Poems, Science

A Polluter’s Lament

32 Comments
Featured Image taken by Dori (dori@merr.info)

Last week’s White House National Climate Assessment was remarkably blunt about the reality of our situation – that we are already experiencing the effects of an environmental shift.

For some of us in the baby boom generation who have been following this issue for a long time, this comes as a surprising development. Yes, we had heard that our habits of consumption were contributing to a potential catastrophe, but it always felt our role was simple – to create the problem and then to start a conversation about how later generations would face it and solve it.

Sorry about the mess, guys. Good luck!

Now this latest report seems to suggest the we are not going to be able to skip out on the check after all. Any chance I can go back and un-drive all those miles and un-click all those switches that let the power flow?

I didn’t think so. Would a poem of atonement help? I asked Trail Baboon sing-song poet laureate Tyler Schuyler Wyler to write one up, and he agreed because every stanza could include a reference to death – his favorite subject.

The warming fields and rising seas
The melting ice and dying trees
The drying lakes that will not freeze
This all has come up by degrees.

We’d heard it was a thing to dread.
And by our habits it was sped.
But also was it often said,
It won’t get bad ’til we are dead.

But now they say it has arrived!
Not something still to be derived
for our descendants to survive.
It came while we are still alive!

Our sadness, is, of course, profound.
For glacial ice now in the sound
and forest creatures elsewhere bound,
and us, that we remain around.

What have you witnessed that you thought you would never get to see?

32 thoughts on “A Polluter’s Lament”

  1. Very clever poem, Dale.
    You need to remember how ancient I am. When I was a kid horses still pulled milk wagons, garbage wagons and the ice man’s blocks of ice. And, yes, we had an ice box.

    The thing I’ve been most surprised to see is general acceptance of homosexual unions.

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    1. Oh, Ancient One. You comment on the essence of human progress in our century(s). I thought I would never hear that the Ancient One would move to Portland!

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    2. O/T: I’m confused by today’s format – rather than opening on “Comments”, I had to click on “LIKE”. Then I co!uldn’t figure out how to post my own comment without clicking “REPLY” on another person’s comment. Help

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  2. Rise and Shine Baboons!

    I never even conceived of the thought that I might own 4 computers (do iPads count as computers. I think so).
    That an odd little Folk Music Show on Saturday nights would become an international thing–PHC.
    I NEVER thought I would see myself own a business which actually employs 9 contractors.
    I did not think I would witness the Trail Baboon chugging onward for how long now? 3 years? 4 years?

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  3. i thought that it could never be
    that glaciers all become the sea
    it really really bothers me
    that kilimenjaro with unsnowy be

    the scientists will have to find
    a way to fix the greedy mind
    of man who spews stuff unrefined
    into the into the skies and seas unkind

    later has been the conclusion
    oil companies will find inclusion
    in the list of planet detroying collusion
    in the name of greed they’re guilty of choosin

    our children will wonder why we sat by
    did nothing while these pigs poked us in the eye
    all in the name of mine mine mine
    with offenders lobbying self interest lies

    thank you for news that its not all later
    the world today is a green deflater
    ive become an oil company hater
    see you later alligator

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  4. Good morning. I was hoping that significant change would happen and the world would be a better place. I couldn’t imagine how a guy like George W. Bush could be elected to second term as our president. There is a lot of work to do before the world can become a better place including work on climate change. Some things have made surprising changes for the better. Nelson Mandela spent many years in jail and came out of jail to lead his country. There was a time when almost no one would have thought that possible.

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  5. Oaxaca, Mexico. An extremely beautiful and very southern part of MX. Mountain foothills, Ancient ruins, and Pineapple fields. Veracruz and Belize were wonderful as well. “Did You Know?… more people are killed by falling coconuts than shark attacks.” said the man climbing up the 50 foot tall tree as he disappeared in the tree-top palms. The fresh milk from a coconut was dee-lish! Ahhhh, tamales, mole, and hand-woven hammocks for $10 (USD) back in 1999. Now, excuse me while I reminisce longingly……

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  6. We Gen-Xers were convinced that nuclear war and nuclear winter would end humanity if not the entire planet, so the fact that we’re here at all is kind of a surprise. I remember the Berlin Wall, and soon after that the Soviet Union, falling. That was one heckuva surprise, too (my dad didn’t believe it for many years; he was certain it was all a Soviet trick to put the West off its guard so they could attack. I suspect he died disappointed that he hadn’t yet been proven right).

