Scorching Footsteps Skyward
Ghostlike it gathers,
This once earth-hovering presence,
Rising in lock-step high above,
Amassing its density of might.
How innocent once,
This source of warmth and comfort.
We campfire this.
We stove-cook that.
Combusting its essence way back,
Giving Henry Ford a shout out,
Still echoing through each graying dawn.
Because status quo marches dissatisfied…
Flames became a contagion,
Partnering with envy,
Infecting 3rd world minds,
Into a diseased compliance.
“We too can burn our way
Into 1st world prominence.”
Village mind-sets became
Small town conversions,
Became city mutations,
Became global malignancy.
Higher and higher
Rises competition’s flotsam,
Merging greed with ambition,
Committing atmospheric genocide.
To listen carefully
Is to hear civilization’s nescience
Echoing faintly as it
Enriches the skyward footprints.
Such a war of ignorance
Knows not the consensus of science
Is but a first step
In the race to heal,
Before suffocation
Silences Nature’s willingness to forgive.
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Some time ago, I attended a very fine presentation by a professor from Stanford describing the history of energy used by humans and how we came up with ways of finding new energy sources just when needed.
When every stick of wood in Europe was burned to cook food and heat homes in winter, the discovery of peat, lignite and coal, saved a major crisis of energy in the Middle Ages. Coal then fired the beginning of the industrial age, largely with steam engines. When coal became very expensive to gather and clouded the atmosphere with smoke and ash, causing disease like pneumonia and black lung, killing millions, oil was discovered and created the transportation revolution of the 21st century. During the mid-20th century, the waste product of oil exploration, methane or natural gas, became available as a cleaner source for heat, refrigeration and transportation.
But when carbon and methane were discovered in the 1950s to be creating a greenhouse effect to the earth's atmosphere, the wealthy coal, oil and gas industries have prevented, in the United States, prompt action through political greed, a normal transmission to renewable and less harmful sources of energy like solar, geothermal, wind and wave.
Resulting in the situation we are in today. And here in United States, ignorance rules our vote and our lifestyles. I surely hope it's not too late to make drastic changes. I have priced solar energy for my home three times. Each time, it was more expensive to convert, not less. But, since 2000, I have been purchasing wind power through the grid at a higher cost than coal. At least that's what my contract stated. Shifty privatized energy companies may be just profiting from my ignorance.
Ron