ooo — scary, kids --
veerry scary! micahel mann’s words keep running in my brain: if trump gets re-elected, “it’s game over for the climate.” trick or trump? & oil money flows into efforts to keep you from electing anybody (gonna let ‘em?) but if the game is really over, won’t it be a relief? i mean, no- body will have to worry about mitigation any more . . . meanwhile the weather doesn’t care who wins: witness hurricane zeta, smashing the gulf coast again, blowing down trees, 2 m in the dark (& zeta is only the 6th letter in the greek alphabet, btw) witness: typhoon molave whacks an already-flooded vietnam: 35 dead so far; 50 missing; 89k homes destroyed (“I can see bits of roof, perhaps mine included, & tree branches flying under sky thick w/clouds” — nguyen van muoi) & 2 m cattle, poultry killed calif. firefighters “gained ground” on wildfires: silverado fire 25% contained; blue ridge fire, 16% -- but 70 k humans evac’d anyhow; & l.a. recorded 70+ f for 192 days: another record bites the dust (literal dust: not much rain) 2.7 m acres burned in e. bolivia; 15 meter-hi waves in sligo, ireland; chennai gets 8” of rain -- motorscooters trying to scoot through water over the wheels -- “all drains are blocked . . . they have been focusing only on covid” (same chennai that ran out of water last yr after 200 days w/no rain); another typhoon for phillipines kills 16, destroys 27k homes; 2000-yr flood in n.s.w., australia; even as “south africa is drying up & it’s going to get worse” & in korea, kimchi shortages! fields of cabbage wiped out by … you guessed it … x-treme weather — but no direct link to: bogs drying out in germany; 7 k seals dead in namibia; freak marine heatwaves; logging in rainforests & boreal forests; perma- frost degradation & ex- ploding pingo craters; retreating sea ice, declining albedos . . . who gives a flying fuck about any of that, when they’re taking down our beautiful monuments! indoctrinating our people to hate their country! running pedophilia rings out of govt. office bldgs.! so get a grip, america — don’t mask up for halloween or anything else; don’t stop driving; don’t stop spending. or barhopping. you can cast runes, cast spells, cast yr troubles to the wind, but go ahead and try to cast a vote i dare u
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coats two days ago
shorts yesterday jackets today, after drop of 40˚ f temp in last 12 hrs freeze warning tomorrow nite: so it goes while mean-while at least half the country’s crazy, taking some low-level russian secret-service op at his word when he tells them he’s an american patriot named “q” & the govt. is run by a pedophilia ring did goebbels have it this easy? did l. ron hubbard? (i mean this is right up there with the protocols of the elders of zion for massive deadly bizarro hoaxes -- it appeals to & made by the same people as that . . . all of which to say, how fight the crazy half all the time & make any progress? i want the shitty status-quo-ante, but that just means driving over the cliff more slowly and w/air conditioning -- (ah yes but michael mann sez if trump is elected, it’s “game over for the climate,” meaning humans & other species, but whoever wins means we’re still fighting to a draw w/the crazies, which means losing . . . losing ground to fire, esp. one called the “east troublesome fire” (!) in colorado: exploded x6 in 24 hrs (125k acres) — “it’s burning at an elevation of 9,000 ft. at a time of year when snow should be falling. (while minneapolis buried under biggest snowfall this early in season ever — 7.9” if you’re keeping track) the fire is also raging during a severe drought, aggravated by record heat, through stands of trees killed or weakened by a bark beetle infestation” -- 4 biggest fires in state history all in 2020 las vegas broke its record for # of days w/o rain (151 -- they just got 0.2”) as 6500 humans still live in shelters in louisiana after double-whammy hurricanes locusts still devouring ethiopia, namibia, while there’s anything to eat deluge in mozambique deluge in cambodia deluge in sumatra deluge in hyderabad, where “the stench emanating from waterlogged homes is nauseating . . . during the night, the stench gets worse as the continuously flowing water from lakes, sewage and storm water drains worsens it.” & mansoor ahmed relates that “it is difficult to work continuously. despite wrapping cloths around our noses, we are still not able to work continuously.” the stuff you don’t consider until you have to, cuz then it’s happening “incremental increases in temp can lead to exponentially worse natural disasters” r we grate yet? cuz if we are, i don’t know how much more greatness we can stand Hi. It’s a busy time, no? The US elections are underway, and the votes will still be trickling in even after Election “Day.” The results won’t be known for some days afterward, probably; and in the meantime, the current regime will try any means to stay in power. More importantly, it’s the middle of the semester, and I have a buttload of grading to do.
