Wilderness Time and the UN Climate Report

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Then the Lord answered Job out of the whirlwind:

² “Who is this that darkens counsel by words without knowledge?
³ Gird up your loins like a man, I will question you, and you shall declare to me.

 “Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth?
    Tell me, if you have understanding...

“Who has cut a channel for the torrents of rain, and a way for the thunderbolt,

to bring rain on a land where no one lives,  on the desert, which is empty of human life,
27 to satisfy the waste and desolate land,  and to make the ground put forth grass?

                                                                Job 38 

On the weekend Ruth, my wife, joined a group of women with whom she has paddled for nearly three decades for a canoe venture in Killarney Provincial Park in Northern-ish Ontario (near north.) They are intelligent, resourceful, and fun-loving women, so she had a blast. 

I went north as well and camped on my own in a private campground where I had a site well away from others and with a panoramic view of Georgian Bay. I managed to put up our good-sized tent on my own without losing my Christianity.

 Eagles and herons flew by and I could hear loons and barred owls in the early morning hours. I took a water taxi across to George Island where I hiked an eight kilometre trail in almost total solitude -- except for the moose which startled me mightily given that it was browsing immediately beside the trail. I edged past it talking in what I hoped would be a moose-soothing voice. The island is 2.5 kilometres across and on the far side the pink granite, white quartzite and blue water were a sensory gift, along with the absence of human-made noise. I went for a swim in the bracing water and it was heavenly. 

As we drove back yesterday we heard the sobering news about the just released United Nations climate report which is sounding a "code red"alarm for Planet Earth. As a Reuters news agency summary puts it:

 Global warming is dangerously close to spiralling out of control, a U.N. climate panel said in a landmark report Monday, warning the world is already certain to face further climate disruptions for decades, if not centuries, to come. Humans are "unequivocally" to blame, the report from the scientists of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) said. Rapid action to cut greenhouse gas emissions could limit some impacts, but others are now locked in. The deadly heat waves, gargantuan hurricanes and other weather extremes that are already happening will only become more severe.

Canada is already being affected with warm temperatures in the Arctic, our global cooling system, and devastating wildfires in different parts of the country. Before our departure there were smoke warnings as part of the weather report, although, thankfully, those were lifted during our few days. There was an violent thunderstorm with hours of torrential downpour stronger than anything Ruth could recall through the years. Curiously, I was perhaps 25 kilometres away and didn't experience the same intensity. Who knows if this was a storm augmented by the climate emergency?

The UN report suggests that we can still pull back from the brink, although some of the damage is irrevocable. God the Creator, convince us and show us how to step back from the apocalyptic whirlwind of our own folly. I'm not sure what "girding up my loins" entails, but it suggest some serious effort on our part, don't you think?