11k of the world’s leading
climate scientists signed a declaration: “world scientists warn of a climate emergency” – yes, that’s the real title. “the paper takes an urgent tone, detailing a dire situation that will require extreme responses to avert disaster.” well . . . yeah send that news flash to south african farmers, who are “already living in a disaster,” who are losing their livestock, crops, with boreholes drying out and dam water levels declining”; tell it to the 14k people in kenya dis- placed by flooding; tell it to the inuvialuit people whose town is dropping into an ice-less ocean eroding permafrost; spread the news to the indians, bracing for a record 7th cyclone this season; pass it along to the ethiopian farmers whose crops are being devoured by locusts after a year of drought; inform the tunisian farmer who sez "we used to grow much more wheat, we used to plant tomatoes, but we don't have enough water now"; or the australians, in their 36th month of above-average temps; or the japanese, whose “manufacturing sector risks being crippled by torrential rains & flooding that accompany the increasingly strong typhoons that hit the country each year” ("we've never experienced flooding like that before. all we did to prepare was seal up the plant's windows to keep rain and wind from blowing in"); tell the climate scientists, who find arctic sea ice at its lowest extent on record. but wait: the scientists not only know all this, they’ve signed on to the climate emergency. they also believe it. have taken it to heart. see what the climate cataclysm has done around the world and feel in their guts the implications for themselves and for their families. as for the rest, maybe so maybe not. we’ll know when americans stop saying “we’re determined to rebuild” & politicians stop talking about “protecting our way of life”; we'll know when there’s so many storms, the economy cracks until then we’ll keep doing what we’re doing we’ll keep hoping for the best
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What are we doing here? What are we doing, here? Here on earth?
My country (the U.S.) is in another constitutional crisis, once again facing the prospect of tipping over into authoritarianism. Everything climate is happening faster than we thought: rising seas, rising temps, floods, desertification and drought, intensity and number of major storms, rate of extinction, more floods, reduction of fresh water, etc. And here I am, writing a blog post. Maybe you’ve been writing a poem or a novel – or a report for your department’s committee on its blahaha project. Some of us are too comfortable. So, we do nothing substantive, which ensures we’re going to become seriously uncomfortable, probably sooner than we think. But that moment has not arrived, and we don’t want to think about it. And it is not clear that anything one does will make a difference, at this point. So, under those circumstances, what will you do? You’ll keep on doing what you’ve always done for as long as you can do it. Writers observe. Even before we invent: we all need “material” (even Gertrude Stein), no matter how we transmogrify or pulverize it. We are observers. Maybe the same is true for all USAmericans (and maybe most residents of the global north) – maybe not observers, but spectators of the Spectacle. Research is higher-order observation. But military juntas, famine, civil war, “day zero”s? – they’re all things that happen on television or our media feed. On some level, we don’t really believe in it, because it’s not happening in our backyard, today.* Because we have more immediate concerns. You go on a march. That was Climate Strike Day. Today is How do I make the rent AND my student loan payment Day. And o yeah write a blog post or scene or poem. The children have needs now. They’re tugging at your pantsleg or skirt. You don’t have time to go to protests or attend meetings or write letters or get arrested, to try to mitigate climate disaster. You’ve got to work hard to provide for the kids’ future. I know that previously I’ve mentioned George Oppen’s return to the US at the outset of the Depression – so, sorry to repeat myself. Repetition is inevitable in a blog. But the story of the Oppens, returned from Roaring-20s Paris, driving the street in New York, accosted at every street corner by a small crowd of middle-aged men wanting to clean their windshield or sell them pencils – Oppen later recalled that they all looked like his father – and then he, deciding that This was an Emergency, leaving writing aside and devoting himself full-time to labor organizing for the next twenty-five or so years – that is an image and a decision that keeps haunting me. Luckily for us, there were enough years between Oppen’s retirement from organizing and the onset of dementia for him to write some of the most amazing poetry of the late 20th century. But he didn’t know that then. Who was it that said you can tell what someone’s values are by how they spend their time? But most of us aren’t in the path of wildfires; our houses are not being reclaimed by the sea or melting permafrost. And the economy is “firing on all cylinders,” as we used to say. Maybe we see a colder winter or a dryer summer, but nothing dramatic. Nothing so persistent it’s unignorable. So, we talk about climate “change.” In the future. In the meantime, we make compromises. I’ll write about climate change; I’ll teach about social justice; that will incite people to – to do what? Organize? Blockade and get arrested? Put their neck on the line? __________________________________________________ * This is why people in the global north hate immigrants. It’s not because the country is “too crowded.” It’s because refugees, migrants, and asylum seekers remind us that it could happen to us, too. It can happen here. Read this excellent article, "A World We Built to Burn," by Quinn Norton, as well as an enlightening interview by On the Media.
“we knew.
we knew it was a real issue. we knew it was a serious issue & we knew it was one that’s going to be with us now, forevermore, & it’s not something that was just suddenly going to disappear off of our concern list because it is going to be with us for certainly well beyond my lifetime.” thus rex tillerson, former exxon c.e.o., in re: climate change, testifying in defense (!) of his corp’s actions, under oath, in open court. translation: we knew we didn’t care we knew we didn’t have to care. but further deponent sayeth not, for I am but the humble bard chronicling this tale of climate catastrophe. which in my li’l burg means: mo’ polar vortex: hi yesterday 43f, norm 63 lo 21, norm 38, perennials smothered under snow, wilting from first freeze. meanwhile, california continues to burn: the hill fire, the hillside fire, maria fire, getty fire, easy fire, the 46 fire (caused by a car chase, no less) – at least 11 wildfires across the state – i can’t keep up with them all, & neither can firefighters. & of course the kincade fire, which still threatens 90k buildings. his neighbor banged on his door in the middle of the night to wake him, sez the evacuee: "flames like 40 to 50 feet high. it’s scary. you just want to get out, run. you don't pick up nothing.” “hottest halloween EVER” scrawled across the temp map on the orlando t.v. station (91f); denver had hottest halloween three years back; this year, its coldest, @ 7 f. but it’s in the 100s in paraguay; australia, too, where sydney is under a hazardous air-quality health warning due to smoke from wildfires raging (pls don’t ask me about the koala bears); “violent october downpours displaced tens of thousands in somalia, submerged whole towns in south sudan , killed 12s in flash floods & landslides in kenya, ethiopia, tanzania. rising waters have wiped out livestock, destroyed harvests in a region still reeling from severe drought. growing fears of disease outbreaks and starvation.” 45 million in southern africa running low on food from drought + shambles of hurricane idai. & judges in malawi have ditched wigs due to heat. you just want to get out, to run away. but wherever you go will burn, flood, freeze, cylonize, dessicate, or all at once, or each at the wrong time. so flight is not an option, so . . . |
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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. |