“flat out climate denial
. . . has lost its grip” on conservatism (thus brian kahn in gizmodo): “the reasons are simple: . . . it is im- possible to deny what’s happening right outside our windows. raging fires, wild hurricanes, intense rainstorms, coastal cities flooding under sunny skies . . .” meanwhile, however, he points out trump’s intention to preserve minority rule by any means necessary: invalidating votes, slowing the mails, or telling fascistic, racist militias to “stand by” . . . & the loopy jet-stream just gets loopier: weatherman sez he’s never seen such an extreme pattern set up in u.s. at this time of year, in 30 yrs on the job: bypasses sweltering s.w. (arizona monsoons “a bust”), makes for hot hot heat dome in the burning west, & pumps arctic air east of the rockies & then there’s the forever-floods since summer: 700k humans affected in sudan; 577k in assam state; and just this week: 55k humans affected in n.e. ghana; 60k in w. central nigeria + zombie fires, zombie storms, now ghost forests, where sea level bathes tree roots in salt, creating swaths of dead, white trunks; or maybe zombie governments, ghost presidents taking the place of the living & getting them ready for anything
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our september rains came,
a week late and only a day, but then everything is late nowadays & too much or too little . . . that’s why farmers feel the pain: 75% of callers to farm aid hotline report x-treme weather-related losses. o western wind . . . & farmer support of trump drops from 85% to 71%, meaning that > ⅔ of u.s. farmers still support him (he said he cd shoot people on 5th av & his supporters wd still support him; turns out, he can shoot his supporters, & his supporters will still support him . . . ) meanwhile california keeps burning: “it’s like god has no sympathy,” sez the lady from santa rosa; zogg & glass: the 2 new fires scorched 10k acres in 1 day; “it gets tiring, it’s becoming a lifestyle,” sez the man from napa co. (wines w/smoky palate & ashy aftertaste) & 188 sq. mi. charred in colorado (after state’s largest-ever fire last mo.), smoking out denver & front range . . . this did not result from climate change -- rather, prolonged drought, record heat waves, & unusually high winds produced it (“summer-like heat” predicted over western u.s. thru october; “well below avg.” e. of rockies) + fires across paraguay & argentina; zombie fires burn continuously in siberian peatlands sat. nite: coldest sept. nite ever in n. ireland; sunday day: warmest autumn day ever in s. finland; freak snowstorm in switz. & austria; freak snowstorm in new zealand; 50k humans stranded (rangpur, bangla.) amidst record-setting downpours; no cause for alarm around here: this is america, where we believe whatever the hell we want to believe: that it’s fake that it won’t hurt me where i am that it’s caused by little green martians that it will all just go away if i don’t pay too much attention, anyway the walnut valley music festival
happens in winfield, kansas, the 3rd weekend in sept. always it rains on the campers there; it always rains up here, too, but not this year: sunny weather & no campers in winfield in this plaugey year. And no rain in september or august . . . & tomorrow, predicted hi 90 f / norm 76 but hey, no rain in las vegas since april . . . & france had its driest summer ever the opposite problem for tx. coast: massive flooding from beta; so, beware of fire-ant piles floating in floodwater: another reason not to wade therein (the stuff you just don’t think of until it bites you in the but so much for 1st world problems -- mumbai has water in the street butt-high & rising; mudslides in india and nepal; dozens of humans dead from too much water moving through c. nigeria, 100s of households displaced; & stinking stagnant water thigh-high in streets of dakar but climate migration isn’t just for the global south: in the u.s., 1.2 m humans / yr driven from home by weather disasters since 2016 (some multiple times), as if there were any place to go to be safe: if it's not the piles of rubble it's the piles of ants . . . & 2x the avg # of atlantic storms; 3 in 1 day (1st time ever); & in pacific, la niña, meaning we’re heading into drought just as wheat planting begins here in ks., which would explain the parching crust of dirt under our feet, the sword over our heads “beta,” 9th hurricane to hit u.s.
