Southern Bookman

Thinking about climate change at a luxury beach resort

I tried to enjoy our visit to a resort on the Atlantic Ocean last weekend.

Before our trip through Georgia to north Florida, a U.N. report said that the world's oceans are endangered by climate change. The oceans have exhausted their capacity to absorb carbon. As the oceans warm, acidity rises, threatening sealife. Melting ice will raise sea levels, eventually flooding the luxury condos and hotels at places like Amelia Island, where we stayed.

Witnessing the Atlantic's majesty gives the illusion that the ocean is invulnerable to human activity. But Islands of plastic foul the Pacific. The Atlantic is warming. Coral reefs and fish are dying.. Already, cities like Miami experience regular flooding. Unable to break my habit of reading a newspaper, I saw something about right whales dying after hurling themselves onto dry land.

Like the other guests, we enjoyed the ocean, the swimming pools, the restaurants, the luxury shops. We walked along the golf course, which requires gallons of water to stay green.

On a cruise to Cumberland Island, we saw dolphins, a shark, ospreys and other birds, and Cumberland's feral horses. The tour guide said wild shrimp flourish. Long polluted, the Amelia River is now clean, and oyster beds have returned.  Nature seemed fine.

Looking at the waves crash against the beach, I couldn't stop thinking about that U.N. report.  The ocean, from where human life emerged, is in serious trouble.

We kept seeing small children, newborn babies and pregnant women. Congratulating a mother with a 4-week-old infant, I realized that the child likely wil live until 2100. If the world doesn't act soon to stop climate change, the baby during her life will experience a far more desolate world than ours.

I did well enjoying the luxury surroundings until I saw sprinklers spraying an abandoned tennis court, which received more water than the surrounding shrubbery. Gallons of water wasted.

Before heading home, we filled up with gasoline. As we reached Atlanta, the gas tank was almost empty. Along with the others hurtling down the highway, we had sent emissions into the atmosphere. A radio talk show said that a country plans zero carbon emissions by 2050. I said to myself, "2050? We don't have that much time."

The 90-degree days march into October.

 

 

The 200th anniversary of Keats' "To Autumn"

Refreshed by a pleasant breeze as I walked in my neighborhood last evening, I thought about John Keats' "To Autumn."

After observing freshly cut cornfields during a walk, Keats wrote the poem on this date 200 years ago. Each year, I reread the poem on one of those mild autumnal days like the one that inspired Keats.

I never realized until reading Garrison Keillor's now emailed "Writers' Almanac" this morning that Sept. 19 was the day Keats wrote "To Autumn," his last major poem. It was a revelation that the ode to autumn was written in late summer.

Many of the poem's images are more like summer, adding to the sense of longing for a new season. The evocation of summer adds to the poem's foreshadowing of death. Keats died a little more than a year after writing the poem.

"To Autumn" was the last of the great odes he produced beginning in the spring of 1819. Despite that astonishing outpouring, Keats grew despondent  over financial worries, the belief that he'd failed as a poet and the realization that he was dying from tuberculosis.

I, like others, believe the poem the most perfect in the English language. What appears a simple celebration of the arrival of autumn has received many interpretations, the coming of death the most prevalent. Noted critic Helen Vendler sees it as a metaphor for artistic creation. Somehow, it's been linked to the Peterloo Massacre, which happened the same year. Difficult to see that connection.

What haunts me about the poem is its understanding of the impermanence of human experience. A young poet knew the reality of walking, the vision of the cornfield, the writing of the poem. He was there 200 years ago, giving us a gift that has spoken to generations.

To Autumn

Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness

Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun

Conspiring with him how to load and bless

With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves run;

To bend with apples the moss'd cottage-trees,

And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;

To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells

With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,

And still more, later flowers for the bees,

Until they think warm days will never cease,

For Summer has o'er-brimm'd their clammy cells.

Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store?

Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may find

Thee sitting careless on a granary floor,

Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind;

Or on a half-reap'd furrow sound asleep,

Drows'd with the fume of poppies, while thy hook

Spares the next swath and all its twined flowers:

And sometimes like a gleaner thou dost keep

Steady thy laden head across a brook;

Or by a cider-press, with patient look,

Thou watchest the last oozings hours by hours.

Where are the songs of Spring? Ay, where are they?

Think not of them, thou hast thy music too,–

While barred clouds bloom the soft-dying day,

And touch the stubble-plains with rosy hue;

Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn

Among the river sallows, borne aloft

Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies;

And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn;

Hedge-crickets sing; and now with treble soft

The red-breast whistles from a garden-croft;

And gathering swallows twitter in the skies.

September arrives, but summer remains

In years past, we would have enjoyed a touch of autumn by now.

