Skyscrapers in Miami, polar bears and power outages, by gimleteye

Flying across the country, I ignored at first but slowly became glued to "Arctic Tale"-- a documentary feature filled with superb photography chronicling the difficulty of key species to survive global warming. Tens of thousands of years of habituation to the seasonal cycles and millions of years of evolution are vanishing in the rapidly warming Arctic.

It is difficult enough to focus on climate change, riding a Boeing 757 that joins with tens of thousands of other aircraft in contributing to the man-made disaster. A main story thread tracks the fate of a mother and her two polar bear cubs. The care of the mother for her offspring is so obviously resonant of how we worry for and tend to and push forward our own young.

An unstable ice pack, melting far earlier than normal, forces the mother to abandon her offspring earlier than evolution provided to balance the odds of survival. My flight landed before the movie ended, but what I heard just before the movie clicked off stuck with me: "Leaving her cub earlier that she should have, the mother could not teach the survival skills her cub would need to survive."

I wonder in the context of our own species: will there be a time when mothers and fathers cannot give the next generation the skills it will need to survive?

We are dependent on massively organized infrastructure for modern life. The connections that tie the pieces together are more fragile than people realize. How uncomfortable life can become when we are deprived was demonstrated, yesterday, by a brief power outage of the power grid serving the entire southeast coast of Florida.

The grid failure instantly stopped traffic and otherwise interrupted the lives of millions of residents and visitors.

What would life be like, without the power grid? We know from experience in the aftermath of recent hurricanes. So far the power grid, and the network of comforts we depend on, springs back.

In the future, global warming and its impacts will provide a much more serious test to infrastructure connections including the power grid.

For decades, the polar bear has been an iconic symbol of nature for conservationists. Today its plight is a flashing warning light for all of humanity. The cautionary tale may be attracting select audiences, but it is still falling on deaf ears.

Otherwise, how to explain today's news in Miami? City commissioners are poised to approve two new towering skyscrapers, over 1000 feet tall, in the downtown core. Never mind that real estate markets are under the heaviest pressure, in a century. The story is featured on the front page of The Miami Herald, without a single wisp of concern or doubt.

Taken together: the polar bears, the power outage, and the hubris of Miami civic leaders and elected officials sound clarion bells for change.

The focus for public life should be massive reform of power generation, distributing generation and supply as closely as possible to the end user and to consumers.

Elected officials in places like South Florida should reject building applications and zoning approvals that do not meet the criteria for surviving for long periods of sustained stress on infrastructure; from power generation to water supply. I know, these are big "shoulds".

The polar bear is unlikely to adapt to the pressure of global warming on food supplies. Presumably, we are smart enough to plan strategies to cope.

It is incredibly foolish to imagine that we will be immune or wealthy enough to avoid what threatens the polar bear. You may not be the mother or father who tells your children, tough luck. But your children or grandchildren will experience the costs, they will ask the questions, in which 1000 foot tall skyscrapers in Hurricane Alley will be the height of folly.