Monday, August 9, 2021

Once upon a time, 350 was our goal

     Back in 2007, 350 parts per million was the "safe upper limit" for CO2 in our atmosphere -- a figure  presented by NASA scientist Jim Hansen in December 2007 and widely agreed upon.  From that number the website 350.org was born. On October 24, 2009, 350 Poems celebrated an international day of climate action with a posting, from poets all around the world, of 350 poems of 3.5 lines each --  each responding to concern for man-made climate change.   My own entry (#265 here in the listing) I offer below.
    It's sad news that recent data (more than 400 ppm of CO2 in our atmosphere) verifies our greedy disregard of this important warning.  What can we do?

    The Spider     (265/350)        by JoAnne Growney

     Spinner of intricate, twenty-inch silk food snares.
     Twenty inches — not fifty or two hundred.
     She knows the limits to her senses.  Humans
     keep building bigger webs.

This 3.5 line poem was first posted almost ten years ago (here at this link). 


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