LETTERS

Re.: Global Warming

The International Monetary Fund is as conservative an organization as exists.  In relation to our warming climate, IMF Head Christine Lagarde, remarked that “future generations will be roasted, toasted, fried, and grilled.” The cost of our failure to address global warming will be borne more by future generations than by us as they suffer a planet progressively less able to support them.

Our challenge is simple: will we do what is necessary to provide our grandchildren a livable Rogue Valley or will we deny science and continue our business as usual behavior of dumping climate pollution into our air at an accelerating rate?

The Healthy Climate Bill, to be introduced during the 2016 Oregon Legislative Session, is modeled on greenhouse gas emissions cap and trade bills in effect in many states across the nation.  Their experiences shows us that cap and trade is effective both in limiting greenhouse gas emissions and facilitating continued economic growth.

The question for Oregonians is simple enough:  will we continue to contribute to the problem, or will we assume our rightful place as national and international leaders by capping our emissions.

Let’s all rally behind the Healthy Climate Bill; it’s for our kids and grand-kids.

Alan Journet
Co-facilitator
Southern Oregon Climate Action Now

Re.: An Unsolicited Poem

 Lying here / hands on chest

 a warm dark before sleep /  chipping through me

 like slaves with shovels / tearing through granite  crunching bites out of earth

 A warm dark / has me cocooned

 I can hear / muffled leaves in wind / lost without their tree

 scraping at Windows / like escapees wandering / night

daring to float free.

A violet lake of moonlight / erupts as passing cloud

 moves away, / to illuminate fallen drifters

yellow and red companions glow like  incandescent stars

  before they turn Brown and crumble away to mulch the ground.

 A warm dark silence sparks / inside a tightly woven

silky  bed / my hands transmitting

my own personal /  underground Sun

 a fast river does not apologize for almost drowning anyone.

Echoes of crows helps me to forgive their black oil stains

  left flapping long ago / they’re / trying to get off ground

 unable to fly with broken wings caged in prison mind / chewing on pomegranate scars / her fallen screams responsible for strength / still to come

/ echoes slash the void / his giant figure in the street / savagely thrashing her in the distance / roasting my young innocence in raging fires soon to come

but after this / I will erupt from a dark warm silence inside this silk formed weave / my slow crawl to this branch / turns Monarch.

yellow-red-black wings / climbing past / chains that should have killed me- / now I see / my mom rising from a psychopathic beating / running back into house / he grabs her by / the head, / puts it through the wall / she rises again /  but how?

 Now I see /  New leaves /  from a distance /shining on top of a river /  finally free to /slash their way  inside a moonlit sea  / glimmering behind / fallen trees / crunched by old footsteps / thanks for leaving Thunder / now I see / old slaves set free /their broken shovels /  lying by heaps of granite / his criminal echoes / slash the void / teaching fire / giving strength / now I see / wings alight / effecting sky / your sunset philosophy / burns eclectic /  behind closed eyes / thanks for leaving Thunder.

– Scott Lee