I tried clicking on the Writing Out of Time link and there was nothing there. So, I figured I'd try to post something, because I suppose something is better than nothing, esp. when it comes to climate mitigation, because nothing is the only other alternative.
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Writing Out of Time is suspending new posts for the foreseeable future. But the climate chaos continues at The Poem of Our Climate, a shiny new blog dedicated to chronicling it. Stop on by!
Mexican airman prepares solution of acetone & silver iodide to drop into clouds to make it rain. (Mexico News Daily) the gentleman from texas wants
to change the moon’s orbit or the earth’s orbit around the sun, to dodge those solar flares that cause climate change. this is where we are. meanwhile, lake mead, largest u.s. reservoir, drops to lowest level ever, decline will continue til nov., expert sez 150+ acres burn in arizona; even the firefighting vehicles start blazes, the vegetation’s so dry meanwhile, n. dakota farmers selling off their cattle herds: "look the weather is bad, our crops look terrible, lots of us have employees & families we support. historical drought. i'm stressed, you're stressed, but it will be okay. the sun will rise again, god will only give you what you can handle,” sez one on f.b. well, the sun will rise again, anyway, like it or not . . . meanwhile, mexican air force seeds the clouds, 85% of country in severe drought; worst drought in almost 100 yrs in brazil: "we're facing a 'dry season' that in reality is going to last 1 ½ - 2 years," sez the professor (burning up the rain- forest doesn’t help); inflation at 8.1% hydropower walloped, ag: “global inventories are shrinking; demand is on a tear as drought plagues farms from the u.s. & brazil to russia,” bloomberg sez. “china is scouring the globe for all the grains it can find to replenish stocks & feed its hog herd, the biggest in the world.” while 3 m afghan people “likely to be acutely affected” by drought, as 12 m (⅓ of pop.) facing “crisis” levels of “food insecurity”; "the sky has stopped raining on us, the earth has stopped growing grass for us, and eventually the government has also stopped helping us," abdul baqi, citizen, says, as citizens of lahore, pakistan told to stay indoors, out of 109 f heat (heat index 117) what do you do if home is uninhabitable? you go somewhere else in the novel gold fame citrus, people from s. california are barred from other states (turnabout fair play?), as they try to escape the permanent drought & sand dune sea; our heroes are trying to escape to lawrence, kansas . . . this is where we are. ------------------------------------------- Note: this will be the last regularly-scheduled post to Writing Out of Time. Poem of Our Climate will continue at a new location, to be revealed Monday (June 14). Tomorrow's post will be the last for Writing Out of Time. However, you will still be able to access & enjoy the fabulous guest posts (see list, to right), as well as my febrile rantings over the course of the past two years (see archive, above, right).
Starting Monday, June 14, the verse-chronicle of the climate catastrophe yclept "The Poem of Our Climate" will continue at a new address, to be announced soon. Stay tuned! Non-soothing clock in Glasgow. (Andrew Boyd via Euronews) “do not come. do not come,”
sez v.p. harris to potential migrants. easy for her to say -- she has a plane on the runway “what she failed to mention,” sez grist, “was 2020’s biggest driver of migration: severe weather, which makes the ‘do not come’ instruction nearly impossible to follow. nearly 600k people from honduras, guatemala, nicaragua were dis- placed last yr due to hurricanes eta & iota” but it’s not just u.s.: no country offers asylum to climate refugees . . . world bank sees 143 m by 2050 & here’s something new: “climate clocks.” there’s the “seconds to midnight” nuclear war clock, now there’s the “time left to save the world” clock: yrs. to reach paris goals (under 7), & how much renewable energy so far (12%); they’re in ny, ghana, nigeria, & glasgow (lead-up to copout26); & euronews’ question is: “can ticking clocks soothe climate anxiety?” — that’s the policy goal now: keep calm but carry on w/what you’re doing collective action? yes! -- group therapy meanwhile: worst drought in utah since the middle ages; & drought across the wheat belt: plains states, prairie provinces, russia; prices rising as chances of rain decrease; right-wing u.s. militias gear up to fight for water . . . 139k acres burned in arizona, 0% contained, w/“that fierce, intimidating bright orange glow” after dark 114 f in sonora, mexico: problemas de deshidratación; “we’re selling a lot of water,” sez the businessman; more drought in brazil = less hyrdo- power = power plants switch to coal = more co2 = hotter temps = more drought in brazil & hot in middle east, even by middle-eastern standards: 120+ iran, oman, kuwait, u.a.e.: “harshest heat wave in history for this time of year,” one that “can melt crayons, soften asphalt, warp railroad tracks” -- picture of worker dumping big blocks of ice into a swimming pool -- heat indices of 140+ on persian gulf r we uninhabitable yet? or time to reset our clocks, maybe? whatever the answer, remember, do not come here. by the time you get here, we may have left Utah Gov. Spencer J. Cox unveils his plan to combat global heating. (@GovCox on Twitter) here’s the latest:
