happy kansas day!
160 yrs ago today, u.s.
admitted ks. as a new state --
they needed all the states they
could get, since they were losing
some, at the time . . .

but: present day: let’s go to press:

25,000 acres scorched
in patagonia, 18k humans evac’d;

same number displaced
in mozambique after cyclone eloise;
250,000 affected; city of beira
re-destroyed (3rd cyclone in 2 yrs)

& remember the siberian wildfires
from last summer? guess what.
they’re still burning.
zombie fires: the peat keeps
smoldering, smoke rising
through the snow in jan.,
in -58 f temps

but some good news for russia:
gas tanker ships can now sail
the arctic ocean in january!
not much sea ice any more (arctic
ocean “a whole new ocean,” not
just a big ice sheet anymore)

& no ice in gulf of st. lawrence --
the titanic would’ve had
smooth sailing today;
highest sea-surface temps ever

(we’re like the guys who
were on the stern, as it hove up
in the air towards perpendicular:
we’re not dead yet!)

while here in the wheat belt,
“soil moisture shortage
above average” — always swell
when ks. is above average
in anything — “signs of damage
to the 2021/22 crop”;
as we say in kansas,
ad astra per aspera, and
we gotta lotta aspera

meanwhile

in syria, refugee camps
flooded again, roads cut off,
67,600 desperate humans affected;
landslides in indonesia;

while back in the states,
it rains & rains on c. california coast,
leaves 400k w/o power,
washes out burn-scarred gullies,
causes debris flows; what are they?
"a debris flow is kind of a flood
on steroids,” sez the debris-flow
expert

so, not surprisingly,
“roughly 35 million homes, or nearly
a third of the nation’s housing stock,
are at ‘high risk’ of a natural disaster,
per a new study by corelogic.”

(“not mine,” i hear myself think)

“properties at highest risk: california,
e. and gulf coasts, texas, oklahoma,
nebraska, & kansas” --
wait — what? where? . . .

Abu Dhabi, enhancing T.F. out of rain.   (Gulf News)

running on fumes? how bout you?
(boy, there’s a carbon-based
metaphor for ya!)

meanwhile

i see some archaeologists
found some prehistoric scraps of food
that prove n. australia is the driest
it’s been in 65,000 yrs --
not b/c there’s less rain now but
more heat, so more evaporation

pretty dry on arabian gulf, too:
they’re in their longest meteorological
drought ever: 21 yrs & counting
“warming over the seas,
a rise in maximum temperatures,
precipitation drying. also an increase
in number of cat 4 & 5 cyclones”;
u.a.e. invests in “rain
enhancement technologies”
(e.g., “cloud seeding” — careful, tho:
plenty of places in the middle east
got deluged this year, too . . .

speaking of wch, remember phoenix’
record summer heat? mon. aft. tied
for coldest ever. it even snowed . . .

snowed, too, in lincoln, nebraska:
13” in 1 day, a jan. record;
"gives you kind of a man
versus nature feel,” sez the announcer

meanwhile, 70% of madrid trees broken
under snow; & an

ef 3 tornado in alabama;
& sydney’s hottest australia day
in 60 yrs & . . .
                                     & none of this adds
up to anything; take it
for what it’s worth & monitor
your own responses --
the powers that be are clear:
the non-rich are on their own

it’s playing hell with the lions
& the lions are on their own

it’s playing hell with the bees
& the bees are on their own

it’s playing hell with gray whales
& the whales are on their own

it’s playing hell with the forests
& the forests are on their own

it’s playing hell with england’s
flood defenses — 3400 deemed
“almost useless” (and britain
voted to be on its own)

it’s playing hell w/the ice sheets:
i.p.c.c. worst-case already,
sez the scientific report

& our local electric co. sells us
wind energy (kansas the
“saudi arabia of wind,” blah blah),
even as it makes no move
to phase out coal

hard to see how this battleship
can turn around in this bathtub, esp.
w/the water level dropping

so
why do people act like
there’s no emergency?
“we’ll cross that bridge when . . .
“there are more immediate . . .
“it’s not happening here . . .
“i can’t think about that . . .
“just live in the present . . .
“part of god’s plan . . .
“cost prohibitive . . .

what is to be done i ask
my friend the eco-poet & they
say, “just try to be kind
to each other” — wch is in
our control but amounts
maybe to the same thing

someone once said if you want
to hide something, put it in a
poem.
                    maybe
that will eliminate it, too --
a kind of un-sympathetic magic . . .
if i can just pour all the climate chaos
into a verse, i’ll kill it

worth a try . . .

