Writing helps us make sense of the world, even when sense-making seems so out of reach. But if there’s anything we’ve learned from people in history, from Ida B. Wells to W.E.B. Du Bois to James Baldwin, it’s that writing matters. If there’s anything we’ve learned from the scientists, doctors, and journalists who are amplifying stories about COVID-19 in newspapers and Twitter, it’s that writing matters. Even if the words we put on paper are never seen by another person, even if it’s just to usher us to a place of understanding we don’t yet have, writing matters.
- Anthony Ocampo and Kerry Ann Rockquemore, National Center for Faculty Development & Diversity I like this quote. In it, the authors don’t shy away from the issue of the social role of the writer. Clearly, they are privileging what we might call public-facing writing: the informative articles and tweets of scientists, doctors, and journalists; the rhetorical essays of Wells, DuBois, and Baldwin.* We should all be as talented, smart, and brave as those three! But, making allowances for the rest of us, I get what they’re saying. Not only that writing matters, but that writing referentially about matters of historical and contemporary social concern for a general audience matters most. And I can’t argue with that. Context matters, too, of course. Ocampo and Rockquemore were writing after a week of outrage over George Floyd’s death. And it took that gruesome killing to galvanize people’s interest and energy around police violence; and it took protests and uprisings to get the powers that be to take police reform seriously (if they have). It took an actual pandemic to get people to take seriously the predictions that epidemiologists had been making for years of a global pandemic. One hopes that people continue to be alert, upset and engaged about these topics, particularly white people, rather than letting them fade from consciousness (“O yes, police brutality and pandemics — I remember: those were really big in 2020. We really ought to do something about those. Sigh.”). This is the challenge for climate activists, too, and writers not least: how to keep people’s attention on a long-term, systemic problem in the era of 24/7 news crawls. Without the kind of public attention generated by marches in the streets and economic disruption, climate change would not have made the headlines in 2019. And now, people are in the streets to protest police violence, so that’s what’s grabbing the lead. Writing about climate change sinks to the bottom of the feed or the deep inside page of the newspaper — for now. How to articulate the importance of fighting both — and the relations between the two, and between them and the pandemic? There are journalists and op-ed writers who are trying to do so. But it’s the sense-making function of writing — even, one might infer, in poems, plays, and fiction — that Ocampo and Rockquemore begin and end with. Writing is valuable even if it is “never seen by another person,” if it provides the author with some kind of understanding. Or, as they say in a subsequent message, joy. Or writing can help the writer “to connect with other people.” In other words, writing is its own excuse for being. They offer “three takeaways”: “Expand your Understanding of What Counts as Writing”; “Be Versatile With Your Writing”; and try writing by hand occasionally, rather than with a computer. I heartily endorse all three ideas. We’ve got to mix it up if we’re going to be equal to these mixed-up times. And with a problem as global, complex, and seemingly intractable as climate chaos, each of us has to start by figuring out what to make of it all and what, if anything, we will do about it. __________________________________________ * Each of these authors wrote in other genres, of course, but are perhaps best known for their essays and articles; and those are surely what Ocampo and Rockquemore have in mind by mentioning their authors in this context.
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xmas in july, here we observe july in june . . . 7 or so degrees f > normal (“normal”!) speaking of which: d.n.c. tries to squelch its council on climate change wch wld spend > 9x > biden does to get america out of the carbon economy, fast speaking of which: carbon dioxide emissions ramp up now that we’re “unlocking” (well duh) meanwhile, a pretty slow climate disaster news day, except in places it’s not: e.g., 6” rain in 1 hr. in guizhou 30 sq. mi. of grand canyon n. slope burns & pima co. sheriff sez: “those people that are not heeding the evacuation order need to understand that if you stay there, we may not be able to come back and rescue you.” & n. of the border, different woes: “i’ve been in calgary 40 years, this is the first time i've seen a storm like this. [inundations + tennis- ball-size hail]. i’ve never experienced this before.” nobody has — ever meanwhile, the non-new non-news: the locusts still swarm in s. asia & e. africa, a patchwork of deluge and drought, where hunger creeps wider & deeper; siberian forests burn (worst air anywhere); 100s of 1000s of people still recovering, displaced b/c of cyclones & hurricanes from yrs ago; or smoke-scarred hacking lungs from last yr’s fires; droughts still droughting, slow burn will keep on happening whether things open up or calm down or not “can a green economy