biden admin defends trump admin decision to let conocophillips drill in alaska’s north slope — but here’s the kicker: they’re going to have to re-freeze the permafrost — inserting “chillers” into the ground so it doesn’t turn to mush & swallow their rigs while they’re trying to drill for oil “chillers & drillers” not so chilly in miami: it’s been evacuated. miami, arizona, that is; 140 acres burned this weekend; “exceptional drought” no longer the exception, out west; lake mead at ⅓ capacity; "we're at a tipping point," sez the nevada water man. "it's an existential issue for arizona, for california, for nevada. it is just that simple.” or pray for rain, as utah’s gov. requests of citizens: “by praying collaboratively and collectively, asking god or what- ever higher power you believe in for more rain, we may be able to escape the deadliest aspects of the continuing drought.” at least somebody’s taking collective action! meanwhile, co2 at record levels (420 ppm), maugre pandemics & promises current & future (e.g. cop(out)26) is this what psychologists call “diffusion of responsibility”? no animal products before dinner, sez jonathan saffron foer. i’ll let him tell it to the folks in garden city, ks, where they take the injunction seriously to "fill the earth and subdue it. & rule over the fish in the sea & the birds in the sky and over every living creature that moves on the ground.” especially steers. we’re sure not subduing the uptick in ticks: “they’re having a good year,” sez the bug expert -- warming temps = longer feeding season + larger range -- &, w/them, lyme (among the other many tickborne diseases of the u.s.) meanwhile, ice breaks up or melts in arctic, greenland, antarctic, himalayas & all the glaciated spaces, it seems (more on that as we see more effects on human life over long hot summers fill the earth global heating kills 100k humans
every year, “a new study suggests” (that’s just heat stroke, mind you) have to find a new narrative -- maybe a new planet — first . . . heat wave freq. now 3x > 1960s “in turn, americans are blasting air conditioners, which has doubled summer energy use, adding more greenhouse gases . . .” human brain not wired for in- visible disasters, far away, w/ no clear perp doing perp walk “record flooding in brazil’s amazon” (while other parts burn) “half a million displaced” (as covid kills 1000s brazilians daily -- this is u tomorrow, u.s.a.) “measured against the risks, the world’s climate mitigation efforts are a joke. the unspoken sub- text of this year’s cop26 conference is clear to the young: that we, the suit-wearing, s.u.v.-driving generation, will do our best w/in the limits of what big business can tolerate & what elderly voters will accept. we’re prepared to fail because we won’t be around to live with the consequences.” (paul mason in guardian) “heat shocks” zap bangladesh rice crop in n.e., just after the south got whapped by cyclone -- 20% ↓ in production feared, in country w/ 1 in 4 “food insecure”; “my dream crop is finished,” shafiqul islam talukder laments; "i can't think of how to support the family for a whole year. i invested my savings and planted 12 acres of high-yielding rice. now it's all over.” (& food prices highest in 10 yrs) we’ve got to propagate a happier story: that climate chaos = better paying jobs, or that what you’re willing to do is all that needs to be done, or what you will temp records smashed: british columbia, fresno, calif., hong kong, n. finland; & seems like it’s raining (& flooding) all over the world: philippines (tropical storm), chile, guyana, s.e. texas, coastal louisiana we’ve got to tell a convincing, exciting, emotional tale, full of drama, hearbreak, inspiration, vivid characters; one that galvanizes folks to believe what they don’t want to believe & feel like they have to do something, now, that they don’t want to do anybody got ideas?* * (totally serious -- leave a comment!) No boat? No prob! (Free Malaysia Today) it’s not about delhi’s coolest june day;
or the flooded fields in the sundarbans; or the waist-deep water in dhaka; or 3 mo. of rain in 3 days in new zealand; or the record flooding in amazonian brazil; or all the local records & disasters today. today, it’s about abdul malik abdul ghani. he’s 33 yrs of age; he lives in kampung melati, beaufort dist., one of the most flood-prone parts of sabah state, malaysia. he does not own a boat. but it floods so much, he’s strung a rope from a stilt under his house, 50 m. to his neighbor’s house on higher ground (what used to be called “mutual aid”); so every time it floods, he & the fam just grab the rope (or swim or flounder around until they feel it, underwater). he doesn’t own a boat. the rope “is for us to hold onto so we don’t get swept away while wading through the floodwaters” 6k residents of the area evac’d last wk, escaping the rising rivers (those not afraid of catching covid), but not malik — he just reached for his rope! now, i’m not saying the worsening floods are due to climate “change” — just sayin it’s a mighty nice thing to have a rope. w/ somebody on the other end. (see freemalaysiatoday.com May 30 for the full story) No, not Kansas -- Mongolia, this time. (KFUV-FM) 10 degrees < avg.
