ha! I knew we were exempt!
turns out there’s a “global warming hole” over the corn belt – from ks. to ohio and n. to wisc. – while the rest of you were warming we were cooling off – in fact, that’s why there is a “corn belt”: cooler, wetter weather meant 5-10% increased yields per year, vs. 5-10% decreased yields, were we out of the “hole.” so: we’re golden! but not too much wetness and cooling, please. like, this winter storm in fall, or yesterday’s hi 37, normal 64? (anchorage was 54, while in utah, nationwide oct. cold record, - 37 c) or “missouri river flooding could last all winter” – rivers still hi, soil super-saturated, levees busted – so fields & yards that turned to lakes in spring, turn to skating rinks, wet winter predicted, followed by 2020 spring floods. it’s a cycle of nature. “we’re just tired,” the farmer sez. “we’ve been beat up so much. we’re just tired.” but uh o – then there’s this there then: “mid-21st century temps in the central U.S. will increase by up to 4.1 degrees, & summer precip. may decrease by approximately 10 percent.” well . . . rats. there’s no letting us off the hook, no respite, no rest spot, no hole to hide in. & while it rains, sleets, and snows here, the coast burns: so that if your drought goes on long enough, a “tree branch falling on a power line” can burn hundreds of sq. miles, plunge millions of californians into darkness, as they cut the juice: an x-treme red-flag warning, as the rich folks in the l.a. hills scurry down the flats, & some not-so-rich trailer-park residents in sonoma have to run from the fire . . . to where? but it could be worse. it could always be worse. e.g., in w. cameroon, where 34 people at least are underneath a landslide, after heavy rains past the rainy season flood; "my wife was expecting a baby, was very tired when she went to sleep while I was still in my shop last night. i have not seen her." the kids in the neighborhood were sleeping, too, many unaccounted for. & 28k homeless from floods in central african rep. – in bangui, mud-brick homes dissolve in the rising drink, tho "drinking water is lacking. there are problems with latrines, mosquitos, cold, and the risk of epidemics such as cholera"; & a village submerged in somalia; 182,000 human beings homeless there; 10’s of 1000’s in nigeria, where 100s of villages are islands now; in saudi arabia, more floods + hail as big as yr fist, which killed 7, injured 11 more. meanwhile, farther south in zambia, it’s in the 100s (f) – prolonged drought + flash floods = 2.3 million humans in “severe food insecurity,” humans & livestock having to drink from the same watering holes; & s. africa’s rationing water (again); & in karnataka, in india? most of the state “either reeling under drought or affected by the worst flooding in more than a century” & cetera & cetera (the point being not o those poor third-world folks, but this could happen in missouri or iowa if things keep on the way they are) & the things you don’t think of: in japan, the problem becomes what to do with all the crap rendered useless in flooded houses; in sonoma, a woman powers her cell & tablet from the neighbor’s generator to keep her kids occupied w/shows. everything is relative. here’s hoping your relatives prove understanding when you show up at their door. “trick or treat.” _______________________ * a regular feature of this planet.
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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. |