1990: 81% of world’s energy
came from fossil fuels;
2020: 80% of world’s energy
came from fossil fuels
(drop b/c of pandemic);
renewables offset by increasing
demand in india, china, et al.
amitav ghosh was right: asia
will decide the fate of the world
(prob. not in a poem) --
hopefully rather soon

let’s sequester all our carbon
in the poem; bury all your
apocalyptic thinking, too;
“the world is going to end
in 12 years if we don’t address
climate change,” sez a.o.c., well,
now it’s in the poem, safely encased,
like chicken little’s tomb

(thought: what if the people bypassed
the politicians & directly went after
the corporations that hired them? . . .
desperate times . . .)

i guess i shd talk abt
cyclone eloise,
what it’s doing to mozambique:
“at least” nine humans dead,
7,000 displaced,
1,000 homes destroyed,
4,800 totalled,
300k acres of crops ruined

i shd talk about
cotton growing farther north
in kansas (!), armadillos marching
farther up in missouri, all those
percentages

i shd mention how
"there isn't a community in coastal america
where we are not seeing some transition away
from the coast and moving to higher ground,”
as the architecture researcher sez;
“risk from flood shaping property values,” etc.
that is if you can afford to move --
or if you can’t afford not to, like
the 2019 “caravan” of humans, marching
from dried out farms south of the border
to here

ok — it’s a start, right? our goal?
full poetic containment
of the climate crisis by 2035.
mmm, come to think of it, make that
2050. or maybe 2075? well,
some time before it’s too late,
anyhow

here’s how it works:
less rain falls from the sky, so
more water pumped from the ground, so
aquifer levels drop, so
land on top of them sinks, so
land gets flooded when it does rain,
which isn’t often, so
it all runs off, so
repeat

“subsidence,”
it’s called
(it’s more complicated than that,
but that’s the net-net): it’s happening:
jakarta, méxico, lagos, w. kansas

meanwhile

remember what happened last year
in mozambique? no, of course not. sorry.
it got hit by two hurricanes in a row
(like c. america, gulf coast, s. pacific), &
one (idai) killed 1,000 human be-
ings. well, now another one’s hit (cat 2),
same city (beira); 3k evac’d; 1 m in path

even as

s. borneo and n. sulawesi in indonesia still
getting washed away: “torrential floods
sink houses — watch now”; govt. sez
deforestation by mines & palm oil farms
have nothing to do with it, ok?

heat waves in taiwan, victoria, patagonia,
canadian far north; plus
less ice on n. america’s great lakes
than ever (only 3.9% coverage)

they’re growing oranges, bananas,
figs & grapes in s. england now
“daffodils start flowering before xmas”;
meanwhile, more stormwater for
manchester, liverpool, northern wales
(the water makes the roots rot btw);
river derwent “like an ocean”;
2,000 “properties” evac’d

(this is all happening fast, isn’t it?)

while here in n.e. kansas, u.s.a.,
we have warmer winters but not
warmer summers (sez science) --
which means it might be a pretty
good place to be — esp. if yr home
on the coast gets flooded or yr
crops burn up; we should prepare
for lots of company

. . . and a Green New Deal short. But stay tuned for a new stave of Poem of Our Climate tomorrow, Sat. 1/23, with all the latest X-treme weather news in verse!

The icy Sahara, 1/13/21.   Karim Bouchetata/Bav Media (via NY Post)

inauguration day in the u.s.a. --
every four years like clockwork, like
leap year
                       tho usually
not inside a fortified green zone
w/25k troops on hand --

the new president has a plan
(kinda sorta) to deal w/climate chaos,
& he has two good years to do it
before the other side is voted in.

meanwhile
 
in s. borneo, worst floods in 50 yrs;
63k humans displaced, 21 dead,
45k acres of food wiped out;
32 dead on java — landslides
(on top of an earthquake);
dozens missing; rescuers using smell
to find the victims. paper quotes
the president, not the survivors.

houses submerged in filipino villages;
another 100-yr storm in queensland;
a bolivian village w/water to the eaves;
“floods wash away cars
in gweru, zimbabwe” (and elsewhere);
more floods in n. of england (yorkshire)

& remember all the locusts in africa?
they’re back in botswana & namibia:
“heavy rains create conducive conditions”

& remember the abnormal heat & fires
in siberia? now they’re having abnormal
cold: -73 f in one town; “snow also
blanketed parts of saudi arabia,
which saw the mercury hit 28 f”;
below freezing in sahara, too

