clcouch123

Fahrenheit 151

 

It’s over a hundred degrees

In the Arctic

Down south, that gets a lethal warning

Don’t go out in this, especially if

One is old or young or has something of

A medical condition

 

This is the Arctic where

Santa dwells

With elves, all making toys

Inside a house and workshop underneath

The snow,

Where mastodon bones are found

Maybe with flesh and DNA once

Inside the permafrost

Science is excited, and

Science is concerned

About microbes

That were frozen

Newly released by melted ice

 

I know Siberia can be

Occasionally temperate

But now it’s over a hundred degrees

In towns

And I imagine the investment in

Air-conditioning has been sparse, over

The years

I hope they are okay

 

After the Antarctic

Falls

(guess what—its sheets of ice

are already breaking, sliding into

the ocean in ways

they’re not supposed to)

Maybe some more will say,

Hey, there might be a problem

 

While the seas are rising

Democracy is drowned

And we are facing

Final, savage years

 

C L Couch

 

 

What a 100-degree day in Siberia really means

The record-setting high is much more than a quick spike for the Russian Arctic, where months of extreme heat may have dangerous consequences.

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/2020/06/what-100-degree-day-siberia-means-climate-change/

 

Photo by Wolfgang Hasselmann on Unsplash