I meet him at a party thrown apparently
in my honor, but hey I’m happy to be
the excuse for canapes & wine

and a welcome bit of chinwag

​

So as guests filter in I am pleased to be
presented with the chance to meet new people
and the challenge to remember their names

And then I’m introduced to a climate scientist
 

who I am told will be on his way on the morrow
to a gathering of the Geophysical Union
in San Francisco.

​

That’s when I confess

I am a climate alarmist

​

which is when he excuses himself
but I accompany him to the bar
and recommend a cabernet as I reach

to recharge my glass and pour one for him
 

I also confide I read the entire IPCC
report published y2K as a fundraiser
for Greenpeace

and he puts on a show of being engaged
 

but I see I’m losing him
so I cut to the bone of contention
telling him science & climate community

​

are losing the PR battle

and I think I know how to fix it

​

That’s when I notice the beads of sweat
breaking out on his brow and his effort to flap
his sportcoat for more air and I quip

A bit of local warming, eh?
 

He gives a half-hearted chuckle but I buttonhole
him insisting I’ll be brief Here’s the thing
that’s driving the deception: the fossil fools

fund their think tanks not only to deceive but to
tear apart your languaging!  ‘Global Warming? Here’s
a snowball, Mr President, here’s your

Global Warming!’ And the brainwashed doubters
chortle and applaud that bit of sophistry.
And as he nods and turns to leave

I buttonhole him again
 

‘Climate Change, huh?  Well of course the climate
changes alla time evruhbody knows that!’
And he nods and sweats and looks away

but I grab his shoulder: Look, we know
the difference between weather changes
and climate breakdown

I have a solution and I give it to you free of charge
no conditions no preconditions no claim
of ownership Use It Propagate It Call It

Climate Crisis
 

By now he’s nodding agreement, but he’s developed a tic
almost as if manacled invisibly forbidden to discuss the matter
with this mere wild-eyed hoi polloi

He leans to leave but I make my last desperate
appeal: OK, I know you’re under pressure
to not sound like Chicken Little,

but you know and I know and your colleagues know
we’re approaching total collapse and we have to
call it the Emergency the Crisis the Code Fucking Red it is

because the sky really is falling!

​​

And that’s when he wormed away

               back to the party

GREGORY BELL writes because. He’s authored Looking for Will: My Bardic Quest with Shakespeare and two award-winning plays. Honors include the 2019 Kowit Poetry Prize & 2023 Helen Schaible International Sonnet Prize. He facilitates Green Poets Workshop at Beyond Baroque, Venice, CA, is recently published in Scientific American,  Gaia Lit , ‘In the Black / In the Red’ Anthology, Helicon Nine—and Changing Skies. Whoa !—he also has a poem on the moon with NASA’s Lunar Codex Project.​