& the santa ana winds knock over semis
in so cal; 270k w/o power; multiple
fires (favorite name: the “freedom fire”)

& the 7 hottest years on earth have been
the last 7 years

& the oceans absorbed
20 sextillion joules of heat
in 2020, “equal to the energy from
10 hiroshima atomic bombs
being released every second
of the year” (man, that’s hot!) sez
u.s. ctr for atmospheric research dude

any wonder people prefer
a shadowy, far-reaching conspiracy
by other people
to all this mayhem?

o, your powerful presidency;
o, your pathetic poems.

good luck, joe.

sing, o goddess, of roaring fires,
dense and devouring, of gulping floods
that dragged down mortals or covered them
under thundering, sliding earth.
                                                                              which lands
suffered the punishing blows?

s. california, for one,
where gusts from the dry east
came sweeping down the plains to the sea,
& though it be winter, it feels like summer
there, lush green turned to sere paleness,
where any foolish spark now turns
towns & forests into ash
throughout all seasons of the year

while on the plains, look —  
tall grass sifting in nebraska winds
now crackles in the fires, driving men
before it, their water blown away
before it reached the blaze

and flames licked at the walls of perth,
homes burned, roads closed,
power ceased; so, too,
the skies of valparaiso flashed
a lurid orange, washed with smoke,
as thousands fled

deluge, too, rolled forth,
pouring foul filth into balkan waters;
singaporians watched as rains
rolled on, two feet in two weeks;
unceasing rains in philipines
caused a host of families to go
in search of higher, drier ground

the sinister hand of famine shadowed
the fertile land of ukraine:
summer & autumn brought drought,
breaking open earth and blighting grain
in first frosts. now boreas blows
a mighty draft of arctic air, sweeping
across the flatlands, heading
to kill the wheat

and say, o muse,
what records were smashed . . .

hottest year on record (by far)
was russia’s 2020;
hottest jan. day
      in turkey
      in georgia
      in russia;
wettest jan. ever in tamil nadu, india;
most days over 15 f in
frigid buffalo, n.y.

and tell us, o goddess,
which of the immortals visited
these scourges upon the human race?

goddess? . . . o muse? . . .

hellooo . . . ??

Ávila, Spain, Tuesday (that sign says 10 degrees, in American). Raúl Sanchidrián/EFE via El País.

beware the ides of
january . . . maybe . . .

do people turn violent & irrational
b/c deep down they know
the earth is going haywire?
& they don’t want to admit it?

take the “forever drought” (pls):
great swaths of the w. u.s. burned;
even bigger swaths cracking
& crinkling in “exceptional drought”
after 20 yrs of little precip;
a “non-soon” 2020 + la niña 2021 =
bad-news spring & summer . . .
battles over water might get
literal; & if you want to deny
it’s even happening, you might
blame it on something else,
blame it on someone else

in any case,
“temperatures are not going back
to what they used to be,” sez
the climate scientist; the water
“scarcity problem is not going away”

& folks in turkey are nodding,
saying, “mm-hm, i know that’s right”:
86 f at night (hotter than a mid-
summer’s night); istambul w/45
days of water left --
even as it’s flooding farther south

(this is all happening pretty
quickly, as it turns out)

↓ water =
↓ food =
↑ food prices =
↑ poverty =
↑ migration to cities =
↑ demand for water

(& it works the same for too much water)

in s. madagascar, 1.3 m humans
need food assistance; rainy season
didn’t rain (only 1 day in dec.); when it did,
t’storms blasted crops; + no jobs
due to covid; 75% of kids foraging:
“cactus mixed with mud, roots, what-
ever they can find,
leaves, seeds, whatever is available.”

meanwhile,
in snowbound madrid, covid patients
get rides to hospital in 4-wheel-drives
of volunteers; in cañada real,
“europe’s largest shanty town” (pop 8.5k),
7 mi. from downtown madrid, no water
(pipes frozen), no electricity
(power co. shut off, citing theft);
“we’re seeing children with chilblains
b/c their hands have been destroyed
by the cold, and respiratory infections,”
sez the doctor; the authorities
“can sleep in my house and suffer &
live what we’re living,” sez the resident;
“maybe then they’d do something.”

u.a.e. has its coldest jan. ever;
record-breaking cold in hong kong;
malta has warmest jan. day ever;
record rain in n. australia
(in the 100s on the e. & w. coasts);
record rain in 2020 for lancashire;
& here’s an abstruse stat:
highest december lows in athens
since 1860 — meaning, it isn’t
cooling down at night;
it’s the hi-lo’s that get you

