said it as if it was a revelation, but I was thinking of how once we would have said that in a matter-of-fact way about much of the east coast and midwest.  Will that still be true 100 years from now?  How much of the east coast will be under water literally?

I heard that tone of wonder and amazement:  "We can grow everything we need right here."  As we moved towards future days on our disordered planet, that seems like an important consideration when choosing our next place to live, much more important than how much inflation will make the value of the home price rise.