An Atmospheric River Runs Through It
The moon is waning gibbous
the pollen count is low
and yet another atmospheric river
is on the way,
all that warm moist air
all that water vapour
looking for a place to condense;
based on anecdotal evidence
this is either normal for the time of year
or a signal that we should start building an ark
but one thing is starkly clear
the data with which the calculated risks are calculated
is no longer valid
is in need of an update
the paradigm has not shifted
but the perimeter has been breached
like a dike in need of repair.
Taking part in Open Link at earthweal….it’s raining again in British Columbia.
Gibson’s Landing (Summer 2021)
the bark of broken mufflers
pickup trucks idle
at the Starbuck’s drive through
air con running
a gang of bikers
middle-aged and leather clad
roar up the coastal highway
it’s been a long hot summer
fun fun fun
in the pandemic pause
(is this the real life
is this just fantasy?)
and yes, it’s hot
but it’s a guilty heat
and there’s the nagging feeling
that the future has arrived too early
that science fiction has become fact
smoke from forest fires
silts the lungs of the town
Daddy never did take the T Bird away.
(songs quoted and misquoted in the poem: “Bohemian Rhapsody” by Queen and “Fun! Fun! Fun! by the Beach Boys)
Taking part in Open Link Night over at dverse.
Also taking part in Open Link Weekend over at earthweal.
Ingrid Wilson of Experiments in Fiction has put together a collection of poems called The Athropocene Hymnal (63 poems in all, from 34 poets). Publication date is July 24th. Many of the poets, including myself are regular contributors to the blog earthweal. I have 2 poems in the collection (thanks, Ingrid, for including me!). All profits from the sale of the book will go to the World Wild Life Fund. So be sure to check out Ingrid’s blog on July 24th!
Brendan over at earthweal has published an interview with Ingrid and also more details about the publication, so check out Brendan’s post here.
The collage on the cover was contributed by the very talented Kerfe Roig.
In his earthweal prompt this week, Brendan says :
For this week’s challenge, let’s take up her (Ingrid’s) call and write a poem of the Anthropocene which does not compromise.
This is a poem I wrote a while back (it appeared before on earthweal) and previously published on this blog, but think it fits the challenge.
Fracking Song
You’re standing on the corner
Watching the trucks go rolling past
Pumping out their diesel fumes
Pumping out that carbon gas
It’s the middle of winter
And it’s twenty below
And that gas just sits there
With nowhere to go.
Something’s wrong in the valley
Babies stillborn
Ten in one year
And they call that the norm
Something’s wrong in the valley
Something toxic in the ground
Something wrong in the valley
Since the frackers came to town.
That rock’s been down forever
With its hydrocarbon payload
When they blow it all apart
They can’t control where it goes
And that water that’s left standing
Evaporating in the sun
The residue will be with us
Long after they are gone
Something’s wrong in the valley
Babies stillborn
Ten in one year
And they call that the norm
Something’s wrong in the valley
Something toxic in the ground
Something wrong in the valley
Since the frackers came to town.
You can blame the politicians
The special interests groups
Blame the fracking company
They all don’t give a fuck
There’s only one thing they understand
One thing that they know
Keep riding that fossil fool train
As far as it will go.
There’s something wrong in the valley
Babies stillborn
Placentas like ribbons
And they call that the norm
Something’s wrong in the valley
Something toxic in the ground
Something wrong in the valley
Since the frackers came to town
Caye Caulker
In the café below
the locals talk about the old times
about Eve and the apple
about Paradise lost
about how all the bottles
washed up on the shore
carry the same message.
pelicans plummet into the bluebottle sea
sting rays undulate
out on the coral reef
tiny organisms
fret about climate change
and that damn carbonic acid
I fink the pH is dropping, I really do
meanwhile, over in San Pedro
on the Redneck Riviera
hermetically sealed resorts
march north towards Mexico
and thin, blond soccer moms
mingle with sun-damaged matrons
dedicated to the preservation
of floral print muumuus.
in the café below, Bob Marley’s still jammin’.
This poem has had a few lives. Participating in open link over at earthweal. Head over and check out Brendan’s thought provoking and eloquent post .
Fracking Song
You’re standing on the corner
Watching the trucks go rolling past
Pumping out their diesel fumes
Pumping out that carbon gas
It’s the middle of winter
And it’s twenty below
And that gas just sits there
With nowhere to go
Something’s wrong in the valley
Babies stillborn
Ten in one year
And they call that the norm
Something’s wrong in the valley
Something toxic in the ground
Something wrong in the valley
Since the frackers came to town.
That rock’s been down forever
With its hydrocarbon payload
When they blow it all apart
They can’t control where it goes
And that water that’s left standing
Evaporating in the sun
The residue will be with us
Long after they are gone
Something’s wrong in the valley
Babies stillborn
Ten in one year
And they call that the norm
Something’s wrong in the valley
Something toxic in the ground
Something wrong in the valley
Since the frackers came to town.
