Mostly in the Afternoon

I’m going to watch the debate tonight, and hope for the best. But even if Obama wins—the debate, the election—there’s a lot of work to do to get him moving on climate change and energy policy, as well as getting all those other deadweight in Congress in line. More work is being done locally by cities, towns and individuals than on the federal level (other than the EPA standards, which are great), and that’s probably for the best, but it would help to have Obama solidly on board. Even if he can’t get bills through Congress, he can explain things to the American people, confirm their suspicious that yes the weather is very weird and will get weirder, and without pretending to know exactly what’s going to happen when or how we can avoid it, he can make it clear that both the dangers and the opportunities are too great to ignore. He can salute and support local efforts. The oil companies can’t buy every city councilman, town alderman, Silicon Valley start up, local roofing guy, smart tech gal, DIY parent with a genius 15 year old looking for a science project, etc.

I read that driving is less popular with the young. Well, sure; it’s not nearly as fun as when I was 17, when there was much more room on the road, cheaper gas, no enviro-guilt…U.S. emissions are down, too, though a lot of that is from fracking. Still. Renewables are leaping ahead, and though they have a long way to leap and not much time to do it in, this is the hopey-changey part of my message, so enjoy it, all you why-is-Margaret-so-negative- folks. You guys who whisper, It’s sad—she’d be so smart if only she wasn’t sucked into a black hole every time she switches on her brain.

 

I tend to hoard my optimism. Why share what’s rare? Sadness is what makes me want to reach out, demand reassurance, assign blame, etc. Happiness is as simple as a cat or a cake. But never mind that. When you finish this post, you’ll get a nice poem.

I just signed a petition at ClimateSilence.org, which they asked me to pass along. In their words, “Will you help me end the silence on climate change? President Barack Obama and Governor Mitt Romney have a responsibility to tell the American public about the clear and present danger of carbon pollution and how they plan to address it. I just signed the petition at ClimateSilence.org to demand they break their silence. Although words alone won’t save us, silence seals our fate.

Together, our voices can break the silence.

Please join me by signing the petition to the candidates at http://climatesilence.org.”

When I tweeted it, the message shrinkage made me think it was about seals, but that’s okay, since there’s nothing like thinking about a seal to make you want to stop global warming. We don’t want that arctic ice to melt and neither do they. We also really don’t want wildfires, drought, floods, famine and pestilence. 

 Here’s an article that may tell you a little more than you knew about the current drought (which is bad in parts of China, Russia as well). http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/science/topics/drought/index.html

 That’s it for now. Time for the cats’ dinner, our dinner.

 

Duality

 

Perhaps I hold people to impossible ideals,

I tell them, something is wrong with your

personality, (you’re a drinker, you’re

too dependent, or I think you have

a mother/son fixation). This is usually

followed by passionate lovemaking,

one good long and very well meaning

embrace, and then I’m out the door. 

 

In daylight, I’ll tip my sunglasses forward,

buy a cup of tea and think of the good

I’ve done for the world, how satisfying

it feels to give a man something to contemplate.

The heart is a whittled twig. No, that is not

the right image, so I drop the heart in a pile

of wood and light that massive text on fire.   

 

I walk the streets of Brooklyn looking

at this storefront and that, buy a pair of shoes

I can’t afford, pumps from London, pointed

at the tip and heartbreakingly high, hear

my new heels clicking, crushing the legs

of my shadow. The woman who wears

these shoes will be a warrior, will not think

about how wrong she is, how her calculations

look like the face of a clock with hands

ticking with each terrorizing minute.

 

She will for an instant feel so much

for the man, she left him lying in his bed

softly weeping. He whispers something

to himself  like bitch, witch, cold hearted

______,  but he’ll think back to the day

at the promenade when there was no one there

but the two of them, the entire city falling away

into a thin film of yellow and then black,

 

and how she squeezed his hand, kissed him

on his wrist which bore a beautifully healed

scar, he will love her between instances

of cursing her name. She will have long

fallen asleep in her own bed, a thin nude

with shoes like stilts, shoes squeezing

the blood out of her feet, and in her sleep

she rises above a disappearing city, her head

touching a remote heaven, though below her,

closer to the ground, she feels an ache at the bottom.

 

–Tina Chang

 

 

 

Tagged: climate change, ClimateSilence, presidential debate, tina chang duality