I find it both perplexing and frustrating that there are people who don’t believe in Climate Change. The evidence is overwhelming. Reputable scientists the world over are convinced that this is a very real and immediate threat to all of us. How can people deny that this exists, when the evidence is right in their backyards? Take Lyme disease, for example. I just found out that the explosion in the number of Lyme disease cases here in New England is related to Climate Change. That’s because ticks, the little buggers that spread the disease, are very happy with the small changes in temperature and humidity that we’ve experienced in the last few decades. So there it is, evidence of Climate Change right there in your backyard. And yet people still insist that there is no such thing.
This penchant for ignoring evidence reminds of my father-in-law, and his addiction to salt water taffy.
Bob loved salt water taffy. For 40 years, he vacationed with his family at York Beach in Maine. Over the years, the crowd changed. It started with Bob and his wife Nancy, and their four kids. The kids grew up and brought along girlfriends, fiancés, husbands and wives. Eventually grandkids joined the pack. A collection of aunts, uncles and cousins came too. Long summer days would be spent sitting in clusters on the beach, walking along the shore, building sand castles. There was never a shortage of entertainment, and there was always someone to chat with.
Around the second day of vacation, Bob would wander downtown and pick up a box of salt water taffy. There were several nearby shops where he could have picked it up, but he always made the trip downtown to visit Goldenrod, because their taffy was the freshest and tastiest you could get. With their big glass windows, you can watch the taffy being mixed, cooked, cooled, pulled, cut and wrapped. From there, it would be moved into the display case inside the store where you could buy it. You could mix and match your favorite flavors, but Bob didn’t do that. He always bought the mixed box, because he liked all the flavors. And he never skimped - he always bought the BIG box. The he’d sneak back into the cottage with his prize and tuck it away in the fridge, behind the leftovers, in the hopes that no one else would discover his treasure.
But inevitably, someone would see him sneaking back in, and the snickering would start. We all knew what was coming. Around lunchtime the next day, you’d start to hear Bob grumbling.
“I think I’m coming down with something,” he’d say.
“Maybe you ate too much taffy,” someone would suggest.
He wouldn’t take the bait the first time, ignoring the slight against his beloved taffy. Later in the day he’d mention to someone else that he had a stomach ache.
“Did you eat too much taffy?” he’d be asked.
“No, I’ve got a stomach bug,” he’d snip back.
A little later someone would ask, “You don’t look good. Did you eat too much taffy?”
And that’s when he’d finally lose his patience and loudly announce, “IT’S NOT THE TAFFY!”
He’d then wander off in a huff, frustrated with the eruption of laughter from the rest of us.
We didn’t mean to be unkind when he wasn’t feeling well. It was just so painfully obvious to everyone else that the taffy was the problem. It was comical how he could ignore all evidence and stick to his belief. Year after year the same scene would play out, and year after year he’d insist that it had nothing to do with the taffy. The man went to his grave believing that it wasn’t the taffy.
And that’s very much what we’re doing with Climate Change. Despite the fact that there is a plethora of evidence right in front of our faces, we are burying our heads in the sand and not dealing with it. Oh sure, we’ve taken steps. We recycle and reuse our grocery bags. But we’ve hardly made a dent in the problem.
Climate change is a runaway train. There is no stopping it, but we can slow it down. But ONLY if we’re willing to admit that IT’S THE TAFFY! Of course, in this case the “taffy” is our love for fossil fuels and our wanton consumerism. But you get my point.
© Kimberlee Martin, 2017. All rights reserved.
Photo Credit: CC Image "Day 53: 'Taffy'" courtesy of Sean Freese on Flickr (CC BY 2.0)