You may have seen the headline “After Earth’s hottest day recorded on Sunday, Monday breaks new record” and, like me, felt a bit alarmed.
According to PBS:
Monday was recorded as the hottest day ever globally, beating a record set the day before, as countries around the world from Japan to Bolivia to the United States continue to feel the heat, according to the European climate change service.
Provisional satellite data published by Copernicus on Wednesday showed that Monday broke the previous day’s record by 0.06 degrees Celsius (0.1 degree Fahrenheit).
Climate scientists say the world is now as warm as it was 125,000 years ago because of human-caused climate change. While scientists cannot be certain that Monday was the very hottest day throughout that period, average temperatures have not been this high since long before humans developed agriculture.
The temperature rise in recent decades is in line with what climate scientists projected would happen if humans kept burning fossil fuels at an increasing rate.
Here we are on a Wednesday and life seems normal, despite this terrifying news. Personally, I have had a lot wonderful summer days so far. This news brings on a wide range of emotions—guilt, fear, shame, to name a few. It has been hot in the Pacific Northwest, but not blistering hot as in other parts of the world. We have celebrated the marriage of two dear friends, sent our oldest daughter to overnight camp for the first time, and blown out the candles on an intergenerational birthday cake on what felt like a perfect, peak summer day.
E.B. White’s quote rings in my ear:
"If the world were merely seductive," he noted, "that would be easy. If it were merely challenging, that would be no problem. But I arise in the morning torn between a desire to improve (or save) the world and a desire to enjoy (or savor) the world. This makes it hard to plan the day."
We transplanted asparagus last year from our back field to the kitchen garden. From the looks of that weedy raised bed, the plants didn’t take. I have been thinking about asparagus a lot lately. Last January, when traveling in England, I kept hearing about an asparagus lady on the radio. Apparently, she tosses and then reads the spears (as one reads tea leaves) as they lay splayed out on the floor. One of her predictions for the near future: The US would have a female president.
Since hearing that prediction, I have thought every which way about how a female would become president of this country. Nikki Haley seemed like an option for the Republican nomination. No. And I did not want something disastrous to happen to President Biden—he has done a good job. Now that is seems Kamala Harris will cinch the Democratic nomination as a result of President Biden stepping aside in the election, I find myself in a state if disbelief, shock, excitement, and hope. Looking back over the last eight years, hope has been something elusive and misleading. Now, it is a real and tangible thing.
It’s hard to hold hope on a warming planet, but one can’t live in a prolonged state of fear and terror. It is not good for our bodies or our souls. We need a way forward.
When I am perplexed, I turn to poetry. Asparagus makes me think of broccoli. This is a picture of my daughter in her swimsuit proudly standing over one of the two heads of broccoli we grew this year. As I mentioned before, I have a poem James Crews’ anthology The Wonder of Small Things: Poems of Peace and Renewal, which is now a finalist for the 2024 New England Book Award. (Congrats James!)
Small victories in the big fight. These are, indeed, unprecedented times. Summer forges on. Should we enjoy it? My answer is YES—with awareness and hope close at hand.
xoJessica
Note: “Amends” was originally published in Silver Birch Press for their How to Heal the Earth series