September no longer marks the end of summer. Temperatures remain in the mid-90s. The continuing heat affects wildlife. Yesterday, I chased off a crazed squirrel that had run up our glass-paneled back door.

I still look forward to the season changing, the arrival of fall, the promise of new beginnings. As is my custom, I played "Try to Remember" on the piano. I'll play the wistful song from "The Fantasticks" all month, meditating upon the passage of youth and time's quickening pace. I'll also seek to learn "September Song" at last.

As climate change progresses, I wonder if future generations will enjoy the coming of autumn, cooler days, the eruption of color.

 

$20 milliion for Amazon Rainforest? Soccer stars, golfers receive more than that

The G7 nations pledged a pathetic $20 million to help stop the Amazon Rainforest fires.

Rory McIllroy won $15 million in winning the Tour Championship golf tournament Sunday.

I'm sure a Brazilian soccer star would receive more money from a European team.

Leonardo DiCaprio's foundation pledged $5 million in Amazon aid.

But the world's richest nations could only come up with $20 million. Our fine president didn't even deign to attend the meeting called to discuss the Amazon emergency. The smoke and flames are fake news to him.

When Notre Dame burned last spring, $1 billion in contributions were raised in two days.

But the destruction of the rainforest called the Earth's lungs brings pocket change.

Now it appears that Brazil's thug president Jair Bolsonaro will reject the G7's woeful offer.  I can't really blame him; the European pledge looks condescending.

Bolsonaro probably would not use the money for the Amazon fires anyway. $20 million's not a lot to stop the destruction of the Amazon, but some Bolsonaro crony surely would welcome it.

The G7 probably spent $20 million on state dinners during the meeting in France. Or on gowns for the first ladies.

The Amazon keeps burning as the world does nothing.

 

 

 

 

 

Amazon fires a threat to humanity

The Amazon burning looks like the apocalypse.

Fires bringing afternoon darkness to Sao Paulo, 1,500 miles away, were deliberately set, an activist seeking to save the rainforest said on the Chris Hayes show Thursday night.

She said the arsonists were encouraged by Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, the right-wing loon who wants agricultural development of the home of countless species and generator of 20 percent of the world's oxygen.

Hayes pointed out that the Amazon, which absorbs carbon as the world's main barrier against climate change, is now spewing tons of carbon into the atmosphere.

Rather than taking any effective action to stop the fires, Bolsonaro launched a twitter feud with French President Emmanuel Macron, who wants G7 leaders meeting this weekend to discuss action on the Amazon emergency. Bolsarno accused Macron of meddling in Brazilian affairs, while displaying total befuddlement about stopping the conflagration. To him, short-term economic gains take precedence over the world's survival.

While Donald Trump's plan to buy Greenland is fatuous, perhaps the world can purchase whatever's left of the Amazon from Brazil and other countries and make the rainforest a global preserve. Of course, Trump would object, seeing the Amazon as a great place for a hotel and golf course.

In April, Macon vowed to rebuild Notre Dame after the world watched in horror as the ancient cathedral burned. The Amazon can't be rebuilt. Once it's gone, it's gone forever

 

Jay Inslee's exit a blow to Democratic campaign

Washington Gov. Jay Inslee ended his presidential campaign Wednesday night, a serious blow for the Democratic Party.

Inslee based his campaign on climate change as the world's dominant issue, calling for a massive effort to reduce its threat to humanity. An articulate, informed and pleasant campaigner, Inslee presented a range of other progressive ideas.

The large number of candidates in the first two presidential debates gave Inslee less time than he deserved. Lesser candidates such as John Delaney, Tulsi Gabbard and the goofy Marianne Williamson received more attention than he did. CNN was especially egregious in silencing Inslee.

Inslee in withdrawing told MSNBC's Rachel Maddow that he believed he'd succeeded in making climate change a main campaign issue. On the day after Inslee's withdrawal, Sen. Bernie Sanders issued a major green energy proposal.

But Inslee's loss will weaken future debates and lower the energy needed to defeat Donald Trump.

 

Georgia Health News and WebMD score scoop on toxic chemical's release

A massive public protest has erupted over two suburban Atlanta plants spewing the cancer-causing chemical ethylene oxide into the air.

Galvanized by a report by the online news sites Georgia Health News and WebMD, residents near the Sterigenics plant in Smyrna and the BD plant in Covington packed two public meetings this week and demanded action.

Business-friendly Gov. Brian Kemp moved to halt the companies' toxic releases, while Democratic legislators and local government officials called for the plants to be shut down until further tests can be done.

