Selections from the
Poetry, Art, and Writings of
Frederick David Watts
with photo and magazine Reflections
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Selections from the
Poetry, Art, and Writings of
Frederick David Watts
with photo and magazine Reflections
Contents (to return here to Poetry Contents click the menu icon, then FDW poetry)
*The villanelle is a highly structured poem made up of five tercets followed by a quatrain, with two repeating rhymes and two refrains. (poets.org)
Untitled October 2023Hearts too hot to be warm
Cannot hope to know the world.
An iris swarm;
Anger chills then kills the heart
It fills.
And its only balm is forgiveness.
May he bestride the beast-ridden land
With sure, competent, loving hand,
May she move mountains if more come to help,
May she leave no stone unturned
Searching for a place to whelp,
May all know the balm of foregiveness whole,
Before the bells upon our lives will toll.
QuatrainThe laity supports the churches
with its attention and its tithes,
The Earth supports stout birches
with their bird nests and sweet hives.
SugaryFrom the sugary indifference sprawling from bletted fruit,
to wisdom revealed wide in random chance,
each quality in nature cleaves to its own certain suit,
as dust motes to the music of a light-shaft dance.
Jeu d'Esprit"Eteinte!" cried the Frenchman
the German stood mute
the Pole grabbed his rifle
the singer is lute;
then the Brit called his counsel,
the Yank checked his gun:
and that is how the battle was won.
RepublicNeither loveless power nor heartbreaking wealth
can ever impress or move him to envious stealth
for the true conservative is smart,
has ever the health of the Republic near to heart.
LoverWith all the nerves
which beg no questions
with every stretch of skin
as open as an eye
I could comb but one dumb bristle of sense
at the parting of the sheets
the rustle of your leaving
the arc of lovers turning
spins a great blank volume
each final turning swells the turnover one more.
The loves of some are few and spherical
loving by increment
their recollection is whole
the loves of some are as if struck from a cigarette lighter
loving like shrewd consumers their recollection is of sufficient if variable supply
I cannot teach time to add
my wheel is worn but the flint sliver ground bone-smooth stroking the whiskered muzzle of the hollow each leaves
my patient memory
is of perimeters.
When a lover leaves arriving moon will begin to fall
if paling before the dawn its imperfect circle fades into unwelcome light
the memory of its whiteness marries the memory of your shining fingers as they lash themselves content for a time
yielding in the measures
the willingness of my hair fertile under their furrows was a vision conceived planet-like in acceptance intensely nude as a glimmering scythe.
Now all the dry waters have ceded in barren wind and beyond the blind casement your vivid absences move me like abandoned pups
are just that many angels
beginning to bury their dead.
Thanksgiving Poem (for Howard Friedman, after Robert Frost)Life's wet trials are first,
coming after shells have burst.
The bird's egg-flight's a flop,
but jolts cause wing-down to drop.
Soon soar makes sense of sore,
so Noah gripped the oar,
so cry subsides to sigh:
All that's wet must dry.
coda:
As for the cynics, damn the lot.
Thanks given are
for graces got.
ADDRESS TO DAME KINDMy Lady,
Let not, I pray, let not harsh words,
Inspired by a spirit rebellious, yet a spirit loyal, offend;
Chants are sung by wounded whales, as well as birds:
Often we achieve what we do not intend.
Vanity is the poet's vice supreme;
Scheming in numbers, numb to ruth,
We lose our Art, succumb to Truth.
Grant us time to renew our dream.
Poverty corrupts as surely as any worldly powers,
Envy corrodes, secretly, by everlasting hours;
And hours spent at labours vain must end:
My heart, light, and trust to you I send.
From visions great, and real, to the bone-freezing nightmare
Of the Alkibiadean Ideal,
We reel exhausted, praying not to expire;
Every ire from ire must in time retreat,
But never should honour with baseness basely treat;
Marriage should yet be a permanent
Engagement, yet "unholy deadlock" is an embittering arrangement;
We look for a company, and a score,
Worthy of our heart's deepest wishes, what our imagination sees;
Let us have music set not in brazen,
But in golden, keys.
Please, grant us time to renew our dream.
The movement of mountains, by the motions of the mind:
"There is no need for undue haste, but there is, indeed
No time to waste.";
Should this be our first, unreflected stance
Toward our evident, incumbent idol,
"Lord of the Iced Mind of the Machine,", the being
Keen in intellect, hard of heart, smart in small things,
Too grandly ambitious in things great, true mate to no man,
Nor woman, save one made to make easy the joint "task at hand,"
Easily commanded -- if sweetly commanded! -- :
Recumbent breakfast at dawn, canticles by candlight come fall
Of night, come morning back to still fresher licenses --
Scintilla by glittering scintilla, should this be what we will...?
