Tag Archives: climate change

Still Falls the Rain

As Hurricane Harvey pounds the Gulf Coast, Edith Sitwell’s poem “Still Falls the Rain” comes to mind. Sitwell was writing about the World War II London blitzkrieg, but the poem still applies.

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Caves of Ice, Prophecies of War

Scientists are detecting faster-than-predicted melting of the Greenland glaciers, which would lead to catastrophic sea level rise. Coleridge’s “Kubla Khan,” with its caves of ice and prophecies of war, comes to mind.

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Trump, GOP Sacrifice Our Climate Future

Trump’s decision to pull the U.S. out the the Paris Climate Accord, and the GOP’s willingness to go along, reveal an absolute contempt for the next generation. Such contempt is at the heart of Russell Hoban’s dystopian nightmare “Riddley Walker.”

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To Save Planet, Scientists Must Protest

Saturday’s March for Science is a sign that scientists are realizing they don’t have the luxury of remaining aloof from politics. Barbara Kingsolver’s “Flight Behavior” explores the issue.

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Climate Change, Fairies Fighting

Some of the extreme climate events we are currently experiencing are described in “Midsummer Night’s Dream,” where they are the result of fairy infighting

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“Enemy of the People,” Badge of Honor

Donald Trump has been attack the media as “the enemy of the people,” bringing to mind Heinrik Ibsen’s 1882 play. The play is about a truth-telling scientist but the parallels are still very apt: stand up for truth, regardless of the consequences.

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Civil War Battle, Image of Climate Denial

Ambrose Bierce’s disturbing short story “Chickamauga” can be applied to climate change denialsm.

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Climate Scientists, Our Cassandras

Our climate scientists must feel like modern day Cassandras, as she appears in Aeschylus’s “Agamemnon” or Robinson Jeffers’s “Cassandra.” The prophetess knew what would happen but no one believed her. As a result, Troy fell.

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Using Lit to Discover Purpose in Science

My Intro to Literature students, few of whom are English majors, are often startled to discover that literature understands them better than they understand themselves. Today’s post describes the encounters between two science majors and, respectively, Wordsworth’s “Intimations of Immortality” and Kingsolver’s “Flight Behavior.”

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