Climate Change Poem 14

Snag, June 2006

Two global events are occurring on September 24, 2011:

1. Moving Planet, a worldwide rally to demand solutions to the climate crisis.


2. 100 Thousand Poets for Change, a demonstration/celebration of poetry to promote serious social, environmental, and political change.


I thought: Why not do both?

Barring an emergency, I am posting from midnight to midnight, one poem per hour (at any time during that hour). That's starting from 00:00-01:00 and ending at 23:00-24:00 Eastern Time today.

All the poems are sonnets. Each takes its cue from an article dealing with climate change. The articles had been posted beginning on September 15 -- the date of the 24-hour Climate Reality Project that inspired me to do this -- to September 19, the day I drafted the twenty-fourth poem.

The poem for Hour 14 takes its cue from "'Snowmaggedon'? Nope. Just the Opposite" (Jessica Marshall, Discovery News, Sept. 16, 2011).

Dueling Extremes

The past two winters may have seemed too cold:
The twenty-first and thirty-fourth extreme.
But warmth extremes were also to behold,
And those placed twelfth and fourth in that same scheme,

Which measured, back to nineteen-forty-eight,
The winters in the northern hemisphere.
And though Snowpocalypse was given weight,
The coldest means that no snow should appear.

The North Atlantic Oscillation brought
Cold weather as a natural affair,
And should have made us colder, but for naught.
The true extremes expected were not there.

What made the news were days of ice and sleet,
But winter's strongest showing was its heat.

Audio (1:15):

Part of the Solution website (chosen at random)
Blue Channel 24, journalism specializing in environmental issues, ecology and conservation
Elissa Malcohn's Deviations and Other JourneysPromote Your Page Too Vol. 1, Deviations: Covenant (2nd Ed.), Vol. 2, Deviations: Appetite, Vol. 3, Deviations: Destiny, Vol. 4, Deviations: Bloodlines, Vol. 5, Deviations: TelZodo, Vol. 6 and conclusion: Deviations: Second Covenant.Free downloads at the Deviations website (click here for alternate link), Smashwords, and Manybooks.

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