Can we compress and hurl the empty air,
Or order water to climb steel or wooden stairs?
Yes, indeed, we can, and have:
Steam power drives turbines, pressed wind hydraulic pumps,
Small streams conspired slow, steady and strong
To hew Grand Canyon walls, to smooth
The lip-rocks of Niagara Falls;
Tall the evergreen, red Sequoia stands,
Overlooking Pacific beach and strand,
Eastward, westward, out to sea, islands rise,
Pale at sunrise, dark at noon,
Peaceful, once, beneath the shining Moon ...
Please, grant us time to renew our dream.
Whether moved by ruth, or terrible wrath, the tiniest dam
Will defend her young to the length of life's sacrifice:
Witness the bitter pain wrung from Helen Postgate,
At the sight of slaughtered children, children not her own;
Coventry Cathedral, bombed to bits: the memory lingers,
The aches remain, yet Law and Love must triumph,
Or where is the gain?
Dickering with the devils never won a decent bargain:
Let us remember tthat at howsoever desperate the need for iron wit
Becomes, however strong becomes the pull to put Mercy to sleep,
Let us be brave enough, at last, to accept the luxury of tears,
Indeed, in the teeth of deep disgust,
The languishing of even the human desire to live as men, women--
Not mighty, speechless, despiring brutes.
And as for us scribblers, let us ever bear in mind,
That without Love, Pity, and genuine Honour,
Euterpe's rolling, roseate aureoles
Would too soon be doomed
To grow all riddled with our too modern holes.
Let it never be said of us,
As it was of one who went, spent, before,
That he had "Nothing of the Poet, Artist, but the talent,"
And was at last nothing but lamely, emptily magnificent.
Lady, grant us time to renew our dream.
Aubade
for HerYou are nothing to me
But that indispensable
Nothing which grants
Both matter and form,
As a crenel, I've learned,
Is nothing but the space
Between two merlons;
Wholes are always shaped from such differences.
Too much a boy to take you,
You took me, accepting my carefully
Crafted, heart-felt toys,
But demanding more by main force
Of a woman's olympian indifference;
There will be no finessing you,
You make clear as bright steel,
And diamond hard.
This poem is mistitled:
There is yet to be even a first
Shared dawn;
You have me by the scruff
Of my heart's neck,
Holding me as Herakles held
Anteus; I have no longer any
Mother ground from which
To feint, rise, fight, or flee.
Your large northern eyes shake me
With their silent, deafening demand:
Grow, or when I drop you,
Scramble to be gone.
"Let your excuses be brief and blunt,"
Those eyes say, "and leave me
If you tremble to go where all your
Heart -- and some unknown fraction
Of your blood -- would course.
No urgent, supine softness will you
Refuse to grant a man,
But against me you throw
Up a pitiful ring of pylons
I sweep aside by very right
Of the Mother to whom you sue, half-sincere."
"And it is only that genuine
Half of half-sincerity which
Saves you from the Mother's
Wrath in me, in any heavy woman
You court with gifts, scribbler's wit,
And a stripling's green confusion.
It ill becomes your years,
And while there you stand your fears are real.
"You say I too freely use
The horsewhip:
NO -- you act the strong,but dizzy, stallion
Which courts gelding;
I use the whip to melt
The ice you inspire in me,
Which well could form itself
Into just that knife."
Lady, written -- any-- words can go but so far.
If you be willing, I'll risk my
Pride, my peace, my mind
And dare to reach
For what for what seems to me remote,
And dangerous as a star;
I only ask that you remember
These words, four hundred years a living ember:
"Before I know myself, do not seek to know me."
In yourself you bear unseen scars,
In yourself you know what fineness falsehood can mar;
You do not yet know from what tall and twisted
Tree fell so hard the human fruit
That I became
Or just that all I risk,
In throwing over traces
Laced with such mental strength
As to all but kill the will
To frisk, or to commit in anything
But harmonious numbers, duty, or measured, socially-sanctioned length.
And warning: wrench me from the shell,
And there's chance no soft-bodied crab-pulp
Will emerge,
But a firebird, born in nethermost Hell.
