Antares to Arcturus, its a matter of perspective

Windy Sunday. Howling wind Sunday. I knew the exact minute this change came through. We were outside with guests yesterday. A friend, her husband, their daughter. She is a vet at at the clinic where I work. Showing them the aviaries with the galahs, greenies and rainbows when this hot sharp wind charged in the from the west. It burnt all hint of moisture from the air. The tiny leaves of the poinciana shot into us like rat shot, driven by this ferocious wind. My skin seemed to frizzle and even my eyeballs dehydrated.
The wind continued through the night. A hot summer night in late August when officially we're still in winter. This is the second heat wave this month. What is happening with our weather? Could it be, can it be, global warming? The pundits are still out there saying global warming is a huge conspiracy. I don't know. Every spring our storms are fiercer, more damaging. We're getting less rain in the summer when we need it and now this. I know two hot spells don't make a catastrophe but I think we're naive to assume we are not making an impact on this planet.
If I could operate a computer with any kind of grace, I'd be able to upload photos (I can hear the guffaws from here, thank you very much, but it's true I am completely bamboozled by the simplest of technological tasks). Someone sent me an email entitled The Universe, How Big is It? It starts with a comparison of earth to the other planets, then the earth to the sun, the sun to Arcturus, which is relative to comparing earth to the Sun, then Arcturus to Antares, which might be comparable to comparing the moon to the sun. In the last shot of the sun and Antares, the sun was one pixel, so not visible, to this huge ripe tomato of a star called Antares. It was huge and earth and all of us, only a memory of matter. In the scale of things earth, and me least of all, to quote Joni Mitchell, did not exist. The last shot is of galaxies made up of billions of suns (stars from Arcturs' to Antares') in deep space. It does tend to put things in perspective.
One time, when I was really depressed about how we were slowly but surely crapping over this miracle of a planet, my sister reminded me that although we may be destroying one miracle, there are billions of other miracles in the universe. It would be a catastrophe for this living ecosystem and all the things on it but just because we got it wrong does not mean creation and change and opportunity would end. We would just be one little experiment that went wrong.
I try and remember that. Everything dies. I'll die. Hopefully having done something life-enhancing and creative while I'm here. It won't be the end of creation if Earth dies. Energy means change. Everything changes but energy is not lost. The next experiment of sentient intelligence might get it right.
Don't want to spend this day whinging and whining about how bad things are. That just pepetuates the problem. Just watched 'Who Do You Think You Are' on SBS. Ian Hislop researching his great grandfathers who came from Scotland and fought in the Boer War, among other things. Then I think I know nothing of Dad's dad, whose name I share. My middle name is Boyer. He died when I was an infant so I never new him. Dad didn't talk of him but then being a self-involved teenager I didn't ask either. Now that I'm older I am curious about my relatives. There are question marks about my maternal grandfather, that he came into Canada being born on the 'wrong side of the blanket' in the UK. My sister and I think he has a resemblance to the late Lord Mountbatten, Prince Philip and less so, Prince Charles in the shape of his head. So it's a tiny romantic notion that means nothing. Just had a quick look at some genealogy websites. One could spend a heap of money, which I'm unwilling to do at this point. My third cousin once removed sent over reams of paper detailing her side of the family tree. She was a diligent researcher. Unfortunately most of it was double greek to me especially as we were so distantly related. I'm ashamed to say that after years of shifting it from one disused drawer to another I shifted it into the bin. Perhaps it's wiser at this point in my life to look where I'm going rather than where my forefathers (and mothers) have been.