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      1. I learned this morning that Merkel, the Chancellor of Germany, has proposed a meeting and Putin is willing to attend, but our government has not responded at all to this offer which could be a step toward bringing an end to the situation in the Ukraine. It seems our government wants to engage in cold war politics instead of working toward a peaceful solution.

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        1. i think obama has learned that meetings with the other side when the other side has the outcome decided before the discssion begins are fruitless and compromise is a joke. putin does not want to figure ot a way to solve this dilemma he wants to put on the putin show and take off his shirt

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        2. It would be hard to convince many people in this country that Obama is not following the right course by not enter into a discussion with Putin, Merkel, and others about the situation in the Ukraine. That is the line that has been sold to the American public. It is not necessarily true. We need to be more diplomatic in the way we interact with the rest of the world. If Merkel has proposed a meeting and Putin is willing to participate, I think we should participate.

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  7. You always seem to come up with the toughest questions on Monday morning, Dale. 😦 I have to plead a “George Carlin” on this and say that nothing humans do really surprises me. Like Carlin, I feel like I’ve got a ringside seat to the freakshow that is humanity. Some and/or all of what we humans do is funny, stupid, amazing, inspiring, cruel, hateful, loving, horrible, destructive, constructive, or a combination of all.

    And, just when I think we can’t stoop lower into the morass or fly higher than the stars, someone comes along and lowers or raises that particular bar. If nothing else, life is endlessly interesting. I guess the Chinese toast/greeting/curse has come true: “May you live in interesting times.”

    Chris in Owatonna

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  9. I never thought I would get to the end of “Gone to Soldiers” (770 dense pages), Marge Piercy’s book that we read for last weekend’s Baboon Book Club, about all aspects of WW II. I can never quite fathom the depths of man’s inhumanity to man. But simultaneously there are so many acts of kindness and courage when the chips are down, it gives one hope.

    And to tell you the truth, I never thought Obama would get elected.

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  10. i remember thinking in awe that there is no way the would ever get dick tracys wrist radios up and running. then i saw in disney furterama the person sitting in front of a tv on america talking to a friend in japan…no way then captain kangaroo had a telephone with a little tv screen on it so you could talk to the person and see them at the same time. untinkable. now i wish i could get away form my phone for some peace and quiet.
    did you see the story on cbs sunday morning about the woman who married a new york anthropologist who took her from the amazon jungle to new york city. she couldnt handle it. and left him and the three kids to get back to where the world is the way it is supposed to be. i can relate.

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  11. I am surprised it never dawned on me my health would take a downhill turn. I am me infallible never short on energy or drive or reasons to put off the logical thing because I can argue for the right thing in another view and then slowly slowly slowly it dawns on me that going up the stairs is my exercise that bed by 11 is a good idea that not eating gluten help me feel less bloated … Jesus who snuck in here with me…. Out damn spot…my children think of me as an old man, my wife thinks of me as old and when I had my heart issues last week they all thought I was going to die. I knew it was just the same old shit is been in consciences by for the last little while reminding me the page was turning. Belts don’t work suspenders make me look like wilford brimley
    The Matisse exhibit had a statue of a bronze torso that looked exactly like me and it wasn’t good. I am in here with the lightning bug soul same as when I used to get excited sneaking out at night to have adventures but now I nod off to sleep on Sunday afternoons in my chair after a bowl of pasta. I had breakfast with a table full of old people this morning and while I walked in there was a table full of old guys sitting there and I realized that was just a different table of old guys than the one I would sit down at in a minute.
    I never gave it a thought that my dad was getting old until one day he undeniably was… I never thought I’d be wondering how long it would be til I went Alzheimer’s and deaf and lost my vision and my ability to enjoy wonderful food and wine. Now I know it’s coming and I will do what I can to hold it off but that old guy across the table from me was two years younger and talking about retirement and looking like he needed it. I never thought id see the day….

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  12. I never thought that i would see
    a poem as lovely as a tree.

    I never thought i would see – oh, forget it, I can’t write in rhyme. I never thought i would see so many phones that are so portable and so ubiquitous. Seriously – i can remember PARTY LINES. (I told that to a young acquaintance once and you can imagine his response: “what’s a party line?”) Answering machines were amazing when they came along, and then cordless phones were mind-blowing – to not be tethered to a cord! Wow! i remember the first time I heard someone talking on a cell phone in a public place. There she was, walking around Target – yack, yack, yack, not caring that everyone could hear her side of the conversation. Now I can hardly imagine going some place where I DON’T hear someone yacking on a cell phone.

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