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GLOBAL WARMING: A RETORT
Rhode Island, USA., Planet Earth. Summer 2007.
“I know, Mom — we were born into extra innings.
We’ll play it out.”
For E.K.J.
“How arrogant of men to think that man
has made, and might reverse, Earth’s warming trend,”
our son exclaimed. “Not that we shouldn’t ban
the toxins spewed into the air no end . . . .
This warming trend arousing all our fears
is not due just to man. It’s number five
Earth’s seen in just four hundred thousand years
(the Holocene) — from data we derive
through EPICA and Vostok’s deep ice bores.
Nor can we impact more than greenhouse gasses.
Take other factors from outside man’s doors:
For one, the wobbles in Earth’s solar passes.
Add shifts in how the Moon goes round the Earth.
Sites of tectonic plates, their moves, the heat
through volcanism they are giving birth
to — all change ocean’s hot-cold balance sheet.
Most crucial are sun’s fusion energies —
in sunspots, flares, in solar winds, and more.
They cycle widely in intensities,
impacting Earth in ways most folks ignore.
So by all means, let’s cut consumption of
our heat sink fossil fuels. They do pollute
the skies and seas. They poison folks we love . . . .
We’ll slow, but not reverse, Earth’s course en route
to ending ‘up-ticks’ in her cyclic norm
so scorched she might well trip a cycle switch,
reverting to an ice-ball. Life with warm
blood will die off — of thirst, and loss of niche.”
Leland Jamieson lives and writes in East Hampton, Connecticut, USA.
Recent and forthcoming work appears in numerous print and Internet magazines. His first book,
21st Century Bread: Poems, can be previewed and is available at
Lulu.
Email: Leland Jamieson
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