Risa Lewis
Magic runs in the veins of all New Englanders—
our dull stares as we overtake you on the sidewalk
may leave you unconvinced,
but I know it to be true.
I have witnessed neighbors cast spells
on their own minds for a decade now,
recoding as normal the mercurial patterns of rain
and warmer autumns, later
winters, and never enough snow.
In the cursed human mind, it only takes
two years for unprecedented
to become always.[1]
I used to joke that it was
always winter at the Lewis household,
thanks to the shade of an army of trees
my environmentalist mother
declared war on. The day before
the 2011 Halloween nor’easter arrived
and cancelled trick-or-treating
for the rest of my life, chainsaws
and lifts brought each pine to the ground—
all but a telephone pole laughing
hysterically in the middle of our yard,
stripped of its branches like the ominous cousin
of the wacky waving inflatable
arm flailing tube man
shivering at the dealership down the street.
Snow used to cover our yard for four months straight,
and now I ask my past do I still have permission,
do I use the word winter correctly?
But New Englanders are well-prepared to handle tragedy.
We descend from the witches of Salem—
one of my ancestors lived,
while the other was caught and hanged—
and today we honor their names
and the careless burning of the earth.
We continue the tradition of ignorance
and rewrite the truths of everyday existence
so they are easier to swallow. Our magic
is so powerful, we re-remember
without even trying.
Ignorance is the antidote to fear.
Fear is the antidote to science.
Science is the antidote to uncertainty.
Uncertainty is the antidote to inaction.
The people of tropical nations and the care-free Californians
do not understand inaction. While I sit by the fire and miss
the dependable snow of my childhood,
fires are wandering unaccompanied in Paradise
and entire islands are being swallowed.[2]
Entire islands are being swallowed because the world
fails to value the things it cannot see—
where the water comes from, deep underground,
how the air hides the key to stability,
why a cherry tree matters, though it makes no sound,
who the future of we will be.
Here are some values the world can read:
For the rainforest lost and the gasified carbon
set free in the sky to ensure the heat’s high,
the dark chocolate bar sitting in my desk drawer
owes someone four cents, [3]
but I’m not sure who. This bittersweet penalty grows
and blooms as time consumes a forest—and chocolate?
Our love is ruined.
By these calculations I could not afford
the burgeoning price of such decadent vice.
In thirty years, why, the affliction accrued
would cost the same four pennies, plus two extra cents.
Compelling? I’ll bet.
The Prius I drive is a tad more expensive— in 2019 it costs 83 dollars and 64 cents and
the bill? The earth gets it.
In the year 2050, that debt almost doubles, [4]
assuming our worries aren’t the worst
that could be—now here comes the
(don’t say it!) uncertainty.
Assume the worst.
Carbon just finalized its divorce from my car.
Carbon feels productive, unhindered, care-free,
giving more of Earth’s heat a lovable squeeze
so it stays for a while.
And now in the year 2050,[5] my car
that was already lame
could owe not just one, but four
hundred dollars for drowning
the sorrows of unstable flooding,
droughts unbecoming,
and the absolute gone-ness of one out of every three plants and animals in the entire world[6]
drowning—in glass after glass of “natural” gas.
Make it go away. Think not of then, but today, when things are okay.
The smart people know that we feel this way.
Each cost computed above
is betting that someone, somewhere,
is keeping score (probably an economist),
and prefers last year’s you
a whole three percent more.[7]
And it’s generally true—
that generally you’d choose to spend in the now
than save for the later. That is, until later.
We care about later, just not until later,
we may not be later, so later is who?
Your cousin’s grandson?
Your dentist’s niece? The next Keanu Reeves?
And what if that same someone setting our worth
agrees that a person cannot match a fee? [8]
Well, beats me.
The social cost of carbon
may look laughable for a New Englander
and unfathomable for a nation
(in eighty years, we’ll annually
lose 4% of G.D.P.—who’s she?).[9]
But we can only stomach today,
only swallow
four chocolate pennies
melt down to millions
in a distant home
a dollar amount could make it known
that the cost is too high to explain
our inaction with uncertainty.
How else can we make others’ realities our own
before it is not our choice to do so?
This is the answer I try to declare in practical units,
but I’m not sure it’s there.
[1] https://climatechange.ucdavis.edu/news/tweets-tell-scientists-how-quickly-we-normalize-unusual-weather/ [2] https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/2018/11/rising-seas-force-marshall-islands-relocate-elevate-artificial-islands/ [3] Using US SCC of $41 in 2020, to $120 in 2020 for extreme events $69 in 2050, to $212/tCO2 in 2050 for extreme events [4] The annual cost doubles in 2050 compared to 2019, assuming 7,000 miles per year: https://www.nextgreencar.com/emissions-calculator/toyota/prius/#calc-results [5] Assuming increased costs due to the extreme weather events mentioned in footnote 4. [6] https://www.cbsnews.com/news/climate-change-may-eradicate-one-third-of-animal-and-plant-species-in-50-years/ [7] https://grist.org/article/discount-rates-a-boring-thing-you-should-know-about-with-otters/ [8] https://www.strata.org/vsl/ [9] https://www.carbonbrief.org/qa-social-cost-carbon