Italy has suffered a terrible drought, and its longest river, the Po, ran dry. It is about 400 miles in length and flows east from the Cottian Alps. Not in anyone’s living memory has it been that parched in the region.
It never rains but it pours they say, and it describes Italy’s weather perfectly for when the drought finally broke, the storms were so fierce as to result in massive flooding.
Several thousand miles east, past Greece, past Turkey, Iraq, Iran and Afghanistan lies Pakistan, a nation of over 200 million, which is now also devastated by heavy rain and floods. President Biden has called for a $2.9 billion international aid package for a country a third under water to revive itself; also for people, who lost everything when their homes and crops were washed away, to be restored to some kind of normalcy.
As often happens with flooding, water-borne diseases follow and in Pakistan they include malaria that is deadly for young children.
The ravages of the planet do not end there for in the Antarctic, a large chunk of what is sometimes referred to as the doomsday glacier, has sheared off and fallen into the sea. One can guess the name implies a catastrophe, that is if all of it melted, it would raise sea levels enough to cause chaos on earth.
Then there are man-made ravages and foremost among them is war. Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has made another fiery speech. Recorded earlier in Ukraine, it was replayed at the UN where the new session is underway. He claims victories and seizure of some 5000 square miles of territory. Despite his tendency to exaggerate, it is clear Russia has suffered a setback. Putin has ordered a mobilization — the first since the Second World War — and has called up reserves and army retirees. He says he needs more troops to man the now 600 mile front line. So far he has avoided inexperienced general conscripts who are known to suffer higher casualties.
It’s pointless to go back in detail to the early days of an independent Ukraine, of the coup organized by the U.S. against an elected president, of the famous “F— the EU” remark by Victoria Nuland, who was running the show and could not obtain EU support, and of the off-again-on-again civil war that ensued and continues. But the result has been tens of thousands of refugees and internally displaced persons, thousands dead and no peace in sight.
What Zelenskyy has been crowing about seems pretty small potatoes in comparison. And how Biden can talk about freedom for Ukraine is the sort of hypocrisy only politicians can muster. Remember Boris Johnson, the British PM, flying to Ukraine to meet Zelenskyy and express the UK’s solidarity with the Ukrainian people. Boris was in trouble back home and looking for favorable headlines. The ploy didn’t work. He is now out.
In a couple of months, the US will be having a midterm election. It is not unusual for the opposition to do well in such an election, but given the razor thin majority a couple of seats lost by the Democrats could flip the senate. That would place Biden’s aid package for Ukraine in jeopardy for the armaments have to be contracted, built and shipped.
Mr. Zelenskyy appears to be a high-wire act without a safety net. And most unfortunately, our climate ravaged earth is not equipped with one.
