– so, how does all this stuff make you feel?
– feel? well, lousy, i guess. hopeless, often. i mean, govt and industry acts like it’s 20 years ago: we don’t have 12 yrs to “save the earth” – some reporter made that up – the earth – meaning the holocene – is already a thing of the past, already dis- integrating all around us. like australia: heat in the 90s; 60 mph winds, scores of fires in the populous east; 100 schools closed in s. of country; hazardous air quality in sydney: "it smelt like our house was on fire.” & maybe it is & duststorms in victoria state: “the sky had turned this dark, thick orange. i’ve been here 10 yrs and never experienced anything like this. we used to have a dust storm a year, this is now a weekly basis. at its worst i couldn’t see across the road. this time the heat, 40c, coupled with the dust just made it unlivable. you couldn’t go outside.” like the fact that it’s still raining in italy, venice sinking beneath the waterline; & still breaking heat records in maui; warmest yr ever, on alaska north slope; like crisis-level food insecurity still for 11 m in mozambique, zimbabwe, s. africa – storms & drought both – parents unable to feed children, farmers slaughtering animals prematurely, & sometimes themselves; water in second-biggest city in zimbabwe cut off 96 hrs/wk – so what is to be done? – it’s pretty clear the big shots won’t do what needs to be done – they’re making money off the way things are; tho new report shld be noted: – 3% off world g.d.p. by 2050 due to climate chaos. somebody at least needs to write it down, to keep up a memorial. tho we could harden our coastlines, erect barriers, increase storm sewer capacity (such things should never be in a poem), could build emergency housing, storm shelters, cooling stations, permaculture, stockpile food, abandon power sources requiring h2o, & if things get bad enough, we could all just go on living, together, underground, bleaching skin, dimming eyes, hearing a trickle that we think might quench our thirst.
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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. |