Newly undressed emperors in demented daze Do crows call somewhat beseeching at sparrows fart? With light spilling in through 5th floored doorways, and trucks doing watt only they know… powerless.And, in the meanthyme, cat’s water trickles electronically induced in the bowl atop the bench from which she never drinks.Another futile purchase,and you wonder what has … Continue reading Poem at 5 a.m.
Tag: Climate change
Idle thoughts 1
I've found that very cold or hot weather - particularly if it's unseasonable (and there's very little that isn't unseasonable these days) - is useful for developing mindfulness. A sudden gust of a chill south westerly when you're not dressed for it, or sweltering sun and no shade because all the trees are wilted; these … Continue reading Idle thoughts 1
And of 2023
Will we say that that was the year we burned the world down. January burns in Chile, and July’s embers whirled across the Parthenon and from Achaea, Attica, Corfu, Corinthia, Evia, Magnesia, Phthiotis and Rhodes. Motes of Andalucia, sooty bits of Sicily, Calabrian, Sardinian and Apulian ash. Alberta, Nova Scotia, Central Canada wilded with fires. … Continue reading And of 2023
The strange attraction of ‘The End of Days’ mindset
Personally, I am attracted to the idea [yes it may just be a conspiracy theory] that the world is ruled by plutocrats who somehow believe they will – when the shit hits the fan – be able to retire to Planet B. Or at least an island they own, or a mountain top somewhere. And there they’ll retire to a bunker and await the rapture, or some such epiphany that miraculously fixes everything and lets them get back to business as usual.
Commentary on ‘Strangers in Their Own Land’
Neoliberalism and the self-harm faithful An introduction I’ve been exercising what passes for my mind with THE GREAT DIVIDE that currently occupies much of the debate about the state of the [American] nation. Forgive my anything but slick allusion to that address given by the US president, but it’s almost incumbent on anyone with an … Continue reading Commentary on ‘Strangers in Their Own Land’
Population
The global problem? Wikipedia notes: ‘The Population Bomb [1968] is a book written by Stanford University Professor Paul R. Ehrlich and his wife, Anne Ehrlich. It predicted worldwide famine due to overpopulation[i], as well as other major societal upheavals, and advocated immediate action to limit population growth. Fears of a "population explosion" existed in the … Continue reading Population
Another road
He remembered thinking it had all been over so quickly. It had, hadn’t it, come suddenly. A few years of wildly see-sawing weather, of ever rising levees and old people dying from too much heat and water shortages here and floods there, then the mad rush of an island nation for drier land. Then another. And another. The bombing that had to be done. Defences set up on coasts where all the mangroves were dying and the reefs bleached... skeletal. The enclaves where life went on in what passed as the new normal controlled by people with big guns.
THE ANTHROPOCENE
Mementoes set in stone, of stone read by the earth’s lithographers who are wondering where to set the golden spike for this age. Marking slow time: eons, eras, periods, epochs, passages once set by gods or no gods. Rocky signatures etched by the slow swing of something other than the swifter acts of Man/Woman.
Planting the Anthropocene’s golden spike
An extract from an article Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com Although there is a strong agreement among scientists that human activity has pushed the earth out of the stable patterns of the Holocene, debate is far from settled about whether this constitutes a new geological epoch and, if so, where to plant the golden spike … Continue reading Planting the Anthropocene’s golden spike
Extract from book for kids with art by Brendan T.
Weather is crazy cold snaps and frying egg hot days and blizzards. A day or two. Climate is when you can expect those things with some certainty. Yep, it's August—here come those wild and woolly westerlies. Jacaranda here always flower in early October; that sort of thing. Climate change means those old certainties aren’t as certain as they used to be.
Inkstained fingers 