The rain in Denver
Since I came to Colorado in 2020, I have never personally witnessed so much as a drizzle come down from the sky. Coming from the Northeast this was a notable adjustment to me as I didn’t even have to bring my raincoat, nevermind my rainboots and umbrella. The past few weeks, however, there have been more days with overcast drizzling and full on thunderstorms than without. I’m beginning to think it will never stop.
Meanwhile back home in Connecticut, I have only heard of the endless beautiful days and blue skies. This peculiar spring follows the same pattern of this past winter, where the west got dumped on and the east barely got any snow. It is caused by a shift in the jet stream, influencing the direction of wind pattern shifts north/south and east/west. This change is caused by the warmer climate.
This spring, however, there is a more direct cause for the extreme rain here in Denver. Warmer climates simply allow the sky to hold more water which explains why it’s constantly pouring. It seems like every year there are fewer places in the world where one can go to escape our impending environmental doom. It has been established in several reliable places that Denver is among very few cities that are the most stable against the bizarre weather changes and environmental catastrophes that have begun to wreak havoc on us.
It is unsettling to hear about fires swallowing people in California and heat waves consuming others in Texas. However, it is easy to feel very far removed from these circumstances when you can still go outside and smell the clean spring air, see the green grass and hear the birds chirping. It’s dangerous that the world is dying in fragments, as opposed to a consistent and gradual deterioration of all things at once. It makes it much easier to evade the inevitable.
In Colorado, however, it has just become harder to ignore. It is impossible to deny the negative implications that this novelty of spring showers suggests. The cause is so clear. What’s also so sad is that it is easy to understand why no one is doing anything about it. It is the path of least resistance to simply ignore it. What could one individual do without simultaneously devoting their future to a constant feeling of crippling anxiety about the future of our planet?
The climate crisis is the United States’ pandora's box. People want to open it but are unable to with the knowledge that, once opened, it cannot be shut again. What can we do with this irrevocable doom but avert our eyes? It is human nature. It is shameful. There are too many of us on this planet of limited resources, and yet there are still not enough of us to believe we could come together and fix it- even though we could have, we would not. Even if we still could, now, with all we know, I don’t believe everyone would do their part to save us.
The inevitable is inevitable because we as a species are not inclined to clean up our mess. It is too hard for us to face the music. And that is why we will not do anything, and that is why we will one day be eradicated. Earth will live on for a billion more years and I believe it will restore itself once again. Maybe billions of years from now a new species will tell stories about us. I wonder if they will learn from our mistakes.
Umbrellas for sale at the Target in University Hills