You can blame the politicians
The special interests groups
Blame the fracking company
They all don’t give a fuck
There’s only one thing they understand
One thing that they know
Keep riding that fossil fool train
As far as it will go.
There’s something wrong in the valley
Babies stillborn
Placentas like ribbons
And they call that the norm
Something’s wrong in the valley
Something toxic in the ground
Something wrong in the valley
Since the frackers came to town
Taking part in Open Link Weekend over at earthweal
Greta Thunberg at Davos
Pharisees, temples
the young lecturing the old
wilderness, a voice.
Taking part in open link weekend over at earthweal.
Water (off a duck’s back)
What’s that?…….no, no, it’s all rubbish,
climate change is a Deep State hoax.
By the way, forgot to mention
I have some ocean front for sale in Florida,
are you interested?
I hear you’re a good swimmer.
Ha, that’s just a joke,
God controls the climate
the rivers, lakes and seas.
Look what he did for Moses.
Our local preacher has a direct line,
just send a donation
before he gets arrested.
Joking again! Those rumours
are just not true.
Besides, our supreme leader, Donald, says
we are going to have a great climate
the best climate ever.
Do you know any Dutch people?
They’re good at handling all this water stuff.
Another thing, does anyone else
really miss the dinosaurs?
I had this rubber brontosaurus
when I was kid, I kind of liked it,
a velociraptor too…where was I?
Yes, this oceanfront property in Florida
it comes with a row boat.
The word of the week over at earthweal is water. Got the idea for this poem while reading Sarahsouthwest’s poem “Water Again”.
Also participating in open link night over at dverse.
Pigeon
Early December,
downtown Vancouver
and it’s raining
more than the usual
cats and dogs,
it feels like the city
is trapped
in a giant car wash.
All year long the weather
has been acting like a child
that hasn’t been taught limits.
Three months of summer drought.
We woke up one morning
and white ash from forest fires
covered the deck,
and that evening down on the beach
we were treated to
a red ball sunset
worthy of Beijing or Mumbai.
The Indian guy in the coffee shop
told me it made him feel homesick.
Something’s happening to the frogs.
The Oregon spotted frog is Canada’s most threatened amphibian,
I saw that on TV program called
“Canada’s Most Threatened Amphibians”.
Also threatened is the northern leopard frog.
Sea stars have sea star wasting syndrome
We’re losing song birds, bats and bees
The world is an orchestra
and the string section is leaving
one by one.
Anthropocene
Anthropocene
Sixth Extinction,
soon there will only be us.
******
At the corner of Georgia and Granville
a pigeon waddles through a puddle
created by a blocked storm drain
and I’m thinking:
Who’d be a pigeon on a day like this?
Who’d be a pigeon at a time like this?
The theme over at dVerse is “soliloquies”, I think this sort of fits!
Also taking part in Open Link over at earthweal ( a new blog which is well worth checking out)
The ship of the world sails on
while America founders on the sand bank
of an old fool’s dreams.
“Danish Oil and Natural Gas…….has transformed itself into the world’s largest offshore wind farm company spurred on my Denmark’s aggressive efforts to decarbonize its economy.”
“BMW prepares to mass produce electric cars by 2020”
“China plans to spend $360 billion on renewable energy capacity by 2020”
“in May, India cancelled 14 gigawatts of proposed coal-fired plants, while seeing a steep dropoff in coal imports…”
Quotes from Corporate Knights Magazine , Fall 2017
The sun drops behind the ridge of the house
the wind goes crazy in the trees,
the moth balls smell like halitosis
on the warm neurotic breeze.
Slim and I are logging some early evening deck time chowing down on barbecued steaks from ‘What The Cat Dragged In’, our local artisan butcher shop, and partaking of a balls forward red, having already polished off a growler of craft IPA – slightly over-hopped with a hint of camel’s breath.
It’s hot. Rivulets of sweat trickle down Slim’s face forming a damp half-moon at the neck of his white tee shirt which carries the message “IT’S NOT IMPORTANT”. I’m telling him about how I spread moth balls all around the base of the shed at the end of the garden in a vain attempt to deter the two skunks who have set up home underneath it.
(rivulets,
Romulus,
amulets)
“Napthalene” Slim announces “is the chemical name for moth balls. By the way, I was out on an eHarmony date last night and I mentioned to the lady I was having dinner with that I used to work in the chemical industry….”
Slim on eHarmony, this is news to me. I wonder what his profile is like, what hobbies has he listed? I know he doesn’t kayak or go for long walks on the beach at sunset, his main interests outside of poetry are Premier League soccer and playing bass in a Clash tribute band (not coming to a venue anywhere near anybody, soon). Plus, he hasn’t dated anyone in years and his wardrobe consists of faded jeans and white tee shirts that are too small for him and usually carry some nihilist, dystopian message.
