My First Climate Change Marriage Proposal

Mario was dead serious

Photo by Kyle Cleveland on Unsplash

Out there in the big wide world, there is a perception, New Zealand will be safest from the ravages of climate change. And local folklore has it, the billionaires already have bunkers here.

Exotic, safe New Zealand, next door to Antarctica, in the boondocks of the Antipodes. Wild open spaces and super friendly people.

I was a late bloomer to climate change. I had a vague awareness of rising sea levels that might flood the beach sometime far off in the never-never, long after I’m dead, and the push to use better lightbulbs and get an electric car.

Then midway through 2019, because of Greta, and because of the children marching in protest around the globe, I decided to investigate further.

Oh, the horrors I discovered. It’s bad, really bad. Faster than expected. An existential crisis. I couldn’t look away. I couldn’t unknow what I now knew.

I was shocked and alarmed. Grief-struck you could say. I bawled my eyes out.

I informed my loved ones about the intense changes up ahead. They listened and responded: But we live in New Zealand. And brushed climate change off as catastrophes happening elsewhere, gesturing with a vague wave of the hand.