Polar Extremes

I started thinking about Polar Extremes yesterday when I was walking around in a balmy 9 degree temperature zone and thinking about the world we live in. 

My first thought was "what the heck are you doing walking around in the cold?”

Then, in an almost spontaneous transition that may have been the result of hypothermia or my propensity to fall pray to adult onset ADD, my brain began to focus on climate change and global warming. 

Out there in the cold, I just couldn’t help but think about the myriad of perspectives on that subject. You know the polar extremes and yin and yang about whether it is real, false, somewhere in between or just a natural cycle in the grand scheme of things. So there I was in a moment contemplating stuff that just might illicit scorn and ridicule when talking about global warming in the midst of a 9 degree arctic blast or freak extreme weather event.

I thought to myself, you know there seems to be a lot of folks across this place I call “One Earth” who really don’t care about all the brilliance on one side of the issue or another.  Rather, they just know something is happening and believe that we may need to think differently, act differently or just effectively get off our cans and do something about it.

Unfortunately, these lost souls seem to be overshadowed by the “Polar Extremists” who focus on sensationalizing one perspective, one scientific factoid, one sound bite, or one piece of mis/disinformation about it all.

As I contemplated the state of my currently numb fingers and wondered why I was walking around in the frigidness of 9 degrees, I reminded myself that not too long ago I was doing the same in sustained 100+ degree temperatures. You see, it appears that in some corners we find ourselves in the dead of winter while others are in the throws of summer.

Across this One Earth, some of us are hot and some of us are cold.  Some of us have food and others go hungry.  Some of us have ample supplies of water while others don't.  Some have homes, while some are homeless and yet again others find themselves as refugees.    

As I contemplated the cosmic nature of the universe during my current cold weather training excursion, I couldn’t help but enter into an internal discussion with myself about why it seems that on the specific subject of climate change and global warming we have been on a Polar Extreme express train since 1896. During that year Svante Arrhenius, a Swedish scientist, was the first to claim that fossil fuel combustion may eventually result in enhanced global warming.

As my mind contemplated real or imagined factoids across a myraid of topics and within the context of Polar Extremes, my thoughts traversed to Charles Dickens “ A Tale of Two Cities.” You know, that story that starts out with "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way - in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only.”

And because of that, that initial thought on climate change quickly gave way to the myriad of other extremes that seemingly run rampant about any topic you may want to choose.

Race:

Water:

Energy:

Climate:

Culture:

Gender:

Religion:

Ethnicity:

Education:

Population:

Health Care:

Global Food:

Immigration:

Environment:

Foreign Policy:

Pick the topic of your choice:

And since I somehow got focused on literary brilliance in the throws of a frigid winter walk, I thought about a little speech penned by William Shakespeare.  When I had a chance I found a reference to it at the Poetry Foundation: https://www.poetryfoundation.org

Whether relevant to the topic of polar extremes or not, I will share it anyway.  You see, some may argue that the depiction of Richard was not necessarily reflective of who this monarch truly was. That some consider Richard to be mischaracterized by Shakespeare for the sake of making a point.  You see, even back in the 1500s extremes were being used to do just that:  make a point.   You see it isn't too much different than the current world of extreme positioning: Climate Change is real, Climate change is a farce.  Ok, so I will acquiesce:  Sometimes its hot, sometimes its cold.  Yet again sometimes its fact, and sometimes it just might be fiction.  Sometimes it is accurate, sometimes its misleading.

So here you go, a little of Shakespeare and Richard III:

"Now is the winter of our discontent

Made glorious summer by this sun of York;

And all the clouds that lour'd upon our house

In the deep bosom of the ocean buried.

Now are our brows bound with victorious wreaths;

Our bruised arms hung up for monuments;

Our stern alarums changed to merry meetings,

Our dreadful marches to delightful measures.

Grim-visaged war hath smooth'd his wrinkled front;

And now, instead of mounting barded steeds

To fright the souls of fearful adversaries,

He capers nimbly in a lady's chamber

To the lascivious pleasing of a lute.

But I, that am not shaped for sportive tricks,

Nor made to court an amorous looking-glass;

I, that am rudely stamp'd, and want love's majesty

To strut before a wanton ambling nymph;

I, that am curtail'd of this fair proportion,

Cheated of feature by dissembling nature,

Deformed, unfinish'd, sent before my time

Into this breathing world, scarce half made up,

And that so lamely and unfashionable

That dogs bark at me as I halt by them;

Why, I, in this weak piping time of peace,

Have no delight to pass away the time,

Unless to spy my shadow in the sun

And descant on mine own deformity:

And therefore, since I cannot prove a lover,

To entertain these fair well-spoken days,

I am determined to prove a villain

And hate the idle pleasures of these days.

Plots have I laid, inductions dangerous,

By drunken prophecies, libels and dreams,

To set my brother Clarence and the king

In deadly hate the one against the other:

And if King Edward be as true and just

As I am subtle, false and treacherous,

This day should Clarence closely be mew'd up,

About a prophecy, which says that 'G'

Of Edward's heirs the murderer shall be.

Dive, thoughts, down to my soul: here

Clarence comes."

And on that literary note, I will also share a quote from John Steinbeck:

Might his last novel “The Winter of Our Discontent” underscore some of the lunacy behind our individual and collective self-derived and/or seemingly uncontrollable Polar Extremes that we find ourselves navigating or that are imposed upon us?

The choice is there for the taking. Continue down the path of Polar Extremes; potentially to our detriment, or choose a path less traveled by?

“Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—

I took the one less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference.”  Robert Frost

Whichever road you choose, I Dare You to rise above it all, become bigger than yourself, and take footsteps that matter.  In doing so I Dare You to leave footprints for future generations that they can gaze at and positively look back upon .   I Dare You to make the world a better place and take the necessary daring footsteps on your personal and, to a larger extent, our collective journeys:  thoughtfully taking the time and effort to take steps that make a difference;  one person—one step  at a time.

For other works by Joel Anderson: https://www.bebee.com/@joel-anderson

Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this post are solely those of the author