make me rich?” “we have to implement a green economic recovery” “how a green economy could solve the post-coronavirus unemployment problem” (will a “green” economy still be a capitalist economy? will it still depend upon the in- visible hand & good faith of koch bros., jeff bezos, + the s&p 500?) who knows — we’ll see maybe meanwhile: jacket weather in asturias; but pushing 90 f in arctic circle; perth enjoys warmest early winter while adelaide shivers in frost (cue “the world turned upside down”) 230k people “relocated” by mudslides in s. china; 110 rivers overflowing (“terrifying moment a 3-storey bldg. gets washed away by raging floodwaters as torrential rain batters china -- watch the full video”) > 23,500 acres burned in iran inside of two weeks: no money to put them out iran is a long ways away; the glaciers seem so far away; rainforests, far far away; 2050 is a long ways off . . . but what ya gonna do when they come for you? -- already 3 named tropical storms this season (most ever this early); one almost made it to milwaukee . . . + coronavirus + black & brown people always getting the shit-end of the environmental stick & the police batons & pandemics o invisible hand we beseech thee . . . whose arm attached to the hand? whose body to the arm? no prayer heard faster than people in the streets fucking up capital(s) -- something to keep in mind as the disaster drifts More recent iterations of the fascist-takeover genre have a global-heating backdrop and a theocratic spin. Octavia Butler followed up her popular Parable of the Sower (1993) with Parable of the Talents (1998). The novel is set in 2024 (!); the young heroine, Lauren, whose neighborhood, a walled enclave in a chaotic, ugly, bone-dry southern California, was destroyed, has headed north with companions, and seems to have found a refuge or at least respite. That is, until “Christian America” uses the chaos as an opportunity to take over; it begins a campaign to extirpate other religions and re-institute slavery. It’s interesting that post-Reagan dystopias in North American novels often feature fundamentalist regimes (The Handmaid’s Tale is perhaps the best-known). In The Fifth Sacred Thing (1993), by Starhawk, ecological deterioration has prompted a splitting-up of California into two states: the north, an ecotopian pagan community; the south, a fundamentalist dystopia. In Louise Erdrich’s recent Future Home of the Living God (2017), the melting permafrost seems to have released some kind of devolutionary force — there are saber-toothed tigers around, for instance. More importantly, there are fewer human babies being born, and those that are seem to have radically different anatomy to what we’re used to. Slowly but surely, a mysterious group begins replacing the street names with Bible verses and requiring mandatory neighborhood meetings. Then they become rather more aggressive, rounding up pregnant women. But, as in The Fifth Sacred Thing and Capital City, it seems to be a regional phenomenon — the theo-fascists are reportedly at war with other groups in other areas.
What none of these books envision is a United States government that never loses control and doesn’t change its basic ideology but just becomes increasingly repressive and militarized. If you don’t think that can happen — if you don’t think it has happened here — talk to people of color in the U.S. And it’s not clear that the military will refuse to follow illegal orders, any more than the police have. It is perhaps no coincidence that the most authoritarian-minded regime in the last 100 years of American history is also the most hell-bent on increasing greenhouse-gas emissions. Global heating is creating chaos, and the people making it happen are all too ready to use violence to repress and discipline the victims. Let’s be clear: they’re doing this to make money, not to create social turmoil intentionally (that part's simply the cost of doing business). And Trump is no Hitler. He’s just as cruel and egomaniacal; but Hitler was disciplined, goal-oriented, and he had an agenda (published it in a book, in fact). Trump just wants boffo ratings. Nonetheless, the recent use of military power to quell civil protest — to “dominate the streets” — has some of us concerned that the imposition of an authoritarian militarist state might be beginning in earnest. This time, protests of a police killing are the excuse. But climate chaos could become a giant, never-ending Reichstag fire. Let’s just hope we can keep such a thing in the realm of fiction. still a good 10˚ f > norm
in these parts, which see considerable variation: record hi for today 100 (1934) record lo for today 49 (1988); record hi for june 109 (1936) record lo for june 36 (1888): it’ll take a long time for “climate change” to be noticed in kansas, where the weather always changes. a lot. fast. just more so in future, b/c the future is not what it used to be changes fast in utah, too: “in the last week, utah experienced golfball-sized hail, 75-mile-per-hour wind gusts, earliest 100-degree day on record in salt lake city & now june snow in the mountains” + “exceedingly rare” derecho slams n. rockies: trees roots-up & power lines down along 750 mi line; 100 mph winds in denver: “i think it’s fair to say we’ve never had such a wide- spread damaging thunderstorm wind event in colorado,” sez the climatologist while cristóbal hammers gulf coast: 5 ft storm surge in mississippi; nola flooded again; orlando tornado . . . (will we get any rain out of all this?? that’s where my mind goes . . . ) but one hopeful sign: a bill in congress to prevent president from using nukes to try to stop hurricanes (hey, he was just asking -- trying to get the facts before making a considered decision, ok?) ok: here’s some facts: 1st good news: co2 emissions ↓ 17% in april. (huzzah!) bad news: co2 levels highest ever in may: 417.1 at mauna loa (up 2.4 from last year): that stuff sticks around a loooooong time rise in co2 levels “relentless,” sez the enviro scientist flooding in ghana and hunan droughting in ireland and wales heatwave all over the mediterranean & that oil spill in siberia? 150k barrels-worth of diesel? that turned a river red? caused by damage from thawing permafrost: “when permafrost thaws, the ice deep in the ground that's been there for thousands of years melts, and you lose stability. that has an impact on in- frastructure,” like fuel impoundment reseroirs, sez the permafrost expert. & poor siberia! this spring brought record highs, wildfires, snow-blocked roads, tornados, now this . . . the motto on the currency of the Republic of Climatastrophe: Plus la Change, Plus la Change I am teaching a course this coming semester called “The American Fascist Takeover Novel.” That is, I’ll be teaching it provided that there hasn’t been an actual fascist takeover in America by then. (And provided my institution is still open.) As an astute young Sunrise activist commented to a reporter, during their sit-down protests in Congressional offices on Capitol Hill, the only thing worse than climate change is climate change + fascism. And climate chaos would serve as a dandy excuse for authoritarians to impose order -- sort of an ever-burning Reichstag fire.
