Those Were The Days...

 

I remember the days when the neighbor next door used to ask my parents for a small loan until he gets the wages. With the appearance of the new banking system promoting overdraft and credit cards - it stopped. The neighbor no longer needed my parents. for the loan.

I remember well the days when our street was lively  and colorful, with voices and movement. And then, it gradually became deserted, as people went inside to watch TV and work on the PC. Interaction was maintained at nuclear family level  mainly.

(One evening, I stumbled on the pavement and fell badly  on my right shoulder. I was unable to get up. There was no soul around to help me stand on my feet, It was then that I realized the severity of the changes we were undergoing).

Next, people started to look for bigger apartments with more rooms. Each child in his own room, with his laptop and mobile phone. At this stage,  interaction between family members got disrupted too.

I so miss the youngsters' politeness and respect for older people of  those days!  Now, I sometimes can't believe my eyes and ears. They don't even fear the old advice given by parents: 'If you wish to reach that old person's age, you better behave yourself!'  It makes them smile or even laugh.

How does the song go? : "those were the days my friend/ we thought they'd never end". Well, apparently they do end. And now we all talk about the big change, Climate Change and the Glasgow summit conference.

It gives us a lot to talk and think about. It's just that  I 'm not sure we've got enough time for it. It's kind of urgent. We should better concentrate on what we can do - planning rescue and survival - not on what we cannot do - preventing  Nature's disasters.

 

Untitled

I can't say I'm totally surprised of what's going on in the world right now: climate change and the corona virus.

I've mentioned before that I believe in God ( the Superpower) and his  Creation of the world. 
I think we humans have constantly violated the order and rules of this creation by wars, colonialism, slavery, migration, globality - and now, we're probably going to pay for it.

I remember my visit to South Africa.   Apartheid was already in its last stages,  and what really puzzled me was the mere presence of the white, european people there. I kept asking myself why are they here? this continent was given by God to the black people, and it belongs to them. The europeans should be here only as tourists not as settlers.  Europe is their God- given continent for.better or for worse.

Climate Change and the Corona Virus clearly indicate that God is fed up with us and is considering a Reset whatever that may mean.

I guess that even if we survive the corona, we might face a totally different reality with scarcity of food, no pensions, violence reaching its highest,  at least for a while.

It is at times like this, that one learns the true meaning of terms constantly misused and misunderstood by us such as: nation. territory, race, sustainability, superpower, climate, and many others.

A Neighborly Hand

I tend to compare Climate Change with an experienced army general. The later knows he cannot successfully fight a war with the tactics and strategies of the last war. He has to surprise the enemy.

Fires were not new to australians, and yet they got surprised by the highly devastating nature of the last fires.They needed all the help they could get (The neighboring countries New Zealand, Vanuatu, Papua New Guinea were the first to offer help). 

In Israel, we don't have much rain . but 2-3 consecutive days of strong rain, some ten days ago, almost destroyed an entire city (Naharyia) in the north of the country.  The city was heavily hit by floods, and that came as a complete surprise.
The official explanation to the stunned citizens was that the severe flooding was perhaps due to the Gaaton river(crossing the town) being diverted to build a mall?!

Naharyia floods (web picture)

It would seem Climate Change is here to stay. So, there are two main urgent needs:
1.  lots of smart rescue plans to save lives (both human and animal).
2.  good neighboring country relations based on reciprocity and cooperation.  
Nations are more than willing to help other nations in distress, but sometimes because of distance, it takes precious time till the planes with the experts and equipment arrive at the scene of the disaster.  So, where possible, good neighbors are top priority.

Nine years ago we had a deadly fire on Mt Carmel (44 fatalities) We badly needed help and we got it from many countries. It was really heart warming.  Here's the list with the helping countries (it appeared on the internet):

Azerbaijan – 2 helicopters
Bulgaria – 1 plane and 92 firefighters
Croatia – 1 plane, 8 firefighters and fire repression materials
Cyprus – 1 plane and 1 helicopter
Egypt – fire repression materials
France – 5 planes and fire repression materials
Germany – 1 plane, 7 experts in firefighting and fire repression materials
Greece – 7 planes, 34 firefighters and fire repression materials
Holland – 5 experts in firefighting
Italy – 1 plane and fire repression materials
Jordan – 3 truckloads of firefighting equipment and materials
Palestinian Authority – 21 firefighters and 3 fire engines
Russia – 3 planes and 22 experts in firefighting
Spain – 5 planes
Switzerland – 1 plane, 3 helicopters and a team of 14
Turkey – 2 planes
UK – 2 helicopters
US – 5 planes, 11 experts in firefighting and fire repression materials

Among the countries that offered assistance which wasn't required: Australia (was ready to rapidly deploy a team of 5 incident management experts and 20 tons of fire retardant), Austria, Canada, Czech Republic, Denmark, Romania and Ukraine.

It's mutual. We always offer help to other nations in disaster cases. I especially remember the earthquakes in Azerbaijan and Turkey. Israel had  an important assisting presence there.