Climate change is just warming up

"The more clearly we can focus our attention on the wonders and realities of the universe about us, the less taste we shall have for destruction."

                                                                                                                  — Rachel Carson

AUBURN, Maine — The searing, summer heat and intolerable humidity that you’ve been experiencing in the Pine Tree State is a frightening preview of global warming.

Nature sent us another movie trailer featuring the cataclysmic repercussions of climate change. From California to the Mid West and as far as Maine and Quebec, the high temperatures are killing some of us.

You won’t have to wait for the movie when it premieres. It will be an Oscar winner, but we won’t be around to enjoy this horror film with a harrowing end for generations to come.

The heat wave claimed the lives of 70 people in Quebec and most of Maine feels like Miami at noon in July. In the coming years, certain areas around the globe will become unlivable and rising oceans will gobble up coastlines around the world. Everett, Mass., will end up becoming the new Revere Beach. 

Just ask the good citizens of low-lying south Florida during King Tides. The water gets higher during each event and no pump in the world will keep that part of the state afloat.

The next generation depends on us for their survival! It will be your children who will wake up to a world with no clean water to drink. Food will become scarce because humans have polluted the soil. 

A lack of resources means more wars.

According to a National Public Radio report, the western part of the United States is two degrees hotter and that means the snowpack in the mountains melts quicker leading to longer and more intense fires. 

If you dismiss these dire warnings from Mother Nature, you do so at your own peril. Expect serious consequences from an overpopulated planet that is beginning to look like one giant garbage scow.

The earth is ailing and we are the cancer ravaging our fragile home. We are the most destructive force on the planet and, well, the earth will pay us all back by whittling down the herd through starvation, crop failures, intense heat and polluted air, water and land.

“In nature, nothing exists alone. But man is a part of nature, and his war against nature is inevitably a war against himself.” Rachel Carson, author of “Silent Spring,” said.

Too bad we ignored her when her book was published in 1962. Many tried to silence her even though she was ahead of her time.

One of the latest headlines is from the Washington Post: 

"Temperatures near or pass all-time records in Europe as another heat wave blasts the continent."

A really terrifying report came from CNN about a California fire said: 

Carr Fire in California is so hot it's creating its own weather system

Your children will suffer in the coming decades because the naysayers and uninformed leaders in governments across the globe didn’t act to find cleaner fuels and end the polluting of our drinking water and food-providing oceans.

There is no deity to rescue us from catastrophe or another celestial body that is habitable in the Solar System — unless you have the cash to pay for a space suit, a ticket and a rocket that can ferry you to Mars.

Good luck with that.

Man has yet to step foot on Mars, but if we do, we will probably soil the Red Planet, too. We are indeed a destructive species — and large nations like the United States and China, — two industrial powerhouses — are responsible for most of the pollution.

“There is no Planet B,” French president Emmanuel Jean-Michel Frédéric Macron said several months ago. Our U.S. president just brushed off Macron’s remark, but that’s not surprising from a another careless leader.

As far back as 2014, the Portland Press Herald reported that climate change was indeed hurting the population and its animal life:

“The climate has warmed in Maine and Vermont more than in every other state in the past 30 years, a shift that scientists say is evident in the species of birds and fish that are moving into or out of northern New England.

“The six New England states, along with three of their neighbors in the Northeast, accounted for nine of the 10 states that have had the largest increase in annual average temperature since 1984, according to an Associated Press analysis of temperature records from the federal government’s National Climatic Data Center.”

I was listening to Maine Public Broadcasting the other day about climate change and how this seemingly endless heat is affecting Mainers. Experts agree that heat waves come and go, but this scorcher has intensified due to global warming.

One caller said his tomatoes were not turning quickly because of the hot temperatures at night.

This is true because my tomatoes remain green despite the warm sun. I have been gardening for nearly 20 years and I have noticed that frogs have disappeared and bees are scarce. 

Our planet is being stripped of its natural resources by greed, ignorance and neglect.