2x the normal rain some of maple tree’s leaves show drippy white slime; another’s, lurid nodules; feels like 2019 (was that el niño? or la niña? hard to keep track, what with all this funny weather); basil plants already dead; many trees look dead or dying; emerald ash borers walk w/us along the woodland trail meanwhile: metro manila ties its record highest temp (101.5 f) 23 wildfires in w. siberia; 15 of those start over 24 hrs. c. asia hits the 110s f; massive dustorms in s. mongolia -- no snow, then no rain -- ask batsaikhan enkheethe, shepherd buried in sand as he hunkered down: “it was dark, like the night. i thought i would die.” his brother dug him out the next day; his sheep were not so lucky: lost 200; 9 sheherds also killed, as dust cloud made its way down to beijing meanwhile, drought deepens in brazil -- worst in 90 yrs: crop failures, energy shortages, risk of fires in amazon lake oroville in california < ½ normal level (drinking water fro 25,000,000 humans) but after the drought, the deluge it’s getting to where, if i hear about 100s of people evac’d in a country of the global north, it doesn’t really register -- not w/a million + evac’d in e. india for a single storm: & 237k acres swamped by cyclone yaas; meanwhile, at least one weather record in delhi has fallen in each of the last 10 months (rain, heat, cold) . . . & after the deluge, e. australian farmers face a plague of mice, who’ve “ravaged crops, gnawed through farming equip., caused power blackouts & invaded supermarkets” with all that, what’s a little fungus, what’s a few fewer trees? What do you do when it's too hot to live where you are? You go north. (via Mexico News Daily) spinning straw into gold?
or treading water? who knows why i write down all these things, other than i fell like somebody has to (make that “feel” like — typo, sorry) like the findings published in nature communications this week: “we find that the average person of color lives in a census tract w/ higher surface urban heat island intensity than non-hispanic whites in all but 6 of the 175 largest ur- banized areas in the continental u.s.; a similar pattern emerges for people living in households below the poverty line relative to those at more than 2x the poverty line.” meaning: if you’re black, brown, or poor, global heating boils you alive -- true worldwide, not just here . . . for people in chihuahua state, mx, that means higher food costs: 90% crop loss — no water for irrigation; 25 of 31 states in drought; 16 of them w/drought “in all municipalities”; all reservoirs < 50%, some < 20 “many people come here, from guerrero, oaxaca and michoacán to work in the fields. now there are no jobs,” sez the lawmaker; meanwhile, our v. pres. visits central america, trying to persuade people to stay put to face the gangs and the drought (but don’t come up here!); mean- while, 1500 guatemalans evac’d from e. coast (floods) — this as they still recover from double hurricanes meanwhile, chevron, exxon busted by share- holders; shell, by dutch courts; maybe maybe maybe . . . still, people in interior odisha hunker down under 15” of rain from cyclone yaas; in w. bengal, 50k humans w/o housing; 1100 villages inundated; “roads turned into rivers, cars toppled & half-submerged, people wade through knee-high water, huts and small houses lie crumpled in piles of debris,” & who doesn’t know the rest . . . ? meanwhile, yaas sucked moisture out of the s.e. coast of india, where temps now push 108 (f) california wildfires already burned 5x more land than late last may; siberian wildfire season up & running (“siberian wildfire season”?!) & americans seek treatment for eco- anxiety & climate depression (we always seek relief from & for our indivdual problems); indians seek treatment for covid (some in hurricane shelters) action the best medicine: vote yr proxy; badger yr city council; prep w/neighbors; get naked & glue yrself to hedge fund hq.’s; or just write a fucking email to the white house: whatever it is, i guarantee you’ll feel better; but whatever you do, you must be aware of what is |
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June 2021
Kristin Prevallet Author/Editor
I'm a writer & teacher in Lawrence, Kansas who actually believes the scientists. I wrote a book of poems called Of Some Sky that seems to have something to do with all this. |