Climate Change Poem 24

Phaon Crescent butterfly, August 2007

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 24 takes its cue from "Extra, Extra: Getting a Headstart on Oktoberfest, and Kickstarting Green Ideas" (Meg Campbell, Torontoist, Sept. 19, 2011).

Climate of Invention

From ways to see that traffic idles less,
To contests for the greenest balcony,
Toronto's ClimateSpark may well impress.
Its social venture challenge strategy

Calls citizens, non-profits to combine
And innovate a climate-saving plan
That has a sound financial bottom line.
The public votes on which suggestion can

Advance. Perhaps compressed air power train
Or zoo-fueled biogas will strike the mood.
An app for finding parking without pain.
An urban carbon neutral neighborhood.

Investment, loans, and grants will be the prize.
The object is to revolutionize.

Audio (1:12):

Part of the Solution website (chosen at random)
Sierra Club.
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.

Proud participant, Operation E-Book Drop (provides free e-books to personnel serving overseas. Logo from the imagination and graphic artistry of K.A. M'Lady & P.M. Dittman); Books For Soldiers (ships books and more to deployed military members of the U.S. armed forces); and Shadow Forest Authors (a fellowship of authors and supporters for charity, with a focus on literacy). This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.5 License.