Think about that every time you refuse to put out a recycle bin or look your child in the eye.

DNA results are in and I am a mongrel like any other human being

My uncle and World War II hero B.J. Murano, Uncle Rocky and his wife, Helen and B.J.'s wife, Eddie.

My father, Big Al, (left) and my mom, Louise (red shirt) and our neighbor Maureen at a Columbus Day Parade in Revere, Mass.

My father, my son and I stand during a Columbus Day Parade in Revere, Mass., back in 1997.

A proud father with his daughter and son in 1962.

“There is no king who has not had a slave among his ancestors, and no slave who has not had a king among his.”    

                   — Helen Keller

“If you want to understand today, you have to search yesterday.” 

— Pearl S. Buck

                                                                                                     

“We all grow up with the weight of history on us. Our ancestors dwell in attics of our brains, as they do in the spiraling chains of knowledge hidden in every cell of our bodies.”

— Shirley Abbott

AUBURN, Maine — After receiving my DNA results from ancestry.com, my perspicacious son, Anthony, pointed out that all my ancestors exist in my spit that was just tested in a lab.

To me, it was a profound statement from my son. He continues to meticulously chart our family tree and has given me a new appreciation of who I am and how I got here.

When we look back at our biological history, I think we forget that humanity is composite of our ancestors who have given us life — and their traits — for better or worse. 

Evolution (only science works for me) has been kind to us — for the moment.

The saliva test was a Christmas gift from Anthony and it really is the gift that keeps on giving. I found there is an endless parade of fourth and fifth cousins out there and some have contacted me. My son has taken his quest further and reached out to living relatives around the globe.

We are all probably related (although we don’t like to admit it), but these conclusive results haven’t stopped us from killing each other over ancient hatreds, race and pride.

When the findings arrived, Anthony and I reviewed the breakdown of who I am and we found our ancestors come from all over Europe, the Caucuses and the Middle East.

According to Ancestry’s ethnicity estimate, my ancestors are from these regions:

Europe South 50 percent (no surprise there)

Southern Italy

From your regions: Caucasus, Europe South, Middle East

Europe West 24 percent

Caucasus 15 percent

Low Confidence Regions

Great Britain 4 percent

Middle East 2 percent

Scandinavia 2 percent

Finland/Northwest Russia < 1 percent

Ireland/Scotland/Wales < 1 percent

Iberian Peninsula < 1 percent

My ancestors’s biology is tucked away deep inside my DNA. Take the test and you will find we are all mongrels and the thought of being a purebred is absurd.

The DNA results arrived in time for the holidays, which can be a painful time of year for those who continue to grieve for lost loved ones.

I miss my parents and Christmas isn’t the same without them. I was raised on a street where nearly dozen Italian relatives lived and all had a hand in my upbringing. But their life force still courses through my veins and they will be with me this holiday and for all eternity.

Exchanging spirits and cooking enough food to feed a battalion of hungry soldiers was just a few ways my family celebrated the Yuletide. It was a two-day event on McClure Street and it featured a Christmas Eve supper with super-sized servings of fish, and for an encore, there was an afternoon Christmas meal featuring pasta, ham and turkey. You didn’t eat for days after gorging yourself in the afterglow of the holidays. 

But my neighborhood is filled with new faces, and those people I loved and cherished, are now wonderful memories of my past. The holidays resurrect those fond recollections and are a source of joy, pride and sadness for me.

But you have only two choices when confronting the holidays and loss: Close the shades in your room and disappear into an abyss of depression — or go forth and enjoy those special moments with your child and wife that only exist for a brief instance in the universe.

It is not a comfort to me and doesn’t ease my grief, but my DNA made me realize that my parents live on inside me. I begrudgingly accept that life is ephemeral, and if you live long enough, your loved ones and close friends fall away like the passing seasons.

But I made a promise to myself to make every day count, including the holidays.

My DNA test also revealed that I am related to England’s King Richard the III and Edward the I, who was also known as Edward Longshanks.

