In George Orwell’s novel 1984, he wrote “It is not merely that speeches, statistics, and records of
every kind must be constantly brought up to date in order to show that the
predictions of the Party were in all cases right. It is also that no change in
doctrine or in political alignment can ever be admitted. [ . . . . ] And if the
facts say otherwise, then the facts must be altered. Thus history is
continuously rewritten. This day-to-day falsification of the past, carried out
by the Ministry of Truth, is as necessary to the stability of the regime as the
work of repression and espionage carried out by the Ministry of Love. [par
break] The mutability of the past is the central tenet of Ingsoc.”
“Australia’s 2019-2020 Fires That Killed or
Destroyed Habitat for Nearly Three Billion Animals” may be easier for readers to understand if they see just one rescued
Koala. The “Nearly Three Billion”
number, from a July 28, 2020 bbc.com article citing the World Wide Fund for
Nature (WWF), also noted an Australian “royal commission inquiry” “has heard
overwhelming evidence from scientists who said the unprecedented frequency and
severity of the blazes were a result of climate change.”
I know some people mistakenly think La Niña in the Pacific
Ocean is the major reason for Oregon’s current historic fires that various media
sources noted burned about a million acres.
The Los
Angeles Times reported Sept. 10,
2020, “So far, this [La Niña] is fairly weak.”
In contrast, oregonlive.com’s
Ted Sickenger noted Sept. 13, 2020, “ The [‘rare’ east] winds were the main
culprit in making the catastrophic infernos as fast moving as they were.” and “there
is broad consensus that climate change is driving higher temperatures, changes
in precipitation patterns and drought cycles across the west and in Western
Oregon. [ . . . . ] A 2019 report by the Oregon Climate Change Research
Institute found that fire risk due to climate change is projected to increase
across the state by mid-century, with the largest increases in the Willamette
Valley and Eastern Oregon.”
I could write many things about these fires in Oregon, California,
and Washington, but instead I’ll repeat the end of my poem “Reframe, Redefine”
from my book Hawk
on Wire:
Reframe, Redefine
How many years
did the naming monkey
fool me?
As Earth warms,
soothing words attempt
to pacify
but the ancient voice,
old as missing rain,
says look, look, look.
#
I recall in the film I Am, the Dalai Lama
said the most important meditation of our time is critical thinking followed by
action.
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