“What did you list as your hobbies on your eHarmony profile?” I interrupt, to his annoyance.
“Cooking, now let me get on with my story. As I said I mentioned to the lady I was having dinner with that I used to work in the chemical industry and she grimaced and said: ‘Ooh, chemicals, bad!’ So I told her that at least 50% of what she was wearing was synthetic material made from petroleum by products; that behind the walls of the restaurant that we were sitting in were miles of electrical wire covered in plastic insulating material made from petroleum byproducts; that the phone she keeps checking contains plastics, not to mention lithium, probably mined using child labour in Africa; that the toilet seats that we plonk our over-privileged arses on are made from plastic; that all these materials are products of the chemical industry and are manufactured in some shit hole of a town far from our blissed out home; that we are not going back to an agrarian society, we are too soft and distracted, the work is too hard and we would be bored out of our fucking skulls; that we have to regulate industry, not get rid of it and how we can we possibly move forward if we don’t understand where we stand, or sit”.
“What was her response?” I asked.
“She said that she was going to the washroom to plonk her over privileged arse on a plastic toilet seat, and she never came back.”
What Can I Say
to leave no
footprint we
must fly but
never land.
On Hearing that Justin Trudeau had approved the Kinder Morgan Pipeline
there are 3
certainties
death, taxes,
corrosion.
The Stack (remix)
And what a
beautiful
plume we have
here, Nigel,
a plume with
time on its
hands, look at
it loping
across the
sky like a
giant Chinese
dragon, let’s
hail a cab
to find the
plume’s end, where
the last wisps
of vapor
drift upwards
and a blue
mist hangs, yes,
there it is
in the sky
to the west
stalking the
cars in the
parking lot
outside the
big box mall
while the sun
bawls and the
sky gets all
indignant.
***
there are 3
certainties
death, taxes
corrosion.
Poem 2 in the series “poems with titles longer than the poem itself”
In a recent interview in the New York Times Book Review, Jeffrey Toobin (author of ‘American Heiress’), when asked the question “How do you organize your books,” replied that ‘he was romantic about reading not about carbon byproducts’. He apparently does most of his reading for pleasure on an iPad.
This statement bothered me for a couple of reasons. A byproduct is “an incidental or secondary product made in the manufacture or synthesis of something else”, a book is not a byproduct of anything, it is produced using paper which contains carbon, but it is a product in itself unlike carbon which is an element and not a product.
But more than the semantics, there was something else. There was a sanctimonious whiff to the statement, a hint of greener than thou, a suggestion of the moral high ground, an implication that Jeffrey is a greater friend of the environment than all you Luddite book lovers out there (myself included). So, I set out to try and determine whether reading a book on an Ipad is greener than reading an actual book.
Strike one against the IPad is that it consumes energy every time a page is read, whereas a book once it is produced consumes no further energy (for the purpose of this discussion let’s assume that the energy or power required is generated by the combustion of fossil fuel and therefore energy consumption or the need for energy results in the generation of carbon dioxide). How much energy does it consume? To find out I used my iPad to google the question, which proves that I am not adverse to using technology (I just like books). It turns out, it can all be explained using light bulbs. It takes 1 kWh to power an iPhone for a year, that’s the equivalent of powering a 100 watt incandescent light bulb for 10 hours. The iPad consumes about 11 times that or the equivalent of the energy consumed by a 100 watt incandescent light bulb in 110 hours. Of course, not all that iPad time is spent reading a book, so in the end, relatively speaking, it is not a lot of energy; but for the purpose of establishing greenness , a small amount is still too much. In the end, using an iPad to read indirectly results in a finite amount of carbon dioxide being released to the atmosphere; whereas the act of reading a book results in zero carbon dioxide emissions.
When it comes to recyclability, the moral high ground gets more slippery. Martin LaMonica of CNET’s Green Tech says only about 10% of US electronics get recycled and, according to Greenpeace not always properly, whereas paper is more likely to be recycled. Plus you can loan that book to a friend or donate it to your public library.
There are additional energy implications, all that data has to be stored. According to Greenpeace, data storage centers are the single largest driver of new electricity demand worldwide.
This is all, of course, just to make the point that it’s called the “moral high ground” because it is difficult to attain and to say to all you book lovers out there keep on reading those paper books with a clear conscience.
By the way, by all accounts Jeffrey Toobin is one hell of a writer.
To end, a slimverse:
What Can I Say
to leave no
footprint we
must fly but
never land.
Note: The following articles were used in the making of this post – http://content.usatoday.com/communities/greenhouse/post/2010/01/is-apples-recyclable-chemical-free-ipad-really-green-/1
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