“Willow” weep for me!

We are now less than a week from Spring Equinox. The barred owl is again on its perch in the oak tree next to the deck. The sun is shining and the temperatures for the first half of next week begin to approach normal (mid-40’s). Meanwhile, both coasts are getting pounded by severe storms and the country is trying to forestall a collapse of the banking system. We are certainly living in interesting times.

barred owl on its usual branch

Photo by J. Harrington

Since I’m a recovering planner who suffers an occasional relapse, the kerfuffle about whether the Biden Administration should or should not have approved the Willow project in Alaska has me in a planning mode wondering who, if anyone, is responsible for identifying and tracking the progress, if any, toward meeting the requirements to abate greenhouse gas targets by dates certain. The IPCC reports don’t seem to clearly specify a basis on which we can tell what should, or should not, be allowed. Perhaps what I’m looking for will be included in a major report to be issued by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) on the Spring Equinox this year. More likely, the high level language suitable for policy makers will fail to be sufficiently specific to determine whether certain projects are approvable based on meeting policies. The looseness with which “truth” is proclaimed by liberals and conservatives doesn’t much help those responsible for doing the analysis on which projects are deemed consistent, or not, with goals and policies.

I base my assessment and part of my critique on the failure of Minnesota to meet, for an extended period of time, legislatively mandated greenhouse gas reduction goals. I also am sensitive to the egregious failure of the United States to meet its legislatively mandated clean water goals of 1983 and 1985. In fact, we’ve allowed the global economy to go in the other direction and make pollution of water by PFOS and PFAS almost ubiquitous.

There are several relevant quotations that help explain the challenges we face as a species trying to keep our planet habitable. We need to stop electing and empowering folks who think like this:

• “It depends on what the meaning of the word ‘is’ is.”     Bill Clinton


• "When you come to a fork in the road, take it.”     Yogi Berra

Instead, we are well advised to empower leaders who think like this:

• “And what is the point of learning facts within the school system when the most important facts given by the finest science of that same school system clearly mean nothing to our politicians and our society?”     ― Greta Thunberg, No One Is Too Small to Make a Difference 


• “The laws of Congress and the laws of physics have grown increasingly divergent, and the laws of physics are not likely to yield.”     — Bill McKibben

 

Willow Weep for Me

Ann Ronell

Willow weep for me
Willow weep for me
Bent your branches down along the ground and cover me
Listen to my plea
Hear me willow and weep for me
Gone my lovely dreams
Lovely summer dreams
Gone and left me here
To weep my tears along the stream
Sad as I can be
Hear me willow and weep for me
Whisper to the wind and say that love has sinned
To leave my heart a sign
And crying alone
Murmur to the night
Hide her starry light
So none will find me sighing
Crying all alone
Weeping willow tree
Weeping sympathy
Bent your branches down along the ground and cover me
Listen to me plead
Hear me willow and weep for me
Willow
Willow
Weep for me

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