At the time of writing this piece, the world has seen extreme climactic events across the globe in the last month or so. The list is long including 1) four major heat waves in the Western United States and Canada, including record-shattering triple-digit temperatures in Oregon (116F in Portland June 29), Washington  (107F In Seattle on June 28) & British Columbia (121F in Lytton on July 2), 2) flood causing torrential rains in Western Europe (Normal monthly rainfall in 1 day, normal two-month rainfall in 2 days), China (Normal annual rainfall in 3 days) and Mumbai India (10” of rain in 24 hours), and 3) mega forest fires in Western United States so big that they are causing their own clouds and lightning and making smoke travel all the way to the East coast.

To all the members of human race, all 7 billion of you
This is Mother Earth sending an S.Y.S. message
I have been watching your profligate and destructive ways
Your incessant appetite for resources, no one can assuage

You have been polluting air and water, elements critical to life
Releasing ever more greenhouse gases with no end in sight
It is a race against time; the tipping point may be near
This battle against nature you can’t win despite all your might

You claim to be an intelligent species, top of the pyramid
Science is clear – climate is changing due to your actions
Why then you don’t/can’t see the error of your ways?
It is hard to fathom the arguments of “non-believing” factions

Climate is a sensitive and dynamic system, prone to instability
An unstable system gyrates with ever growing extremes
Heat, cold, floods, wildfires, droughts all becoming more intense
Don’t you see, your world is coming apart at its seams?

Cold spells are intensely cold due to “polar vortex”
Hot spells are intensely hot due to “heat dome”
Your actions are making the planet more inhospitable
the same planet that gives you life and that you call home

Glaciers are retreating at ever faster pace
Species are going extinct at rates not seen before
Seas are rising, getting warmer and more acidic
Coral reefs are dying enmasse, a pace not seen heretofore

I have been around for billions of years; have seen a lot
You showed up only “seconds” ago in the scheme of things
Mass extinctions, while rare, have happened before
But they were not caused by planet’s living beings

Be forewarned, mess with climate at your own peril
Climate change leads to mass extinctions, history shows
It will happen again if you don’t mend your ways, and
don’t think you can survive if everything around you goes

Science predicted the changes that are happening, no surprise
But the changes are happening faster than predicted
You continue to pump millions of tons of greenhouse gases
Positive feedback cycle affecting climate remains uninterrupted

If you don’t like the climatic extremes now, just wait
these will get more furious, frequent, damaging & deadly
You keep releasing more and more planet warming gases
and destroying climate friendly rain forests wantonly

Your so called “leaders” keep calling climate change a hoax
Greedily wedded to their “chairs”, can’t speak the truth
Will pander to your base instincts, leadership be damned
Young don’t vote, so cost of change will be passed onto youth

It is too much to expect from you to change your ways
You’ll keep driving Suburbans, Expeditions and Excursions
Builders will keep building energy hogging Mega-mansions
As long as there are buyers, sellers will feed their delusions

Yes, I hear a lot of talk about the danger climate change poses
Sadly, rhetoric does not match with concrete actions
Everyone up and down has their heads buried in sand
Wanting others to change, then chide them for their inactions

Let me tug at your emotional chord, that is your grandchildren
I bet, you love them dearly and want them to grow and prosper
Then why are you not willing to act now to save the planet?
A planet that your grandchildren will inherit in short order

You have made a mess of the planet in just 200 years
Changes required 2 decades ago would have been manageable
But you twiddled your thumbs, sat on your tush, ignored science
Your complicity in inaction is rather shameful and disparageable

In closing, let me say you have been forewarned
The fat lady is singing, curtain is about to fall
Taking aggressive, concrete and coordinated action now,
the worst catastrophes, you may be able to forestall

Remember, you only have one hospitable planet in this vast and inhospitable universe, a planet you call home.
Not all 7 billion of you can go and live on the Moon or Mars!

Don’t be stupid, act now and Save Your Selves/Species/Soul.

Best wishes.

Your well-wisher,  Mother Earth.