This week over 250 news and publication outlets have signed on to Covering Climate Now to promote climate coverage in anticipation of the UN Climate Action Summit this week. Surprise, Breitbart and Fox news didn’t sign on; however, publications like Science, The Guardian, Lithub and lots of others are publishing much-needed articles. In particular, Time does a great job with the latest issue focused entirely on Climate Change with a headline that reads “2050: How Earth Survived.” Inside is a poem called “Great Barrier” by Barbarbara Kingsolver and an article by Bill McKibben called “Hello From the Year 2050. We Avoided the Worst of Climate Change — But Everything Is Different.”
McKibben (who has been mentioned more on this blog than anyone else!) also just wrote a New Yorker column Money is the Oxygen on which the Fire of Global Warming Burns. He starts with this: “I’m skilled at eluding the fetal crouch of despair—because I’ve been working on climate change for thirty years, I’ve learned to parcel out my angst, to keep my distress under control. But, in the past few months, I’ve more often found myself awake at night with true fear-for-your-kids anguish.” Ugh. The article tells us how we can make changes that will work – as we all know money talks and is probably the best way to make changes. I’m so proud that the UC system just announced that they will divest from fossil fuels with their $13.4-billion endowment and $70-billion pension fund. Other important articles about Climate Change over the last few weeks are Rebecca Solnit’s hopeful Welcome to the US, Greta and Jonathan Franzen’s controversial, pessimistic article in New Yorker “What if We Stopped Pretending the Climate Apocalypse Can be Stopped?” School walkouts are planned for this Friday and next – I hope people are paying attention.
In a time of climate grief, in a time that feels fleeting and fragile, in a time where it feels like nothing can be done to stop the impending changes – I read an incredible book about appreciating the birds and plants and changing seasons in a Nashville yard, and I am so grateful! The very best books and poems are the ones where nature is front and center. Writers like Wendell Berry, Robert Penn Warren, Mary Oliver, Barbara Kingsolver, Richard Powers – and now Margaret Renkl – are the ones I turn to over and over. I just finished Renkl’s book Late Migrations and I am floored. I read it slow – every day I’d read 2 or 3 of the 1-2 page essays in the book. Reading more than that was too much. Tears, lumps in my throat, deep sighs, underlining, and re-reading sentences and entire essays. Renkl weaves family and nature and love and loss into heart-wrenching sentences and super short essays. I finished the book and wanted more – so I went back and read all of her weekly NYT articles that I’ve missed over the last few years. She reminds me of the all-time best columnist, Susan Ager. In this week’s article she talks about pollinators – did you know that the monarch butterfly population is down 99 percent(!!WTF!!) West of the Rockies since 1996 (when round-up resistant crops were first planted).
Here’s a snippet from Renkl to make you read Late Migrations (which my family will be getting for Christmas this year – and you should buy it for everyone in your family):
Holy Holy Holy by Margaret Renkl
On the morning after my mother’s sudden death, before I was up, someone brought a basket of muffins, good coffee beans, and a bottle of cream—real cream, unwhipped—left them at the back door, and tiptoed away. I couldn’t eat. The smell of coffee turned my stomach, but my head was pounding from all the what ifs playing across it all night long, and I thought perhaps the cream would make a cup of coffee count as breakfast if I could keep it down. And when I poured the tiniest drip of cream into my cup, it erupted into tiny volcanic bubbles in a hot spring, unspooling skeins of bridal lace, fireworks over a dark ocean, stars streaking across the night sky above a silent prairie.
And that’s how I learned the world would go on. An irreplaceable life had winked out in an instant, but outside my window the world was flaring up in celebration. Someone was hearing, “It’s benign.” Someone was saying, “It’s a boy.” Someone was throwing out her arms and crying, “Thank you! Thank you! Oh, thank you!”
Other good reads lately are the escapist, fun City of Girls by Elizabeth Gilbert (anything by her!!) and a collection of essays about life and where it leads you by Renkl’s friend (and Parnassus Books blogger) Mary Laura Philpott’s I Miss You When I Blink. Also, Fleishman is in Trouble by Taffy Ager about a marriage falling apart in NYC – I’m a little tired of the Brooklyn setting books, but there was some interesting parts to this one. Mrs Everything by Jennifer Weiner is like Judy Blume for adults. This one takes place in Detroit suburbs and follows the paths of two sisters – can’t stop reading material. I started reading a creepy, snappy book called Providence , and thought it reminded me of something – then I realized it is by the author of “You,” which we just binge watched on Netflix. I love crazy old Hollywood stories packed with juicy tidbits, and Castle on Sunset: Death, Love , Art, and Scandal at Hollywood’s Chateau Marmont by Shawn Levy does not disappoint.
I listened to some great books on audio that made my commute manageable- I recommend all of them. Evvie Drake Starts Over by Linda Holmes (she leads one of my favorite podcasts “Pop Culture Happy Hour”), The Whisper Network by Chandler Baker (this is about #metoo and all its implications – well done), and Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller (I literally grinned in delight at the scenes where Patroculus encounters the Centaur or Odyssesus or Thetis).
I love the essayist Leslie Jamison and how she writes about empathy-this short article, Baggage Claims, has me excited about her new collection coming out this week.
A few weeks ago when we were in Denver, I fell into a conversation with a Lyft driver about books for 45 minutes. She was one of the most well-read people I have ever met. At the end she asked me for a list because she was going to head directly to the used bookstore that she frequents to pick up a few of the titles we had discussed. When the ride ended, she gave me a huge hug and asked me for the third time when I am going to write a book. I can’t stop thinking about the encounter – meeting a fellow reader also feels so good!
I’m about to get started on the onslaught of books that come out in the Fall (starting with The Testaments by Margaret Atwood) but I think I’ve already read my favorite book of the year.
Find a Climate March this week or next and go support the kids fighting for the world they will inherit.
My Big Red Glasses 