greta has a podcast
(well yeah duh doesn’t everyone, but this is greta) — & she sez the covid crisis means: we can spend (print) lots of money if we want to, we can cancel big international meetings, we can change behavior, even get the media to focus on one thing for more than 20 minutes, if we think the threat is big enough "if we are to avoid a climate catastrophe, we have to make it possible to tear up contracts, abandon existing deals & agreements on a scale we can't even begin to imagine today,” sez she & who are “we”? “hope does not come from politics, business, or finance,” but “hope comes from the people, from democracy, from you” (esp. if “you” are engaging in massive disruption — vide recent events.) there “you” have it meanwhile today i guess you heard the big news: 100 f recorded n. of arctic circle (unverified but entirely plausible) say it w/me: “first. time. on. record.” elsewhere: it’s dry and it’s wet. first the dry (and hot): aukland, n.z. water sitch is “critical”: reservoir < 45% capacity, < ½ normal rain in 1st ½ of year as of mon. am, 186 k acres scorched in arizona bush fire, 45% contained; 90% of utah in drought: driest april on record + may rain ↓ 60% = 300 wildfires — those bark beetles, ubiquitous anthropocene pests, kill the trees, turning them to tinder; even beautiful lacustrine quebec sees 178k acres burn in one of several forest fires big scoop of the sahara heads westward on the winds, reducing visibility, hurting air in the caribbean, set to spread across the s.e. u.s.: biggest such dust-plume in 50 yrs -- hot hot dry dry -- 110 in s. spain . . . then the wet: massive flooding on yangtze -- 10 provinces under x-treme flood alerts: “gas stations, street lights, & telephone poles have disappeared beneath a brown soup of floodwaters”; 3 gorges dam in danger? w/media cut off (by nature, this time), it’s hard to tell in india, the big 3 -- ganges, brahmaputra & meghna “already filled to the brim” by heavy rain, “unusual for this time of year,” 100s of homes washed away, more rain on the way . . . torrents sweep through santa cruz, bolivia neighborhoods; emergency measures in serbia -- 700 houses inundated, roads cut; moscow endures 70% of usual june rain in the span of a a few hours; tasmania empluviated: “warnings that trees may fall”; singapore flash floods snarl traffic, waterlog roads, even feature “a green dustbin floating away” . . . and from lagos, this report: "upon arrival at the scene, it was discovered that the canal along alapafuja close linking bank olemoh was submerged as a result of flooding & a 17-yr-old girl was swept away ~12:30 pm (monday). however, her body could not been found as the response team searched the adjoining canals. operation suspended till morning.” the girl’s name was given only as “ayisat.”
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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. |