this season, submerges swaths of houston again; as “zombie” hurricane paulette hit bermuda, then fizzled, then came back to life at the azores; 1000s of humans homeless after flood after flood in pakistan cities; in karnataka, “villages have submerged, houses have collapsed, roads washed away and standing crops completely destroyed; while china suffered record 21 large-scale floods -- so far — in 2020; “inland seas” in australian outback forming; plus, the never-ending african deluge: 100s of 1000s displaced in niger; 140k homes destroyed in sudan; ugandan hospital floors submerged (but my car is dry so i can afford to remain detached) warmest-ever recorded temps (i should have a button for that phrase) in siberia, as sea ice retreats to northernmost point ever; & melting glaciers reveal all sorts of things: 30k-yr-old cave bear mummy, wreckage of wwii bomber; still-living bacteria; greece was hit by a “medicane” (no, not a first-aid ointment, but mediterranean + hurricane): the classic “streets turned to rivers” + mudslides + ships swamped, sunk; “it was like the apocalypse,” sez a french tourist, using a good old fashioned greek word that fits the alpha, beta, and omega but: no more water, the fire next time -- or this time, as the case may be: four more forest fires in c. argentina; bobcat fire in s. calif. grows in l.a. county (165 sq. mi. thereof); none of that is going away . . . lots of news about whales today (climate crisis playing hell w/em), but we don’t do animals . . . naw, we focus on “homo sap” as burroughs called us, giant well-meaning body w/a beta zombie brain happy fall!
see, that’s what we used to call weeks between the beastly hot & arctically cold — kind of in-between, like; the sky was blue, not white or gray or red. back when you were a kid, you might have felt it, if they let you out of the house, but what with the smoke & storms & virus, you could only see it through a window, if at all, & you probably don’t remember it. but back in 2020, on the autumn equinox, heavenly bodies did what they always did; the clock told us that night was indeed equal in the north; & the climate clock told us we had 7 yrs 101 days to switch from dead plant matter to renewables (i know — don’t laugh). but people had kids to raise (i.e., you), money to scrounge, things to do so how could they find time to vote? not to mention “protest”? esp. w/people in charge who knew they weren’t going to do a thing b/c you, not they, would have to deal with it & while the u.s. west coast, the pantanal, & russian tundra burned, africa & india drowned; the u.s. gulf coast cleaned up, yet again; w. europe hit record hi temps (yet again) & a hurricane swept the mediterranean; & of course the sea melted, permafrost melted; natural gas companies abandoned wells, which leaked millions of tons of methane, mega-greeenhouse gas; the kyoto accords’ (i know . . . look it up) deadline came & went w/o one goal met; & a 73-yr-old climate scientist said, “we were speculating 40 years ago about things that might happen, and i don’t think that any of us expected that in our lifetimes, we would see these things unfolding”; & another one said, “our societies are only adapted to a small range of possible weather. 2020 shows exactly what we expected: that 1 c of warming already brings our societies toward the edge of what we are able to cope with”; & if we didn’t do any better than we did, if “spring” just means jumping up and “fall” just means dropping down to you, still, remember: you still have the moon & the sun; & even if they may seem hotter than they did before, you can be certain they are not. lo yesterday: 49 f / month to date: 0.94
normal hi: 82 f / thurs. sunset: 7:25 pm that’s what the paper sez this morning; there must be some mistake . . . “wildfires & weather x-tremes: it’s not a coincidence, it’s climate change” “slow meandering hurricanes are often more dangerous -- & they’re getting more common” (one hammers u.s. gulf coast; another hits bermuda) “think 2020’s disasters are wild? experts predict worse in the future” “atlantic hurricane season may need whole new alphabet to name all storms” (they’re about to go to greek letters instead, alpha and omega time) “the climate crisis is a national security threat to the u.s.: we already see the effects” therwer must b some misstake “72% of americans believe that [gravity] is happening. at a