I
When the cups returned like seasons,
and the spoons seemed like to sleep,
And messages from busboys were messages to keep,
we struck up a special friendship,
Friendship reasons couldn't ration, friendship kept,
after our special fashion,
While trading brave smiles at the waiter's station.
"How came you here?", they may well ask:
Dammask napkins, pheasant under glass, simple tasks
to accomplish, few questions to ask.
Masks over faces, lace at the wrists, triple-time waltzes -
and missed assignations,
By the grace of God. And time enough for earnest prayer,
just before we begin to nod,
II
Bulletins from beggars, orders from unwelcome boarders,
hoarding heartache until we can barely
Keep it from brimming from the skies,
surmising all the while that while what
We wish may be forever within our grasp,
it lies far beyond the temper of our foes
To allow either of our hearts the time to unclench.
"Make sense, beautifully", was once a way
Which took us far toward lucky loss, across the brook of ashes
to a bank of comfortable moss:
Now still we hope, and strive, and pray, howsoever distant seems daybreak, dawn;
our right desire is deep, and strong as floss.
III
Bearcat treed or bearcat freed, tomcat hungry, tomcat in need,
reduced to miserable beasts,
Beneath, above, and beside themselves, until the grace of happy accident -
or premeditated help -
Gains the upper hand in a fight in which the latter had no igniting part,
in which the former is often invoked to explain,
Or to explain away, a natural mystery which
night mist the eyes, touch the heart, of any human creature
Wise enough to watch and wait:
animals are created things - created alive.
IV
Impatiens, roses, iris, dogwood, lustrife, lupine, lilies
spring, where mold strolls in smoke-broken beggars' clothes,
Through leaf-leather, wind, and interrupted light;
here is an elemental earthly life,
From mushrooms like little girls whose heads their
classmates rubbed for luck,
To ancient, time-blasted oak and elm: surnmersong craftsmen gone all to words.
The lucky birds will cruise above them,
Ocean ·sprawls beyond them still.
Plantkind: patient, impatient, moving and mowed,
hefting slate flags,
rudely rough-hewn,
shifting hue -
Bowed by the weight of a drop of dew.
V
"The weasel is growing up", the ermine said,
"You, sir, would be well served by coming to a compromise";
"Who cares?", the weasel shrugged,
boasting all the while in his dark heart.
Winter-white ptarmigan, limping through the snow,
ermine, brown-black eyes aglow;
The Moon shines partisan, above:
this time, she would be moved by Love...
It is true,
still he is moved to prove his prowess,
But we may be luckier than our darkest fears allow:
upon the chilly shifts
Of wintering, evergreen, murmuring boughs
the frozen rime may be at its hardest, now.
Epsilon, and Vortex (2001)I
Pennyroyal petals pile past paving flags,
fluent migration of miniature
Marshmallows in the wind,
excuse for thought
To test those very places
it senses itself pinned;
Asked an answer to the penultimate
'why of why', and what lies after,
More venturesome voice was needed
than that which resolves itself in laughter;
A branching willow withe,
spinning past an eddy
In our brook, described a graceful curve;
for lesson and larger figure,
It seemed fit, that dusk, to serve.
II
From battles of flowers
blooming through rocks,
To the miraculous tenderness
of coupling crocs,
Life divides navigating to necessity
with brute-brailling will,
Itself hidden but moved mover making still,
indifferent best of what
Matter's ever lain to cosmic hand;
rarely, it will sing a single lay
Along milestones lining the liminal leagues,
like those that shift twixt ocean, and strand.
III
Not a speckled spider's
blameless schemes,
Nor Pasadena's grand,
graph-plotted dreams,
Are certain of success:
the bee that snaps
Its silken bands
is emblem
For purblind desire's decree
the beloved error stand;
An artful lapse beneath the moon
is gratefully forgotten, all too soon:
Pitched pennies make scant ripple
in the universal lake,
Chance smoothes the amplitude
of any wake.
IV
Fork,
beginning of the motion
Of the one into the many,
Circle,
eternity of the motion
Of the all into lambent none, or any:
Elementary particles continue
perplexingly to stack,
For the reason tawny jennies
still follow their jack:
In either case,
without a fight there is no fork,
Some living crux provides
the tinder powering
Crimson mammal torque;
the croquet ball
Sailing through a last, impossible wicket,
is a meteor to honor
The natural burial of a cricket.
V
We can know in awakening
from a sweet, last kiss,
The splitting agon
original parting is,
Where good can be but one,
and not the other,
And shrewd sight judges
despair to be wisdom's brother;
Yes, the lover is an efficient predator,
the beloved willing prey,
The lover is a debtor,
but it's the beloved who will pay.
