Universities, Colleges, and Schools at All Levels Must Focus on Climate Literacy and Action

June 19, 2019 Update: I recall one sad evening when my partner of 6 years, the artist Shura Young, died unexpectedly from stroke.  Breakfast and laughter followed by hospital nightmare. "There are no words," I told my artist mother.  "There are words," my mother replied.  I feel that sadness looking at Sam Panthaky's photo of an "An Indian migrant shepherd kneel[ing] down among his dead sheep at a field in Ranagadh village, Surendranagar district" -- his present, and our future for many of us.  My words are "look and feel, act and pray."  The article notes "Hundreds of Indian villages ['thousands' of people] have been evacuated as a historic drought forces families to abandon their homes in search of water. [. . .] Sick and elderly left to fend for themselves with no end in sight to water crisis [. . . .]  In Rajasthan, the city of Churu recently experienced highs of 50.8C,  [123.44 Fahrenheit] making it the hottest place on the planet. [. . . .] Usha Jadhav who lives in nearby Shivajinagar, said her family does not use the toilet any more as it has become an unaffordable luxury, and that women wait for the darkness of night to defecate in the open. 'We cannot use 5-10 litres of water for flushing as we have to purchase water,' she said."  This reality is completely off the radar screen for most North Americans, and may affect the American Southwest sooner than most think.  It is the job of artists and poets (and the world's children) to remind us of realities many tune out. Regarding the heat/drought situation in India, I added my poem "$450" below from my new book Carbonfish Blues.

June 18, 2019, Update: CBS News reported in a story "Greenland experiences severe ice melting" that "Nearly half of Greenland's ice sheet began melting this week after an unprecedented warm spell hit the Arctic region. Temperatures climbed more than 40 degrees [Fahrenheit] above average, causing an estimated 2 billion tons of ice loss. Ted Scambos, senior research scientist at the University of Colorado at Boulder's Earth Science Observation Center, joined CBSN to discuss."  

I recall Jason Box was far ahead of many scientists in his accurate warnings about Greenland. Jeff Goodell, Rolling Stone contributing editor and author of The Water Will Come: Rising Seas, Sinking Cities, and the Remaking of the Civilized World, wrote in Rolling Stone July 25, 2013, "In 2009, [Box] announced the Petermann glacier, one of the largest in Greenland, would break up that summer – a potent sign of how fast the Arctic was warming. Most glaciologists thought he was nuts – especially after the summer passed and nothing happened. In 2010, however, Petermann began to calve; two years later, it was shedding icebergs twice the size of Manhattan. Another example: In early 2012, Box predicted there would be surface melting across the entirety of Greenland within a decade. Again, many scientists dismissed this as alarmist claptrap. If anything, Box was too conservative – it happened a few months later." 

I met Box at PLAYA in July 2016 and found him honest and informed.

Thank you to Michael Clemens at Olympic Climate Action for sending "Time to Up Our Game" (on climate literacy and action) from Susan S. Silbey, Chair of the Faculty at MIT regarding refocusing curriculum that must soon happen at all educational levels.

In a related matter, thanks to Vivian Hansen, a poet and creative writing instructor at University of Calgary, for her review of my book Hawk on Wire in the Spring 2019 issue of The Goose:  A Journal of Arts, Environment, and Culture in Canada which has a theme of the role of art in environmental activism.  In this issue of The Goose, I greatly enjoyed the poems "Forest Protest Against Kinder Morgan Pipeline" by Andrea L. Nicki, and "Silence" by Memona Hossain.

$450
is the price, according to Dr. Veerabhadran Ramanathan,
“per person per year in the top one billion people” to save over
3 billion people that may otherwise die from exposure
to 130 degree plus heat
35 years from now if humans fail to convert energy sources
from coal and fossil fuels
to “solar, wind, hydro, and possibly nuclear.”

$450 is less than half the price of new iPhone X,
or about one fifth the cost of Superbowl Ticket,
or one 13.3333333 billionth projected cost of Iraq War counting interest.
Imagine one eight pound girl baking because it was more important
for you to surf Internet, be there for kickoff, silence yourself on war.

You, by the numbers, Mr. and Mrs. Average North American,
will consume 1,820 chickens, 70 turkeys, 7 cows, 35 hogs,
will watch 127, 750 hours of TV, burn 35,000 gallons of gas,
spend 114,975 hours on computer,

and what, for all you have taken, being 5% world population
producing half the world’s garbage, using 24% of her energy,
and being the largest carbon-emitting nation in history,
will you give back
to this blue gem you call home?*

* Statistics found using google.com

--Scott T. Starbuck