local level, kansas is not far behind, w/a little more than ⅔ believing that [gravity] is happening . . . but only 37% of kansans believe that [gravity] will affect them personally” meanwhile: 9k sq mi. burned so far in s. america’s pantanal, world’s largest wetland -- windy, dry, no rain til nov.; rainforest deforestation reaching “a tipping point”; & fires in u.s. w. coast forests make for worst air on earth; somw misrak4 floods destroy 20% of rice crop in nigeria; in ethiopia, 217 k humans homeless due to inundation; $1.44 b aid needed (not forthcoming); & dig this: summer 2020 hottest ever in n. hemisphere . . . and there is no mistake: everything is going just as we knew it would, like it did in the paleocene-eocene thermal maximum 50 m yrs ago. then it was volcanoes, now it’s exxon/mobil, w/help from you and me Smoke from West Coast fires forms a cyclone over Pacific and blankets several US & Mexican states. Wildfire plumes have reached up to 10 miles in height. until they think
long days shall never cease . . . new orleans forecast: today: rain & wind tonight: rain & wind tomorrow: hurricane sally (not making this up) . . . who’s one of 5 named storms in atlantic basin simultaneously (2nd time ever) with patient look thou watchest “9 cities see earliest snowfall ever. s. dakota river in flood stage 17 mo. last decade hottest ever on earth. brutal calif. heat wave off the charts. historic wildfires across western u.s. things can only go up from here, right? that’s not what the experts say.” where are the songs of spring? . . . think not of them “it seems like this is what we always were talking about a decade ago,” sez the climatologist. “a lot of people want to blame it on 2020, but 2020 didn’t do this. we know the behavior that caused climate change.” photo last aug: man kayaking through nebraska state fair; this aug, half the state in drought; range fires &c. summer has o’erbrimmed . . . 4.2 m acres = conn. + rhode is. = how much land has burned in west; more towns incinerated; “firenado” filmed in “hellifornia”; possible tallest smoke plumes ever recorded on earth’s surface; “it looked like a bomb went off” &c.; “clean air centers” in oakland; dozens dead in oregon & fires won’t end “until the winter’s rains fall,” sez the state fire chief borne aloft or sinking as the light wind lives or dies . . . 50 human beings trapped or crushed in gold mine in congo, after heavy rains; 102 humans dead from sudan floods; 11 humans dead in nepal: landslides follow massive monsoons; more inundations in indonesia, japan, bangladesh, kolkata, kerala barred clouds bloom soft dying day “it’s going to get a lot worse. i say that w/emphasis b/c it does challenge the imagination. & that’s the scary thing to know as a climate scientist in 2020.” the last oozings, hours by hours. because the largest fire in the history
of california burns right now (471k acres) & 3 m acres lie incinerated; because the sky turned red at noon; because ½ m humans evac’d in oregon, where the town of phoenix (!) burned up but did not rise again (“flames across the street from me flames to the right of me flames to the left of me” into the valley of death . . . or: “i’ve been shot down & shot at, but this — i’m still not over it,” sounds of gas tanks “popping”), we beseech thee, st. florian [response:] pray for us because colorado panted through its hottest august ever, only to face snow by labor day, temps plummeting 60 f degrees in 24 hours; & because massachusetts, rhode island, and conn. (like arizona) suffered their hottest summer on record, and because cyprus sweltered in its hottest day ever (115 f), we beseech thee, st. médard of picardy pray for us because africa wades, swims, drowns through and under its massive deluge -- b/c a downpour hammered senegal, & rained as much in a 7 hr period as a “normal” rainy season (july-sept); b/c 1.2m acres & $13 worth of crops rotted in nigeria; & b/c niger’s capital shut down, w/226k displaced; b/c sudan needs $1.6 b in flood relief, b/c the people camped on roads or any speck of higher ground have not seen any of it (“we are calling on everyone to stand by the citizens, the simple, poor citizens, who have lost their shelter & home,” sez alaa eldin, one of them), we beseech thee, st. adjutor pray for us because global heating amplifies & whipsaws weather patterns this way, b/c climate researchers say things like, “i admit i’m feeling a little freaked out”; & b/c “leaders” of govt. & industry have no intention to do anything, & b/c therefore, masses of humans must rise in their strength & put an end to it or else, we beseech thee, st. rita, patron saint of the impossible, i say we beseech thee, pray for us sinners, now & at the hour of our death amen i guess all that “warm” air in