The American Fascist Takeover Novel is a legit subgenre. This fact is not surprising, given the cultural and historical context. The American colonists rebelled against a government that was turning increasingly autocratic (and about whom they harbored paranoid suspicions). The debate on the Constitution was shadowed by the fear of a new autocracy. The “founders” had a keen awareness of Roman history, and knew it was easier to turn a republic into an autocracy than an autocracy (back) into a republic. U.S. writers have always fretted that an authoritarian would seize power — right back to the Federalist and Anti-Federalist papers, then on through Tocqueville, into the twentieth century, and up to the present. By the late nineteenth century, it seemed apparent that the United States had not reverted to autocracy — it had become an oligarchy instead. That is the name Jack London gives to the ruling elite in his not-so-very-far-in-the-future speculative novel The Iron Heel (1908). Trotsky supposedly said it predicted the coming of fascism. Be that as it may, the book does present us with a quasi-feudal surveillance police state, in which the working class has been reduced to serfs, despite the best efforts of an heroic band of socialist organizers. The introduction and “footnotes” are added by a fictional historian hundreds of years in the future, after the Brotherhood of Man has been achieved — this only after numerous failed attempts, including the main characters' in the body of the novel. By the 1920s, fascism had a name, and by the early 1930s, it had control of Germany. This fact prompted some of the more acute observers to wonder if the same thing might not happen here. With Charles Lindbergh and other prominent Americans expressing sympathy for Nazism and promoting isolationism, with the “gold shirts,” the Bund, and other fascistic-leaning organizations on the rise, an authoritarian American state seemed not so farfetched — though not something most Americans considered seriously. Thus the ironic title of Sinclair Lewis’ It Can’t Happen Here (1935). Just as Americans didn’t take Hitler seriously, neither do they regard the populist demagogue Buzz Windrip as much of a threat. He’s a kind of aw-shucks, down-home neighborly version of D.J. Trump, and Windrip, too, is surrounded by scheming, ambitious minions. Once he wins the presidency, he starts instituting something that looks very much like what was happening contemporaneously in Germany. Our hero, a mild-mannered small-town newspaper publisher, is outraged -- and scared -- and has to decide how to respond. Philip Roth takes up a similar premise for The Plot Against America (2004), in which Lindbergh becomes president and institutes pro-German, Nazish policies. In this novel, our protagonist is a big-city Jewish kid who also has to decide how to respond. A final novel from the 30s (and maybe the most interesting) is Mari Sandoz’ Capital City (1939). Sandoz is best known for her Catheresque tales of Plains pioneers, but in the 30s, everybody felt like they had to “speak out” and “take a stand.” The novel is set in the city of Franklin, the state capital of Kanewa (KANsas-NEbraska-ioWA -- get it?), which is also a college town (not unlike Lincoln, NE). The book’s twist is that the fight is between a labor front and a business-backed cadre of right-wing goons, not for the nation as a whole, but for a state (in particular, its capital city). It is a regional class struggle, in other words — one that will resonate with anyone living in capital cities or college towns in the corn belt. ____________________________________ Wednesday: The contemporary (climate-inflected) Fascist Takeover Novel. “this is how climate change
will increase human conflict”; “climate change could collide w/coronavirus to create a summer from hell” -- no wonder nobody reads. alls i know is it’s 10 degrees > normal here in our little postage stamp of central north america; call it “yearheat savings time” -- everything’s one month too soon, it seems; but we’re not going to “fall back” . . . meanwhile may was 50 f > normal in siberia, warmest ever; but guess what? it was warmest may everywhere! sez the european cli-sci’s; 2010s were hottest decade ever; by 2050 . . . well, you’re not too concerned with what happens in 30 years, believe me. you’ve got other things to worry about; or, as one of the sunrise kids sd back when they were occupying offices on capitol hill, the only thing worse than climate chaos is climate chaos + fascism (as many in the world know only too well . . .) “watch as massive landslide . . .” no one can self-isolate from climate change, the central bankers say . . . drought in n. europe this spring; drought for 7 yrs in c. s. africa; why is it flooding in yemen?? why did the “empty quarter” flood in 2018? = why are there swarms of locusts all over e. africa and s. asia cyclone nigara weakens, changes course, sparing mumbai a direct hit (what we call “dodging a bullet”); mean- while bangladesh cleans up after cyclone amphan: 350k houses busted/destroyed, 435,000 acres of crops swept away, 10,000s in need of food now still raining in el salvador & yucatán, cristóbal headed toward u.s. “gaping permafrost crater caused by methane release” (don’t google methane + climate. just don’t.) “What do you want from your life?” the teacher asked, as she guided the line of us kids from the school. It looked dark, it was night, it felt cold. But we couldn’t proceed to the parking lot until we had answered the question. It was not a drill, it was a fire, the children, faces lit up orange and hot and frowning. “A pony,” one said. “To live with mommy and daddy and granma in heaven,” said another.
