Industrial Oz Poem and Interview With Krista Hiser, Director at University of Hawai'i Center for Sustainability Across the Curriculum

Industrial Oz

is a drug to keep us

away from ourselves.

On a three-day solo fasting

in the North Cascades

illusions vanish, and

three options appear in dreams

by a wildflower creek:

1) Pretend life on Earth isn’t dying.

2) Pretend humans aren’t to blame.

3) Speak and write the truth.

I'm grateful for a recent interview with Krista Hiser, Director at University of Hawai'i Center for Sustainability Across the Curriculum. 

Today Matt McGrath reported at bbc.com in "Climate change: Bonn talks end in acrimony over compensation" "'The climate emergency is fast becoming a catastrophe,' said Conrod Hunte, lead negotiator for the Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS)." The article continues, "At last year's COP26 conference in Glasgow, island states and developing countries agreed to prioritise cuts to carbon emissions on the back of promises that richer nations would finally set up a compensation process this year. [ . . . . ] But despite two weeks of discussions here in Bonn, they have been unable to get the issue of a funding facility on the agenda for the COP27 conference in Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt in November."

Climate Activist Speaks With Australian Coal Miners About Climate Change

Used with permission of Multimedia Journalist & Filmmaker Kim Paul Nguyen

The above VICE News video with 750,175 views as of June 8, 2022, reminds me of my May 18, 2021 post "Thoughts and Prayers for Thousands of Klamath Falls, Oregon, Farmers/Ranchers, Facing Water Shut Off for 'First Year in History' as 'Millions of Migrating Birds' Suffer and '70% of [ . . . Downriver Salmon Smolts Are] Already Dead in the Traps Used to Collect Them,'" my August 25, 2018 post "'In Germany we should focus everything on the phase out of coal.' -- Hans Joachim Schellnhuber (Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research)" , my May 6, 2021 post "Climate Emergency and Harlan Howard's 'three chords and the truth'” and my August 29, 2018 post, "Schellnhuber: "Rising Seas Could Affect 1.4 Billion People by 2060." 

Spring term 2022, in addition to a Poetry Seminar, I taught five climate-themed sections of Critical Thinking and Intermediate Composition, and one of the students' favorite videos was David Schechter/Verify Road Trip's DOCUMENTARY: Climate skeptic examines what scientists know and how they know it in which "the skeptic, 38-year-old Justin Fain, is a 'politically conservative'  honest and curious Texas roofer with a great sense of humor [ . . . ]." One of the most disturbing videos was Climate scientists reveal their fears for the future complementing students' fears of having children.

In a related matter, my favorite recent climate article is "We cannot adapt our way out of climate crisis, warns leading scientist. Katharine Hayhoe says the world is heading for dangers people have not seen in 10,000 years of civilisation" by Fiona Harvey at The Guardian June 1, 2022. Hayhoe was quoted, “People do not understand the magnitude of what is going on. This will be greater than anything we have ever seen in the past. This will be unprecedented. Every living thing will be affected. [ . . . . ] If we continue with business-as-usual greenhouse gas emissions, there is no adaptation that is possible. You just can’t.”

I told my students to look for circles, threads, and connections. Katharine Hayhoe was also featured in Schechter/Verify Road Trip's above DOCUMENTARY . . . . The video Climate scientists reveal their fears for the future, like Nguyen's/VICE News video above, was focused mostly on Australia.