21st Century Man

In reversal of Abraham Lincoln’s famous words, here is my quote for 21st Century Man:

“Die when I may, I want it said of me by those who knew me best, that I always plucked a flower and planted a thistle where I thought a thistle would grow.”

I thought of this when I read how COP28 President, Dr. Sultan Al Jaber’s “UAE Consensus [which included] an unprecedented reference to transitioning away from all fossil fuels in energy systems [ . . . ] to reach net zero emissions by 2050, in keeping with the science” was challenged by Saudi Aramco CEO Amin Nasser, as quoted by Spencer Kimball in a March 19, 2024 cnbcafrica.com article, “We should abandon the fantasy of phasing out oil and gas and instead invest in them adequately reflecting realistic demand assumptions.” According to the article, he said this March 18, 2024, at “CERAWeek by S&P Global energy conference in Houston, Texas.” I found the issue in Bill McKibben’s Substack The Crucial Years March 26, 2024, post “2100, and before,” and saw it in Dan Gearino’s March 28, 2024 Inside Climate News report, “An Oil Company Executive Said the Energy Transition Has Failed. What’s Really Happening?”

Obviously, Nasser doesn’t agree with Dr. Sultan Al Jaber’s quote at the close of COP28, “The world needed to find a new way. By following our North Star, we have found that path.” Gearino was less kind than me, noting, “[Nasser’s] reasoning verges on nihilism, declaring defeat on behalf of the governments, businesses and other organizations that are working to reduce the damage that the oil industry has helped to cause. It’s also bad for business and the economy, like telling Henry Ford in about 1910 that cars had failed to transform the market, so focus on improving horses and carriages.” Gearino added, “I thought of the years I worked for newspapers and the way corporate executives talked about the industry’s bright future. This involved highlighting the good numbers and downplaying the bad ones, and focusing on how the product was indispensable. [par break] The executives’ optimism made me feel a little better in the moment, but they were, of course, wrong.”

Gratefully, abrupt climate policy reversals can go the other way too like when Rockefeller Brothers Fund in 2014 announced divestment from “coal, oil, and gas.” Bill McKibben’s article “Climate fight won’t wait for Paris: vive la résistance” March 9, 2015, in The Guardian, noted “As the head of the Rockefeller Brothers Fund put it, ‘We are quite convinced that if John D Rockefeller were alive today, as an astute businessman looking out to the future, he would be moving out of fossil fuels and investing in clean, renewable energy.’ This is the rough equivalent of the Pope appearing at his Vatican window in saffron robes to tell the crowd below he’s now a Hare Krishna, or Richard Dawkins showing up at Lourdes in a bathing suit.”

Similarly, Melissa Godin reported January 15, 2020, in a time.com article, “James Murdoch Criticizes His Father’s Media Empire Over Climate Crisis Denial,” “James Murdoch has spoken out against his father Rupert’s media outlets for their ‘ongoing denial’ of the climate crisis as bushfires continue to ravage Australia. [par break] In a joint statement with his wife Kathryn, the couple expressed frustration with News Corp and Fox News’ coverage of the fires. ‘They are particularly disappointed with the ongoing denial among the news outlets in Australia given the obvious evidence to the contrary,’ a spokesperson for the couple told The Daily Beast.”

In my December 18, 2017 post “Just Fight It (Climate Breakdown)” I wrote, “ask parents, uncles, aunts, mayors, governors, senators, representatives, priests, pastors, other religious leaders, and elders what they have done to reduce carbon.” Imagine Jesus overturning tables of moneychangers in Matthew 21:12-13, or Roger Daltrey singing in 1978, and ask ‘When it comes to the war between Big Oil and Life on Earth, ‘Who Are You [?]’” None of us are here long so it should be clear exactly who we are.

My favorite recent item is Climate Pulse, “a new interactive web application developed and maintained by the Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) to make climate monitoring more accessible to a broad audience. This page provides daily charts and maps of global surface air temperature and sea surface temperature updated close to real-time, as well as an archive of past daily, monthly and annual maps.”

I’m grateful my recent climate poems have been accepted by Clackamas Literary Review, Salmon Creek Journal at Washington State University Vancouver, and Panorama: The Journal of Travel, Place, and Nature in Cambridge, and London, UK.