When my turn came, I answered, “I want to haunt! to haunt! To hunt until hibiscus umbrellas weigh heavy like a sky, to taper off a lit taper guttering to a point. I want my life on a leash; I want to walk the earth, the bushy, humid hills, burning forests, overland parks. Now I can do what I want — not in heaven on a pony with a family, just maintaining a temporary forever in place, stereovision ovipositors shilling on shit and shore, pumping out life without my implications.” The teacher said, “That’s nice, dear,” and let me pass. The fire represented combustion of flammable materials, a festival of oxidation, not hell. But if there is a heaven, it may be not unlike that parking lot, saguaro cactus shells half funked out, camouflaged, surrounding it. Fabulosity trailed us like a buzz, we were the chosen kids, the ones who didn’t have to give a shit, only if we wanted to. But wouldn’t you know it, I woke up breathing. Santa Claus surrounded my wallpaper, caromed into light and filled the succulent water with tables of wine. I pushed in, pulled down, and nothing bad happened. I had arrived. third of june (boom!)
already makes me sweat. worms wriggling on sidewalks -- not to escape drowning but -- what? looking for moist earth? (90 f / norm 82 // lo 68 / norm 59) long, hot summer ahead: angry people in the streets angry people watching on t.v., twitter. neighbors have faces pinned to trees: noses, eyes, mouths, as tho to say, you’re o.k. if you look like us -- we need you to be more anthropomorphic, to wear petrochemical doodads, like us; we used to cut down trees in these parts, but if you’re gray, i guess you can stay in asia, you'd be burned alive: 12.3 m acres of trees on fire in russia (mostly siberia); all that burned up carbon goes into the rivers and seas + railway bridge collapsed in murmansk (rapidly melting snow = rapidly moving rapids) warmest june 2 ever in chicago; warmest may ever in nome; hottest may ever in tucson ukraine reservoirs & rivers mark their lowest levels ever; moldova wheat harvest ↓ by more than half meanwhile fleeing cyclone nisarga, 100k evac’d from mumbai (even as “patients rest on hospital floors until beds become available & bodies are left in wards”), while “high winds whipped sky- scrapers & ripped apart shanty houses near beaches” (& another 20 land- slided to death in assam) everybody on edge, every- thing on the edge, nothing to condition the air "Nature vs. Culture" (detail), installation by Stephanie Powell. Warringah, NSW. “we need to go into this future armed with nature as our strongest ally” — Inger Andersen in my cultural geography class, i send students outside to make two lists everything that is natural and everything that is not flower buds, bugs, trees, people, mountains, clouds, soil, they write on the natural side of the board when they are inside cell phones, buildings, cars they write on the other people are natural, they say (mostly) while things made by people are not that there is an outside? that there is an inside? discomfort with the battle metaphor: to take up, with open arms what is human nature to be an ally of that which we are what we know-- Yet have no art to say wrote Dickinson So impotent Our Wisdom the pandemic rages on and the skies are clear over some city you have left the trail please follow the signs laid bare structural inequalities food, water, shelter, air (maybe) things can change on a dime ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Eric Magrane is an assistant professor in the Department of Geography at New Mexico State University. He is editor, with Linda Russo, Sarah de Leeuw, and Craig Santos Perez, of Geopoetics in Practice (Routledge 2020). You can find more of his recent work on climate change and poetry in Carbon Copy, Literary Geographies, Dialogues in Human Geography, The End of the World Project, or Big Energy Poets: Ecopoetry Thinks Climate Change (BlazeVOX books). |
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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. |