Watery thoughts on a Sunday

There's been some excitement in Alberta for the last couple of days, and not the good kind. If you haven't heard about it where you live, people south of here are experiencing flooding due to some pretty heavy rainstorms... High River, Bragg Creek, and parts of Calgary are under water. And some of that water is moving really fast. My heart goes out to all those whose homes have been damaged or destroyed, and to those who have lost loved ones, pets, and possessions.

We've heard for ages about droughts and floods due to climate change in other parts of the world (our daughter was in Germany earlier this month when there was flooding there). It seems the climate change phenomenon has finally come home to roost here, too. I have a number of relatives who were either on alert, have been evacuated, or have been stranded by flooding in the past three days. Cougar Creek, near my cousin Teresa's house, is actually a raging river. I've passed it many times when it was bone dry, so it's almost hard to imagine, except for the non-stop news reports and videos posted online.

Edmonton is under a flood alert, too, but I don't think we'll have serious issues unless we get the kind of 100 mm rainstorm they had in the Rockies on Wednesday/Thursday. Here's what our river looked like today -- a bit high, but not jumping the banks yet.

The problem is that people aren't connecting the dots... that these weather aberrations are directly linked to our highly consumptive lifestyles. Mindless living without considering the impact we are having on this gorgeous planet God gave us is creating conditions like the incredible melting of polar ice that leads to climate alteration and storms that cause so much damage and danger. It's time to rethink how we live, to use less of everything, and to walk more lightly on our earth in an effort to bring nature and humanity's impact on it back into balance.

With these things weighing heavily on my mind, I leave you with a beautiful but somewhat sombre piece of music by Camille St. Saens from his Carnival of the Animals. It ends on a lighter note... which is how I hope humanity's story ends, too.