The reason for our recent trip to Montana was to help my sister with her move from our family’s summer place. She had been living there year-round with some absences during the winter. The time has come, however, for her to live closer to her children and her grandchild and she has undertaken the difficult chore of a long-distance move. We made the trip to assist with her move and to help prepare the place for sale.

The weather has been amazingly mild for the work that we had to do. We did experience a couple of windy days, which is a common phenomenon in that part of Montana. We saw a few clouds, but the small amounts of rain we experienced were brief. The times when we were moving objects, we didn’t have to fight rain at all. We are back in Oregon now and we still have a few more things to move into storage, but most of that work is being accomplished for now.

As I write I can hear a gentle rain shower passing through the area, but it isn’t the long-lasting rain that can come to this part of the country. The Pacific Northwest has been experiencing a period of low precipitation that has locals wishing for rain. People are hoping that recent showers are a foretaste of a coming change. From the years that we have been visiting the Pacific Northwest prior to moving to this part of the country, however, September is often a time of blue skies and little precipitation.

Meanwhile, there are plenty of places in the world where there has been too much rain lately. Making headlines right now is Hurricane Ian, which has lost a lot of strength as it traveled across Florida yesterday. Severe flooding, high winds, and storm surges have wreaked havoc in a wide swath of the storm, leaving two million people in Florida without power and internet in addition to those in Cuba who have yet to have their power restored after the storm crossed the island. The torrential rains combined with the high storm surge to plunge areas under water.

And it isn’t just Ian. The recent hurricane Fiona slammed five provinces of Canada with record winds, rain, and waves. The Canadian Space Agency has released satellite images showing the storm’s devastation. Massive coastal erosion has occurred in the Northumberland Strait - the water the divides Prince Edward Island from the mainland province of New Brunswick. Popular landmarks have washed into the sea and been destroyed. Coastal wharfs and barns also have been destroyed.

Around the world people are cleaning up and recovering from the effects of flooding. Japan is also recovering from a record storm that brought high winds, heavy rains, mudslides, and storm surges.

There is little doubt that part of the cause of so much intense weather is the warming of the planet. Warmer seas mean increased evaporation and though the frequency of storms may not have shifted much, the intensity has increased. Hurricanes are larger, more devastating, and covering larger amounts of land than has historically been the case.

The science of global warming is not new. Scientists have been warming of the effects of increasing carbon in the atmosphere as a result of burning fossil fuels for more than a century. Our generation, however, may be the first to realize the size of the impact human activities have caused. And yet, it is unclear how many people understand the current situation enough to make the significant changes in lifestyle that are required to slow the rate of change in the atmosphere of the planet and the subsequent storms and other events that arise from those changes.

Last night we had a discussion of global climate change and how we might engage others in conversation and learning that might lead to significant change. One voice in our conversation was questioning whether or not the general public has enough awareness to be motivated to change. We fear that our discussions are taking place among a small group of concerned people and not reaching enough people to have a significant impact on behavior.

Having spent the past week helping with the move, I am aware that there are many people who are engaged in a lot of work and activity just to survive and get through life day to day. For many, there is little energy left for contemplating the effects of climate change while they struggle to achieve housing, health care, and groceries. It can seem like the effects of climate change are far away. After all, we don’t live where hurricanes come. Our region did experience devastating flooding last November when high rainfall combined with warmer temperatures to cause extensive flooding in coastal river systems. Too often, however, we think of global climate change as something that is impacting the residents of island nations, those who live in the paths of hurricanes, those whose lives are threatened by wildfire, and others who are far away from us. Climate scientist and communicator Katharine Hayhoe uses the plight of polar bears as an illustration. She notes that most people have never seen a polar bear and even though we know that their habitat is shrinking and their population is threatened the problem seems to us to be far away. She reminds us, however, that in some ways polar bears are very similar to humans and that in a way their situation is a foretaste of what is coming to humans on our planet. If we don’t act quickly, it may become too late for us to make the required changes for survival. Like the polar bears, humans will face mass starvation as the planet’s capacity for food production is reduced by the change in the climate.

Ours may be the first generation to fully understand the impact of over consumption of fossil fuels, but we may be the last generation with the power to avert mass starvation, climate refugees, pandemic, and other devastating effects of that consumption.

We live in critical times and the challenge of learning to work with our neighbors to make meaningful changes is upon us. We will not experience a lack of meaningful work in the span of our lives.