Heat Sink
Thermodynamics is not a subject for the timid.
It is only understood by the mathematical few.
But the science gives us some understanding,
of the trouble we have gotten ourselves into.
The atmosphere is heating up,
all the records easily show.
While controversy rages on,
the numbers continue to grow.
These numbers bother people of power,
money and interest, in the status quo.
For their superiority lies in being right;
always being ahead and in the know.
But nature knows not ideology,
responds as it always does to strife.
Through extinction, migration and adaption,
in a never-ending cycle of renewing life.
The result is immense diversification,
a planet teeming with variety so blessed.
Where every corner of the living planet,
has myriad life, so different from the rest.
But atmosphere, land and water,
do not know biological life's distress.
They only respond to heat dynamics,
dictated by laws of equilibrium and rest.
We ask why storms are now greater,
in the Atlantic and Pacific realms?
It's only thermodynamics operating,
no one or thing is at their helms.
Like water going down the drain,
the heated air seeks great relief.
It spirals upward to a higher cool,
in a vortex of a great heat thief.
Sucking heat of overheated ocean,
the humid, overheated air.
Into the higher atmosphere,
where it hits the cold up there.
All this action creates wind and rain.
A natural heat sink of great refrain.
It is singing a song that we don't like.
Wind and flood in its destructive lane.
Science has clearly predicted,
more droughts, floods and storms.
Above all historic memory are coming,
above all reason and human norms.
The cause is quite clear,
still, hard for us to get a bead.
For power, plunder and greed,
Are desires far exceeding need.
When will we understand?
When will we heed?
Before it's too late,
our excess makes us bleed.
Copyright 2017 © Ronald W. Hull
9/7/17
You can view this poem on my website here.
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thought provoking read
never stop writing!
m
David
Sometime in January I'll be reciting the limerick I wrote a while back:
The greenhouse effect I am knowing;
To protest right now I am going.
But oh my gee whiz,
I'm going that is,
If only it ever stops snowing.
Love ya!
Jane
In reality, I have said before, how can anyone think that a planet with 7 1/2 billion people, and I don't know how many animals, all eating, pooping, consuming, polluting, doesn't affect the earth. And I always agree with Michael Schafer.
That said, I was quite taken by M. Schafer's analogyy of (Earth) shaking off its fleas. I've felt for most of my life that the very best thing that could ever happen to poor old Mother Ghea is for Homo sapiens to self-eradicate (perhaps with Ghea's help, LoL), thereupon leaving 'Haumea' to make, and hopefully this time succeed in making, another 'highest eveolved sentient life form' that actually fulfills its promise. Humanity has long since indicated that it is unworthy of that fanciful sobriquet. Thanks for this cogent paean on Earth's plight.
Speaking of that, wifie here has absolutely NO understanding of basic thermodynamic laws. Every time I try to explain the principles of heat transfer to her (in reference to the house's HVAC system and how heat stored in the attic during a hot summer day gradually releases itself into the house after dark), she gives the appearance of someone who finds a noose around his neck, but doesn't know that releasing the knot will resolve things. [Perhaps that's a VERY poor analogue to use here, but it works (;-).]
"The cause is quite clear,
still, hard for us to get a bead.
For power, plunder and greed,
Are desires far exceeding need" great lines indeed.
A sensitive soul quietly watching humanity err, helplessly.
Well done, Ron.