What I really want for Christmas

Sun is shining; temperature's in the mid 30's; every so often a load of snow explodes off of an oak branch in the woods behind the house. Before I started this posting, I was struggling with my Christmas list. It was much easier when I was young to let Santa know what I wanted for Christmas. Since we never lived out in the real country, ponies stayed off the list but, over time, the puppy, the bicycle, the cowboy outfit, and other essentials showed up under the tree. One year there was even a Lionel train set which my Dad put together with only a modicum of swearing.

Not to rain on anyone's Christmas parade, but have you seen The Story of Stuff? I started with the original. A couple of things I saw online today put me in mind of all this. The first was "St. Croix River impairment underscores need for continued work."

Of the 30 major tributaries flowing to the St. Croix River, the seven which contribute the most phosphorus include the Apple, Snake, Willow, Kettle, Sunrise, Kinnickinnic, and Namekagon. Four of these enter the St. Croix River north of Taylor’s Falls.

As noted before in this blog, Yr. Obt. Svt. lives in the Sunrise watershed. We've also noted previously that, when Congress originally passed the Clean Water Act Amendments of 1972 (some 47 years ago), it adopted an interim goal that all the nation's waters were to be "fishable-swimmable" by 1983. We're not even close yet.

With that as background, how much credence should we give the international efforts to address greenhouse gas emissions and adaptation to climate breakdown? According to the consensus of climate scientists, we don't have 47 years to promise to "get to it tomorrow."

a home-grown white pine Christmas tree

Photo by J. Harrington

That brings me to the second thing I saw online. It's a statement attributed to Greta Thunberg, the teenage climate activist who just finished her second Atlantic ocean crossing in a small sailing craft.

"I am not traveling like this because I want everyone to do so," said Thunberg. "I'm doing this to sort of send the message that it is impossible to live sustainable today, and that needs to change. It needs to become much easier."

So, I'm convinced that, although we need to talk about how the people of the world will fix what we've broken, talk alone isn't going to cut it. What I'd like for Christmas is for Santa to whack all the naughty boys, girls and grups with a sock full of coal until each denier and nonparticipant agrees to pull their weight and stop being a free rider in the work needed to clean up our beautiful home, the only one we have. That won't exactly fit under our family's Christmas tree, but if each one of us did not a little, but a lot more, including doing a much better job with who we vote for, we may become ancestors whose descendants can have a white Christmas to enjoy 100 years from now.

100 years from now, will this be Home for Christmas?

We'll return to our regular programming tomorrow.

“Your Luck Is About To Change”

By Susan Elizabeth Howe

     (A fortune cookie)

Ominous inscrutable Chinese news 

to get just before Christmas, 

considering my reasonable health, 

marriage spicy as moo-goo-gai-pan, 

career running like a not-too-old Chevrolet. 

Not bad, considering what can go wrong: 

the bony finger of Uncle Sam 

might point out my husband, 

my own national guard, 

and set him in Afghanistan; 

my boss could take a personal interest; 

the pain in my left knee could spread to my right. 

Still, as the old year tips into the new, 

I insist on the infant hope, gooing and kicking 

his legs in the air. I won't give in 

to the dark, the sub-zero weather, the fog, 

or even the neighbors' Nativity. 

Their four-year-old has arranged 

his whole legion of dinosaurs 

so they, too, worship the child, 

joining the cow and sheep. Or else, 

ultimate mortals, they've come to eat 

ox and camel, Mary and Joseph, 

then savor the newborn babe.

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