What is one to do in a typhoon?? Take a selfie duh. in lawrence f. kansas:
hi yestidiy: 85 f / norm 86 lo 63 f / norm 60 . . . normal is the new weird. weird, if you live in chad & were one of the 120k people displaced by floods last month, w/livelihoods destroyed (+ covid, cholera, malaria fears); weird, if, for instance, you live in new zealand, which experienced its warmest winter since records began (and #’s 2-10 all fell w/in the last 10 yrs.); w. australia’s warmest, too -- over 100 f in places & half the normal rain (ah, normal . . .) weird, if 2nd typhoon in 2 wks is thrashing you in korea (photos: people cleaning up busan) weird, as flood waters creep up on nuclear power plant in bangladesh weird, if you sweated through hottest-ever aug. in e. japan hottest-ever aug. in cyprus hottest-ever aug. in las vegas hottest-ever summer in tampa hottest-ever summer in chicago; weird in argentina, in multiyear drought & 22k wildfires burning as i write — 12k in parana “wetlands”; it's weird to you in california, if the 500-mi-long “blob of smoky air” sifts down to where you try to breathe, where the temps are topping 100 f & 900 fires still rage; & weird if you consider that “tropical depression #15” just became tropical storm omar -- earliest ever date for 15th named storm in the atlantic basin; & this doesn’t count the formerly- weird goings-on in the arctic -- like the blast craters in the far north prob. caused by methane buildup from thawing permafrost (kerboom); all of which means we are in kansas anymore -- & kansas weather is weird for at least today
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. . . that I can't keep up the daily blog pace + constructing online courses while they're underway + work to get out the vote before it's too late. SO . . .
Between now and Thanksgiving, I plan to continue "Poem of Our Climate" on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday; but I will not be posting my pearls of wisdom on Tuesdays and Thursdays. I will however, try to post something on those days -- either a guest post or an article related to climate chaos &/or literature, such as this one. Thanks for your continued interest! the latest tropical storm
is named after my wife -- or at least shares her nickname; i guess it was bound to happen eventually, esp. b/c we’re ripping through the alphabet purty quick this season . . . meanwhile s.f. bay area will be soaked in smoke, coughing for weeks to come, even after the fires are done; “there’s a direct relationship between heat & fire,” sez the expert; “increasing heat is inevitable for at least a few decades. if you liked 2020, you’re going to love 2050.” it’s not just califas: fires in spain, greece — closing in on mycenae, in fact: the “lion gate” charred (o well, it happened 3200 yrs ago, too); also fires in sicily, even as tornadoes & large hail in n. ½ of italy . . . you can get people to act if you soft-pedal what’s happening & tell them the simple things they can do to save the earth, even tho it will come too late & be too little; but if you tell people the truth, they’ll get overwhelmed & do nothing. . . . so maybe i shd do 2 versions of this chronicle, if i had world enuf & time, but we don’t, as it happens . . . meanwhile, 160 humans killed & 100s of homes washed away, in n. afghanistan (news “brief” in reuters); & after typhoon bavi, n. korea state media sez “minimizing crop damage is an urgent demand necessary!” failure to do so cd “affect the party’s authority and national existence” (we’re talking an official outlet of the north korean govt., here) -- & another typhoon headed towards korean peninsula now; meanwhile, strongest aug. storm ever in alaska; rainiest summer ever in ketchikan (which has mighty rainy summers); but first half of 2020 hottest ever in france, vintners harvest grapes earlier than any time in last 500 yrs; warmest summer ever in providence, r.i.; while tucson just sweated thru its hottest month ever (aug.). which is saying something . . . but i don’t know what to tell ya . . . except maybe tell yr loved ones you love them — and maybe vote as early as you possibly can . . . ? Dear WOOT Reader,
Have you written something about the climate crisis? Or have you been thinking about writing it? Please consider sharing it on this blog. Send it to joeharrington7 [at] me [dot] com as an attachment. I'm looking for guest posts -- flash fiction, mini essays, poems, multi-genre work -- that have something to do with climate chaos. Book reviews and lit-crit, too. Thanks for reading! Hope to hear from you soon. Cheers, Joe |
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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. |