Eastern North Dakota, as seen from space, Dec. 3, 2019. The white areas are snow-covered fields. The brown areas are fields covered by snow that is hidden by unharvested corn. The corn was unharvested because the ground was still too wet from spring floods for farm machinery to operate.. climate disaster all over the news! . . . when it happens to white settler societies in industrialized places, that is; east africa south asia central america not so much (“africa? – o africa, it’s a basket case. but india – i have a colleague from india – i’ll ask her if it’s raining or a drought or something back home”) 19 people dead in australia – watch c.n.n. to find out more (next to ad for “best fire pit on the planet!”), & future readers can read the archives of any newspaper meanwhile at least 30 people dead in jakarta: electrocution, hypothermia, drowning, landslides: the city sinks a little more each year (unregulated pumping out of aquifer), so when monsoons do their thing, the city fills up like a bowl: 8+ ft. deep, in spots; 35k people fled homes – some only as far as their roofs; rivers bustin’ banks, people “wading” w/water up to chin; & o yeah 2 m people in zambia are on the brink: 2 yrs drought = looming famine; “when did you last eat?” “me? almost two days w/o getting food. there’s no- where to get food” – so people gather what roots and leaves they can stomach (what would we do, my american cousins, if we did not know where to get food? what will we do?) – rainy season used to start in october; now, mid-dec.; villagers chop down trees to sell the charcoal – the only source of cash (& buyers burn the charcoal, of course): “that will turn this place into a desert. the villagers will die if that happens” meanwhile back in this white-settler dominated society, another wet spring forecast – rain on top of frozen ground "imagine putting a soaking wet sponge in the freezer, taking it out, and then trying to pour water on it. it’s going to immediately run off” now multiply by millions of gallons running off on fields of corn & wheat & that will cut down on harvests as will a drought, so that “some- one had better be prepared for rage.” someone had. Graphic showing extent of Australian bushfires, as mapped onto equivalent area around (a.) Lawrence, Kansas (b.) New York, New York
0 Comments
Your comment will be posted after it is approved.
Leave a Reply. |
Archives
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. |