In 2008 I took an amazing trip to Chile. Part of the trip was to Easter Island. These statues known as the Moai are part and parcel of the island and the heritage of the people who live there. They are now threatened by the changes in the sea on account of wait for it….climate change.

It’s hard to express the majesty of these sculptures that are also platforms that contain the bones of many people’s ancestors. I loved Easter Island and was struck by an article I read last week in the NewYork Times on the fate of some of these statues and by this op-ed by Nicholas Kristof as well.  Rather than the last farmer cutting down the last palm tree, I was thinking of the children’s book, The Giving Tree, where a boy who becomes a man asks his friend the tree to give him everything and the tree is reduced to a stump. I hate that book but my son loves it so I read it to him and hope he gets the moral of the story with time. Don’t ask for more than Earth can provide, otherwise, there won’t be anything left.

It’s very hard to discuss climate change in any short form but the eroding of these amazing sculptures called my attention back to the fact that of all the things going on today, this is arguably the most important – the damage we are causing to our planet and it’s ability to sustain all those who live here.

I had promised to write a series on what is happening in the wine world related to climate change and I haven’t written about that topic in a while but now that this is a daily wine blog, I should have the time and space to do that. More to come on this topic and wine but for today, just thinking about these amazing sculptures and hoping that solutions are found.