& the oceans: 2020 marked
the hottest temps ever
(hence the cyclones); & the arctic:
not many temp gauges up there --
if there were, 2020 might well
have won the prize

surely the second coming is at hand --
or at least some equally
simple answer: like a minority
to blame that’s not the untouchable
1%, who really are to blame;
or an angrier sun, chinese hoaxes,
satan-worshipping pedophiles
(they’d be easy to blame). suffice to say
there are plenty of highs & lows left
to come in the overheated
human brain

you don’t hear
the word “ghastly” much
anymore, but it’s how the future
is described by 17 climate experts
in a new report that speaks of “de-
clining health & climate-
disruption upheavals” producing
“steady erosion of
the fabric of
human civilisation.”

whatevs.
tell me another one,
chicken little . . .   

well, you needn’t look
to the future: even now,

16k families / 81k humans
evac’d: rising waters & “non-stop rain”
on visayas philipines last weekend;
62k evac’d in s. thailand, same cause;
11 dead in w. java landslides
record rainfall in chennai & tamil nadu,
which was 42% short on rain for jan.
until mon./tues. — now at + 2000%;

“icy flash flood destroys
vehicles in santa rosa, la pampa,
argentina - watch now!”; while t’storms,
hi winds, flash floods in mecca
(yeah, that mecca — in the desert)

seattle got 75% of avg. jan. rain
in 1st 10 days; multiple landslides,
600k w/o power in oregon & wash. in
wake of massive rains

seems like it’s rainin'
all over the world . . .

madrid still in record cold;
-13 f in c. spain; 7 humans dead +
4k living in shantytown
w/o electricity given emerg shelter

meanwhile . . .
istambul on the brink
of depleting its water reserves:
reservoirs at 19%,
rain 50% < oct-jan avg;
now they’re talking cloud seeding
(remember cloud seeding?); while
athens bakes in hottest
jan. in 160 yrs.

pollution is down in w. u.s. (yay!)
but wildfire smoke is up (boo), &
people will die of lung cancer more
slowly than they die of fire, just as
“most people do not see
sea-level rise. most people do not
ever see hurricanes. but
many, many people
will see wildfire smoke
from climate change,” sez the
earth system scientist

they say all this and
say all this and repeat it and re-
peat & nobody is
aghast — even as
we’re being a-ghosted
even as
we speak

well, we didn’t win the prize . . .

we thot 2020 was the worst ever,
but it’s only tied for worst
(worst hottest, that is) w/2016. but . . .
there’s always next year!

& europe gets the award for
hands-down continent
w/hottest-ever weather . . .

but it got me to thinking:
we used to get ~ 20” snow/yr, &
now it’s like 13. well,

madrid got 20” friday night;
1500 humans stranded in vehicles;
transport halted over “large
swath” of spain; 4 dead; natural
gas prices soar

god gave moses the rainbow sign,
“no more water, the fire next time . . .
aaaaand maybe some water, too”:

as madrid got snowed on,
costa del sol got rained on
(⅕ of yearly rain in just 1 nite),
water on the floor & darkness
all around: “it just wouldn’t stop.
it was frightening.”

malaysia monsoon death toll rose
to 10; 45k human evac’d last wk.;
now only 32k still w/o homes;

“unprecedented” rainfall washes
over karnataka;

11 dead in w. java, as land-
slide ripped village a-
part after
heavy rains;

balkans swamped:
tons of garbages washed
into lake in serbia; homes,
fields underwater; land & sea
transport checked; isolated
villages sans water in albania;
& in fushe, kosovo, 60-yr-old
muj zabeli sez: “no one
is interested. you may suffer
a loss here & no one wd care”;

hospital parking lot in naples
swallowed by sinkhole; landslide
buried tracks in umbria, wch
didn’t stop train from running
into it;

“mad floods” in casablanca, playing
the usual hell w/everything;

biggest floods since 1990s for
namibia; 3rd largest reservoir at
118% capacity, water releases
released on cornfields downstream;

4 human beings washed away for-
ever while crossing flooded river or
trying to;

meanwhile:
½ of u.s. dried out — from “exceptional”
to “moderate” drought, incl. location of
your present chronicler, wch is
8.4” < normal, i.e., 40% since august)

there are too many numbers. this
is our problem, we’ve had
too many numbers, when we need
more pictures, we need stories,
we need
more voices, we need
more time