THE WAY THINGS ARE

I watched The Day After Tomorrow when it first came out and was impressed with the terrifying special effects. The second time round, I was impressed and worried by how prescient it was to what we are watching evolve now.

A prominent climatologist (Dennis Quaid) warns of an impending disaster believing there is time to prepare. The US Vice President tells him there are greater priorities, the inference being there’s time, let it wait. Events overtake predictions and chaos ensues.

Computer models, as shown in the movie, can give an idea of what might arise but what if nature decides it’s had enough ill treatment at our hands? With every season we now see changes in once fairly predictable seasonal weather patterns with an odd flare-up of startling events that hit headlines for a while then disappear. The survivors of these destructive events have to face grief along with the aftermath cleanup at best or at worst, start life over somewhere else.

Farmers in the UK demonstrated against inheritance tax, and families that have farmed land for generations worry they may not have a farm to pass on to the next. If home-based farms are severely reduced or die off, problems will arise for local consumers and, in an uncertain world of political upheaval, shipments may be delayed or unable to travel.

We already see the results of economic migration in Europe, imagine what catastrophic climate changes will add to the desperation of people whose lives have been irreparably destroyed by its tumult. Farmers here faced a summer of heavy drought, and the cost of their produce rose.

The realities of how much we owe the land and the people who work hard to feed us are seriously being affected by altering climate and ‘there’s time’ inaction by governments. We have become used to taking for granted supermarket shopping and think only about food origins when weather interference means higher prices or unavailability.

In England, people planted small allotments of land with vegetables for the home table. Athena Michaelidou our education minister made a wise choice by ‘greening’ some schools. Greater emphasis on self-sustenance for the young would be a valuable lesson – how many rural dwellers would know how to plant a staple such as the potato if our usual food chain of suppliers came to an abrupt halt?

So, teaching children basic survival skills like how to grow food or forage as their forbearers did, is a very good move. Product scarcity will eventually arise as we continue to plunder and throw away thoughtlessly.

Fashion is a definite cause of pollution and the old habits of repairing or mending no longer apply. Cypriots of old were highly skilled craftsmen and women, traditional handicrafts involving needlework or knitting might also have value in a future time of need.

We see ourselves as the dominant species on our planet, forgetting we are mere guests of a living host whose delicate hospitality we have abused extensively. This planet we call Mother Earth has given us her benefits for the taking yet we fail in return to safeguard her life. Can the earth consciously try to rid itself of us?

A line in the movie struck me when an astronaut in a space station after the catastrophe has settled, immense harm done globally, remarks on how clean Earth’s atmosphere looks. The earth had done a touch of spring cleaning of mankind’s filth.

Politicians meet to discuss climate change and our carbon footprint, money on their travel bills, their flights by plane private or otherwise, and presumably luxury stays, could be saved using Zoom, one wallop of a footprint erased by that.

Water became a hot topic this summer as the levels in dams dropped dramatically. Cyprus has seen drought before and still no strenuous action is taken by governments to imprint an urgent, fresh reality on individual bad habits. Appealing to the careless doesn’t work. Leaky rubbish bags still litter pavements, water is willfully wasted, all because of lack of consequences.

Frighten people into realisation that the day after every tomorrow becomes today.