I sometimes feel like a royal, but my throne is a recliner in my parlor. 

I am also grateful to an ancestor, Middlesex County New Jersey Militia Capt. John Payne, who squared off against King George’s Redcoats. Anthony’s careful research of Payne led to our admittance to the Sons of American Revolution this year. He also went on to prove through our DNA that we are indeed related to Payne.

So I will raise a toast to my ancestors and my family and enjoy another Christmas with all of them.

Missing in action — forever

Albert John Blasi through the years

"He didn’t tell me how to live; he lived, and let me watch him do it."

                                   ~Clarence Budington Kelland

CAPE ELIZABETH — Lingering grief is like being buried alive in a shallow grave.

Melancholy is grief’s best friend, and if you immerse yourself in endless desolation, you will be consumed by your own sorrow — like a rotting corpse resting in the deep earth.

I won’t allow that kind of emptiness to rule my life. My father wouldn’t tolerate it, either. And I don’t have a choice — I have a family that still needs me despite my sadness.

My father, Albert John Blasi, died this weekend on Nov. 8, 2014 — another casualty of a cruel disease known as Alzheimer’s. He was buried with full military honors after serving a tour of duty during the occupation of Germany in 1954. Actually, he played baseball for the U.S. Army’s post teams. It was a good gig, and instead of lugging around an M-1 Garand rifle, he carried a bat and donned a glove on a baseball diamond somewhere in Europe.

I have this great picture of him playing catch at Zepplin Field where Hitler’s Nazis rallied during World War II. Behind my father is a destroyed, concrete swastika — remnants of the Third Reich.

There were hundreds of mourners at his wake and a police escort accompanied the hearse to the cemetery where he was buried in Peabody, Mass.

I still have the flag which was draped over his coffin on that cold day. It sits in a case that rests on top of a curio cabinet that I bought for my parents long ago. Call it a shrine, if you like, but it doesn’t alleviate the pain that goes along with my father’s loss.

That takes time, sometimes counseling, and a begrudging acceptance, and there is no closure — just a deep wound that never heals.

He was a teacher, coach and father whose integrity, loyalty and compassion made him a respected member in a city just outside Boston, and his reputation as the Revere High baseball skipper for 42 years extended well beyond the borders of the Greater Boston area. Boston Globe writer Martin Pave did a wonderful job with his half-page article about my dad.

It is an anniversary that no one in our family cares to celebrate. The memories are painful and his permanent absence has left us all with a sense of longing and sadness.

The new normal is impossible to get used to, and there is not a day I don’t think about him or my mother. The house at 17 McClure Street has been sold, and that’s a different kind of sadness.

I knew hanging around my home recalling his last moments on earth would trigger paralyzing grief and a strong bout of depression.

That wasn’t going to happen. I did that for four years as I watched his beautiful mind and precious memories slip away as the Alzheimer’s slowly progressed.

So I spent this weekend visiting the ocean and walking trails along the coast with my son who came home from college for the weekend. He made these past few days bearable.

I grew up in a seaside community and I have always found the turbulent waters of the Atlantic a calming force in my life. We are all connected to the sea. 

The late President John F Kennedy said, “We are tied to the ocean. And when we go back to the sea — whether it is to sail or to watch it — we are going back from whence we came.”

Maybe that is why we headed south to visit one of our old stomping grounds — Fort Williams in Cape Elizabeth. It offers stunning views of the coastline and made me feel a helluva lot better to see the cold salt water lap against the shoreline and breath in the sea air on a chilly, windy November day.

For the next hour, I thought about my father, but in a positive way, avoiding the misery that accompanies grief.

Somedays are harder than others, but I have come to terms with his death, and although I miss him every day, I feel I was lucky to have parents who gave a damn about their four kids and put them first in their lives.

That feeling of loss never goes away as my grief subsides and acceptance takes a firm hold.

I see my father in my son and in my sisters’ children, too.

He lives on in all of us, but I still miss the man who stood for something good.

That will never change.