The A1 Verse: Not a tomorrow problem
By Thomas Gaulkin | July 18, 2022
Illustration by Zdenek Sasek
Every so often, a story published on the front page of the New York Times is so well written, meaningful, and appropriate to the Bulletin’s concerns that small snippets of it, properly chosen and arranged, produce something more than journalism, something that approaches … poetry. That blessed coincidence occurred July 18, 2022.
We suspect it’ll occur again.
Climate Crisis Fades as Worry For U.S. Voters
(from the original by Jonathan Weisman and Jazmine Ulloa))
Summers become unbearable,
smog and haze, heat and air.
smog and haze, heat and air.
Climate change is partly to blame.
Climate wasn’t really a factor.
Climate change is always a problem.
A warming planet
accusing, dooming
human life on Earth.
Nothing but a
struggling exhausted resigned
shrug.
That may be why change remains
an issue for those standing
exhausted disillusioned struggling.
A tomorrow problem.
Not a tomorrow problem.
The drying up severe weather wildfires scorching
climate refugees and floods swamping streets.
Still, climate change,
the most important issue,
far behind
worries.
Together, we make the world safer.
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Keywords: The A1 Verse, climate politics, poetry
Topics: Climate Change
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Thomas Gaulkin
Thomas Gaulkin is multimedia editor at the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. Prior to joining the Bulletin in 2018, he spent the... Read More