So, I’m going to a once-a-week, week-in-review edition of Writing Out of Time/Poem of Our Climate for the time being. There will be posts on October 23 & 30 and November 6 & 13. I plan to go back to the normal MWF schedule on Monday Nov. 16 – to the extent that anything will go back to normal. In the meantime, check out Protect the Results. It’s a coalition of 100+ grassroots organizations, convened by Indivisible, organizing protests in the event that the election results are preempted or if Trump loses and refuses to step down peacefully. Public Citizen is also trying to prevent voter suppression. In my state, Kansas, the ACLU is training people to know their rights and inform others. Consider volunteering with or donating to one of these efforts. See you on Friday! Bolivia last Friday (from really high up): “militaries move in as
arctic ice retreats” “enough water to fill lock ness fell” (u.k. soaks in wettest day on record) “california: 100,000 people w/o power amid x-treme wildfire risk” “phoenix has hit 100 degrees (f) on record-breaking half of days in 2020” “largest wildfire colorado has ever seen now burning” “fierce fires in bolivia” “vietnam rescuers find all 13 bodies from two landslides” “floodwaters, uncollected trash form fetid brew in cambodia’s capital” “torrential rains in telangana (india) leave 50 dead; flood situation in karnataka worsens” “heavy rains claim 27 lives across western maharashtra” “12 killed by flash floods in tanzania’s business capital” “ethiopia, somalia, and kenya face devastating drought” “firefighters continue battling mt. kilimanjaro fire” “methane emissions up in 2020” “‘the great unravelling’: i never thought i’d live to see the horror of planetary collapse” “new halloween-themed pop-up bar to open downtown: features waffle-flavored cocktails” Downtown Phnom Penh on Sunday: another new u.n. report: this time,
sez twice # of disasters in last 20 yrs as in the 20 before that + twice as expensive: $3 tn vs. 1.6 -- earth on course to turn into “uninhabitable hell” (already true in more & more of that earth): war, pandemic, locusts + climate change: all bound up together, all meaning 2x # of hungry humans as last year, maybe (u.n. again); atlantic hottest in 2900 yrs. + no ice in arctic by 2035 (they thot it wd be 2050, but who’s counting?) “heh heh — well, i won’t be around to see it — good luck kiddos!” (those born after 1960 maybe suckers & losers? those born before = those in charge of emissions) & did i mention that sept. now officially hottest on record in n. hemisphere? (i can’t keep track of all the records . . .) & “as the world battles a pandemic, large swaths of the african continent have been -- lit’rally — submerged” meaning: “the only public hospital in the region, completely destroyed. so people got sick b/c of the floods. but they couldn’t go anywhere else b/c the hospital had been destroyed.” & in phnom penh, climate chaos means “sometimes people need to cross the dirty water up to waist level,” & “we cannot go to work as we are concerned about the safety of our children. we are afraid they'll drown or be electrocuted because the floodwaters are nearly reaching the power lines” -- but it never ceases to amaze me: all the quotations from experts & officials, and so few from “people on the ground,” i.e., humans on the business end of global heating, maybe b/c they live in the global south, mostly, meaning they’re poor & don’t consume as much as northerners, so don’t make as much money for other people as we do, so they get the sh*t end, they get the garbage “gross oversimplification!” yes. & the over- simplicity of it is what kills you, in the end. it’s been 10-20 f > norm
around these parts this week; & in the mekong delta, floodwaters inundate 33k homes; & half of s. sudan is underwater; & a typhoon scours japan’s east coast; & a yr.’s worth of rain fell in a wk., falling on already-flooded land in yucatán; & a record 10th named storm hits u.s.; & it inundates already-flooded land in louisiana, blue tarps for roofs; & it wipes small towns off the map entirely; & the paraguay river’s level drops 1 ½” / day, costing $250m in trade; & slash-and-burn is burning s. america, choking cities, carbonizing animals; & fires rage in heatwave in middle-east, setting off landmines; & dogs break into a bank for the a/c in overheated s.e. brazil; & just as the fires come under control, calif.'s stuck in endless hot, dry weather; & the bay area broke the record already for bad-air alerts in one year; all of which makes me thankful for all the things that aren’t happening around these parts this week. I don't know about you, but I'm feeling pretty overwhelmed, right about now, what with trying to completely reinvent the way I work and trying to keep fascists from taking over my country (for good, this time).
So, I'm taking a break from WOOT this week, to try to catch up on work and do a little low-key electioneering. If you're interested in the latter, join me in writing letters for Vote Forward. We're writing personalized letters to low-propensity voters in swing states, to urge them to cast a ballot. Apparently it's been tested and works. OK by me! -- I don't text much and I hate talking on the phone. Anyhoo, see you next Monday, Indigenous Peoples Day, Oct. 12, with more climate cacophony and pandemic pandemonium! the u.s. presidential election sits
like a stone toad a month out ahead of us or better: green is the path we take between chimeras & garlanded the way, the down-descent into november’s void what void, you ask? well the climate scientist sez: “a second trump term is game over for the climate -- really!” “but it’s never game over,” sez mother gaia, smiling slightly -- “not for me, anyhow . . .” so the beat goes on, the 95 humans killed in floods in nigeria, 1000s homeless & cropless; the ⅓ of all cultivated land in sudan that’s underwater; the dozens of flood victims in afghanistan; the 112 f in central brazil; the 4 m acres incinerated in calif, people fleeing the state; the driest monsoon season ever in nevada & arizona; the 136th day w/triple-digit temps for palm springs; the 20 k record highs nationwide last wk.; the hottest sept. ever in israel -- all of which means, if you liked the pliocene, you’ll love the 2020s. . . . but wait -- you weren’t around in the pliocene epoch — & neither were your ancestors, b/c homo sapiens didn’t exist -- so, if you think of trump as a “throwback,” you have no idea how right you are -- the way, way throwback tuesday november 3, 2020, post- holocene, the pre- humanist party |
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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. |