The Titanic has already collided with the iceberg, but let’s continue dancing happily in its living room, promoting national populism. Don’t worry, if we need to evacuate, Elon Musk’s rescue boats will arrive to take us to Mars. Well, take those who can pay for the trip. It’s the deal, friends!
I am writing from Salobreña in the early morning hours of Wednesday, November 13, 2024. I am writing in an area currently facing the threat of torrential rains detected by AEMET. I trust AEMET, its forecasts are more and more precise, thanks to technology and the preparation of its staff. Much more solvent, in any case, than those of those Mazón politicians who, once the DANA was triggered which hit Valencia two weeks ago, locked themselves in the cabin of a restaurant to flirt with a journalist, I dare to believe that only professional yews.
AEMET was right once again. Yesterday was a sunny and happy day in Salobreña, but now the sky I gaze at from my office is covered in dark clouds. I am told on WhatsApp that it is already raining in the city of Granada, in Lanjarón, the gateway to the Alpujarra, and in Motril, very close by. Here it’s only sparks for the moment, a few droplets falling as dirty as the underside of an SUV in the Sahara. Either way, the day has only just begun.
Last Sunday, the environmental association Cal y Caña posted a map of Salobreña potentially subject to flooding in the municipal market square. It was scary. Only the old town was saved, the medina that the Arabs judiciously placed on the side of a mountain and topped with a crenellated castle. The rest – the new Salobreña at sea level, the summer beach facilities and the beautiful Guadalfeo River plain – could well become a lagoon – temporary or permanent – due to torrential rains or rising waters.
I’m quite an anarchist, I’ve never been very interested in joining parties or associations, but on Sunday I signed up for Cal y Caña. The cause of saving the planet seems to me to be the most urgent and transversal of those facing humanity in the 21st century. Although I am aware that this is not a popular cause, if it involves changes in our way of life, it is. I wrote it in this same newspaper last week: climate denial, an essential component of Trump-style national populism, is filling the polls because it preaches what so many people want to hear: there is no reason to change.
The Titanic has already collided with the iceberg, but let’s continue dancing happily in the ship’s lounge, promoting national populism. Don’t worry, if things get even more complicated and we need to evacuate, Elon Musk’s rescue boats will arrive to take us to Mars. Well, to be taken, of course, by those who can afford the trip. It’s the deal, friends!
In the meantime, let’s organize international conferences on climate change in which China and the United States, the main polluters on the planet, do not participate and which are organized by countries rich in hydrocarbons like Azerbaijan -2024- and Dubai -2023 -. Let’s leave the care of the flock to the wolves. Let’s emit CO₂ until there’s not a drop of gas and oil left on Earth. Let oil companies continue to advertise misleadingly on social media and in the media. Let the Titanic orchestra sound louder!
Here and now, on the Costa Tropical, in the fall of 2024, many of us neighbors have been talking for several days with concern about Molvízar Boulevard, the Barranco del Arca, the ravaged Sierra de los Guájares and other possible drains from torrential downpours. like those that could fall today from Malaga to Motril. Also on buildings that continue to be built on the path of rainwater to the sea, such as the new health center. Well, I swear for the health of my daughters that there is no shortage here of those who will blame Sánchez for everything that may happen, of course, and the environmentalists! These are the increasingly abundant people who do not hesitate to shout their ideological absurdities in the bars of the bars, fodder for hoaxes, spectators of Iker Jiménez, voters of Ayuso, Abascal and Alvise.
And here I am, in my little studio in the old town of Salobreña, waiting for the flood. I hope it’s not that bad, I tell myself, but I quickly add that I won’t have lost anything by stocking up for two or three days and not going out until the orange alert is in force. And I admit that when I acquired this studio (cheaper than a parking lot in the Madrid of Ayuso, gentlemen the trolls right) I have already thought about climate change.
I wasn’t going to buy something with the modest savings of forty years of working in a flood-prone area, as close to the beach as this humble abode, which is also the home of those of you who are good people . That is, people with their own solid ideas.