Founded by my former Atlanta Journal-Constitution colleague Andy Miller, Georgia Health News has been an invaluable source of medical and environmental information for a number of years. It's a pioneering model for nonprofit online news.

The Georgia Health News' success gives hope that nonprofit online news sites can fill the gap in coverage left by the decline in daily newspapers across the nation.

As the public concern ballooned over the ethylene oxide emissions, I wondered what other toxic chemicals stew in Atlanta's air, emitted by vehicles and businesses. Carbon emissions keep rising as climate change advances locally, nationally and globally.

The same level of public outrage over the ethylene oxide releases is required to reduce carbon emissions and stop the worst effects of climate change. So far, most residents in Atlanta and elsewhere have ignored climate change's threat.

 

 

Trump lays waste to Endangered Species Act

The Endangered Species Act is another American institution trashed by Trump.

Passed during the Richard Nixon administration, the act showed that the country cared as much about its natural heritage as it did about economic exploitation. The act protected animals like the bald eagle and Florida alligator that are part of our national identity.

Trump doesn't care. George W. Bush sought to weaken the act, but it survived. The Reagan administration and its anti-governmental philosophy didn't overturn the law. Now the Trump administration will let developers have their way in destroying natural habitat.

As CNN reported, Trump had already tossed aside EPA scientists in allowing an oil and copper mine at Bristol Bay in Alaska. Environmentalists fear the Pebble Mine will destroy the bay's salmon. Trump apparently personally approved the mine after a meeting with Alaska Gov. Mike Dunleavy, who cares nothing about his state's natural resources.

The EPA is another Nixon administration legacy that Trump is gutting. The GOP once listed conservation as one of its cornerstones. Beginning with Reagan, the party of Theodore Roosevelt has boosted mining, oil, natural gas and construction over the environment.

But the GOP never fully realized its anti-environmental agenda. It still when politically necessary followed voters' desire to preserve natural areas.

Now, with Trump, the GOP is fulfilling its dream to drill in every natural area, drain every wetland, concrete over every forest and meadow.

The new Endangered Species Act regulations will let developers for the first time present alleged "economic benefits" of a project. To Trump and his cronies, natural habitats have no economic benefits. The economic benefits will be what a developer says they are. That means whatever profits can be squeezed  from a place where wildlife once thrived.

Can Atlanta keep wasting water?

A neighbor watered his lush green lawn Thursday night, just after a new report on the earth's vanishing resources.

Four nozzles sent sent streams from every corner of the yard. Down the street, another neighbor watered his front yard with an old-fashioned back and forth device attached to a hose.

The watering in North Atlanta has tenuous connection to the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's report that deforestation and poor land use will cause a global food crisis. The New Yorker's Carolyn Kormann produced a full summary, connecting land degradation in Africa to Amazon deforestation.

Poor areas in Africa, Asia and South America will be the most hurt by water scarcity, soil degradation, and once fertile areas turning into desert. Rich countries like the United States will be less affected, although migration from countries like Guatemala, El Salvadore and Honduras will burgeon.

While I understand my neighbors' desire to keep their lawns green, the watering struck me as wasteful. Atlanta had received a heavy rainfall only a few days before. Was the excessive watering necessary?

For years, experts have warned that Atlanta's torrid population growth would threaten its water supply. Georgia, Alabama and Florida have battled for years over Atlanta taking more and more water from the Chattahoochee River. Over the years, Atlanta has undergone severe droughts.

When I covered the Georgia Legislature several years ago, I never heard any mention of climate change or global warming. The Republican-controlled General Assembly and then Gov. Nathan Deal believed economic growth would last forever, and that the state will be immune from global climate changes.

Savannah might sink under rising Atlantic waters, but at least it will have remnants of the port. Jekyll and Cumberland islands will lose beaches. The Chattahoochee will be reduced to a trickle.

As temperatures grow hotter and emissions rise, Atlantans build bigger homes, drive larger cars, and keep watering heir lawns. Some day, the bill will come due.

 

 

A morning walk, as the planet burns

I've been walking in the morning, enjoying cooler temperatures and low humidity in Atlanta.

Those I meet along the way comment how nice it is, compared with the 90-plus days of a week or so ago.

Morning brings hope: The newly risen sun shining through the trees. People walking their dogs. Folks driving off to work.

Meanwhile, in Paris, temperatures rise above 100 degrees. Paris!

In London, insufferable heat has replaced the mild summers of Shakespeare's plays.

A new report in the British journal Nature found that warming is now uniform across the globe. For most of the last 2000 years, warming and cooling have occurred at different places at different times, even events like the Little Ice Age. But now, temperatures keep rising at the same time over most of the globe.

It's a beautiful morning. They used to not seem so rare.