it’s official! – worldwide,
nov. was hottest nov. ever! 6th mo. in a row “to approach or break a temperature record”; they’re frying eggs on the side- walk in brisbane to celebrate; power cuts down under, just like calif. – wildfire prevention; but it’s no use: sydney still shrouded in smoke; fires on outskirts; longest stint of pollution ever in n.s.w. meanwhile e. cape (s. africa) getting 30% of ususal rain – record low, as temps reached record hi’s; charity drilling wells in thirsty villages; in zambia, elephants wander into towns looking for h2o; are “trampling crops, tearing down fences, ter- rifying residents and even injuring & killing them”; & “crocodiles are lunging at people as both man and beast fight over the meagre amounts of water found in the bush”; local man sez "it's very dangerous for the human beings here" (2 m. of whom need food, 7 m. next door in zimbabwe – it’s dangerous for the human being anywhere – but some wheres more dangerous than most) u.n. chief sounds the voice of doom as big-wigs hem, haw, & say “you first” . . . (will 2019 be the second-hottest on record, or only the third? Stay tuned for news at 10) dangerous for the herder in niger who sold his herd at $8/head: “animals were so thin and tired that we had to lift them to get them on their feet” but in kenya, torrents: rivers swell; teenager anna nduku becomes the 130th to die when she falls in, trying to rescue a man; her ma sez: "i wanted to throw her a stick to try and pull her out but the river was swollen and she was being tossed and tossed and then it swept her away" – (the human beings are being swept away, some under the carpet, some just away) meanwhile, “a new report” sez ½ m. people have died in the last 20 yrs by x-treme weather: puerto rico, honduras, haiti, myanmar worst-hit; france in the same risk group as india & madagascar (20k dead in 20 yrs.); germany, japan among those worst mauled in 2018 (affluence does not exempt, it seems) typhoon smashes phillipines; flooding in spain; and now california is inundated, too (101 closed by levee break); missouri r. longest flood stage recorded (8 mo.); t’storms in hong kong 50% ↑ avg., this yr. (59 days); and in england, hi water means the brits cannot get their carrots – ground too wet to use machines how do we fish ourselves out of this mess? get us on our land-legs? birds have shrunk, their wings have grown longer
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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. |