Map showing ring of forest fires closing in on Russia's third-largest city. (Russian fire map service, fires.ru) i want to think that climate change
will not affect us here (& maybe it won’t). but maybe it is: i read in the paper today where the school district’s in the red, from a half-million-dollar monthly bill from the gas company -- from that “cold snap,” dontcha know -- that’s 10x the usual . . . plus there’s an unexplained $100k ↑ for insurance (tho i could guess what that’s about, given the gas bill) i think this pandemic year will prove to be a good inoculation against what comes next — wch will be at least as disruptive & sudden e.g., r u ready to house climate (im)migrants? here, we have little affordable housing & increasing houselessness . . . meanwhile, russia’s 3rd-largest city, novosibirsk, w/1.7 m souls, chokes on clouds of smoke: siberian wildfire season underway, expected worse than last; throat and head ache after minutes outside; city “surrounded by dozens of blazes as close as 10 km away”; even as 100+ f temps grip the ‘stans of central asia (where it’s burning, too) meanwhile “driest and frostiest april on record” in u.k.; while 7k acres of ireland’s killarney natl. forest scorched: “rising temps means there’s less precipitation, so there’s not as much rainfall, the ground is becoming more dry and more barren and thus more susceptible to fires being started and spreading unfortunately” sez the enviro activist forest fires getting worse in india: is it possible one in uttarakhand burned continuously since last year? surely that can’t be true . . . but it takes rain to douse the yearly fires & there’s been no yearly rain . . . & reservoirs in brazil at record lows; while calif. stops nestle from exporting freshwater in little plastic bottles, or tries to anyhow; & new study in science tested 39 m water wells in 40 countries: 6-20% facing “immanent failure,” from “w. u.s. to india,” sez the report; “this could raise a number of equity and adaptation concerns over the long term,” sez a researcher, “really highlighting the haves & have-nots of water” — meaning if you got money, you can drill deeper; if not, not no wonder the arctic is turning to slush, & the meltwater’s so heavy, it’s shifting the planet’s polarity (they say — what do i know? they say we’re re-entering the “pliocene,” whatever the hell that is (alls i can say for sure is we better budget more for utilities -- & insurance — but all of this is happecollapsening too fast to take in, so i . . .
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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. |