n. russia squoze the cold air down our way: hi sept. 7 = 96 f / lo = 66 hi sept. 8 = 66 f / lo = 49 (mind you the record for those days = 106 & 41: we’ve always had climate chaos in kansas) (& look at it this way: you could be denver: 101 f hi on sat. / 34 at 9:03 am wed w/freeze warning. spooky.)) meanwhile the commodities futures trading commission sez “climate change poses a major risk to the stability of the u.s. financial system & its ability to sustain the american economy” -- & these folks are involved in setting corn, wheat, pork belly prices (& are trump appointees) & i see where apple news has a “wildfires” section now as entire towns burn up -- most recently malden, wash. & talent, oregon — as 42k humans e-vac from medford; 100s of 1000s of acres afire 0% or 5% contained; even the firefighters evac’d . . . “preparing to move people to the docks for a ‘last stand’ . . .” 2.3 m acres burned in calif. (record) by 7606 fires (but all of 2019 = 118 k acres burned by <5k fires) there are too many numbers in this poem i mean world one day i will write a sci fi novel based on this chronicle i mean a historical novel on catalpa probably leaves “c’mon, joe, admit it:
you have an apocalypse complex: you like all the fire & brimstone & brimming floods & rockslides, don’t you? you’re into ‘disaster porn,’ no?” which is another way of saying, “hey mister! can’t you see you’re scarin’ the kids?? shut it!” the whole globe grows into a great big trigger warning: beware beware: you will not hear what you want to hear: such as: l.a. county records hottest-ever temperature ((ever) 121 f); + many hottest sept. temps -- “kiln-like heat” — & warnings to cut back electrical use to avoid blackouts; multiple wildfires flame throughout the state — a “gender- reveal party” sparked one, w/“smoke-emitting device” designed to shoot pink or blue smoke signals to convey gender of expected child (welcome to the world little one -- a revelation indeed!); meanwhile, near yó-sem-might: 46k acres burn; campers, hikers trapped; 200 rescued via natl. guard helicopters; fire makes py-ro-cum-u-lous cloud system: spawns lightning + 5 tornadoes (“first-of-its-kind fire tornado warning”), & “these trends will continue as the planet continues to warm,” sez the expert (again) meanwhile, denver had its latest 100f temp day for any year ever, sat.; 96 right now, but snow tomorrow; (funny weather . . . huh?) not to mention: 3554 sq mi of rain- forest burned (so far) this year in amazonia; plus 3 mo worth of rain fell in 24 hrs in senegal; and karachi is drowning in sewage, post-flooding; while 1000s in rift valley kenya still flooded out; “scores of villages” in punjab & sindh inundated, withal; & odisha rice harvest rotted out underwater: “the floods have completely shattered the rural economy,” sez farmer sarhat saroo; “with the deluge ruining our livelihood, we now stare at a bleak future”; & in jordan, they don’t go outside, not cause of virus, but heat: longest & hottest wave recorded: 9 days of 100+f — w/119f friday, saturday in aqaba -- damn near hot as l.a.! (equal-opportunity heating: israel in day 8 of record spell; & hottest-ever temp (109f) in both halves of jerusalem) & that “disaster porn” thing? the folks in lake charles, la. don’t think you’re getting enuf: "i am begging, i am pleading for americans not to forget about lake charles,” sez the mayor, after hurricane laura wrecked the city of 1/4m souls; “the national coverage -- it’s like it’s forgotten already” which, of course, it has . . . "bon chance & sauve qui peut," lake charles!" yet this here verse-chronicle records such things for all time, as much as to say: yes, children, this really did happen once upon a time -- except that the children will face much worse; they may not be impressed; armageddon has an end, in revelations -- but this apocalypse just keeps on giving out, revealing more, saying, "wanna go?" |
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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. |