VI
In the time when teeth
sit high in the gums,
And general chamade
is heard from all the drums,
Some unhand, unknowing,
blessings effort yet might reap;
Those notes of the liminal,
border leagues
Still strike a calling chord,
kin to the
Oxymoronic, honing shear
which grinds light
Back to the edge of a tarnished sword;
now stirring quiet,
But stirring deep,
aspiration passes
Into being,
a slowly swelling seed,
Into sleep.
SONNET
When winter, clement, its bite belays,
Older codes in nature may gently reappear,
Beneath quickening, strong, slant-solar rays,
1he light-seeking twig-end dreams again to steer;
Your voice to me ever comes like late rain,
Your face, a constant spark to breath,
Teaches wisdom I'd never hoped to gain,
A focus sure I know only as breadth;
I am not sure my love does not betray me,
I've gazed before through the tinted pane,
I cannot know what conspires above me,
But this I know beyond hint of stain:
All I've lately felt with you, for you, resolves in this,
Never before in my life have I come full to a kiss!
SONNET
When out from summer peony blossom sudden barges the bee,
That bloom looms, in our shock, on nature's cheek a purple wen,
Sharp reproof to any who insist to see
All natural life played out amidst the mild, the blameless glen;
Darting Peaseblossom remains drawn the reliable key
To murky relations twixt bud-lurking worm, and the needle-nibbed pen,
He rises roughly up from meadow grass, seeming Hell on a spree,
But to slay green vermin and pacify gardening men;
Such reasons salve but little, I know, my dear,
As you suck a stung thumb, calling down dire, silent curses on the culprit ant,
All philosophy finds its limit where pain, searching, turns reason cant;
Yet think what glad occasion gave us gift of our last, light-laughing tears:
The spotted wasp warning within the winding bramble thrives,
Protecting precincts of imagination, of Brother Sun's golden, honey-bearing hives.
SONNET
for Judith A. Stevenson Watts
1919 - 2002
Where the last eaglet calls from a cliffside nest,
Evening warmth has lifted scents of sage,
Twilight has the canyon spaces in fire and sable dressed,
And in places rare, a beetle struggles within a rarer plant-mouth's toothy cage;
All is soon ready for moves of moment on the nighttime stage,
Before it panther, owl, and panting lover all are guest,
Eager to earn lessons needful in the wars they daily wage,
Against frustration, hunger, and competition's eternal test;
Dark blood will stain the moon-bright grass,
Shrieks rise to disperse in pining wind,
The lover find himself at last by love's power pinned,
And dawn soon sweep clear the stage for another class:
Each day the eaglet's cries rise, rising with the sun to sink dying in the west,
The mother eagle plucks another down-tuft from her broad, impatient breast.
SONNET
Moved to mask her manners under a mean veneer,
Kaye called for a double shot, got, and dumped it in her glass,
I watched, wondering, as she poured in the dark beer,
You'd have thought she were mixing a shandygaff;
A stiff drink with a friend will often make clear,
Whether the friendship's golden, or mere burnished brass,
That evening our drinking kicked into high gear,
When, to my delight, Kaye made her clear, first pass;
Last call I grabbed our cash, bills wet from the bar,
Stashed Kaye's keys in my pocket, steered her from the stool,
We lit a pair of cigarettes for luxury, and for fuel -
I smiled to watch her weave, slightly, on the way to my car.
That night fresh dreams for us, from warm realities were spun,
New love a lesson earned from things said, things shown, and things done.
Runic Dance (2000)
The child's fingers are crumbling sleep from a dog's eyes,
Whiskered muzzle tips upward, seems to grin;
A moon, big with change, is on the rise.
Dream-drawn lightning forks spires that rise
West-wheeling toward the precincts of magical kin;
The child's fingers are crumbling sleep from a dog's eyes.
Ancient Orion strides dreaming winter skies,
Everlasting as Draco, or a whirligig's spin;
A moon, big with change, is on the rise.
Plied with clear nectar bees serve up no lies,
Within the paper-belted hive all are concentrated kin;
The child's fingers are crumbling sleep from a dog's eyes.
A leaf-bloated mourning cloak worm spins on silk for size,
Light striking the cocoon shows up gold, and tin;
A moon, big with change, is on the rise.
Polaris cheers the steadfast, Venus puzzles the wise,
The risen, cloaked imago searches silent, hymeneal din:
The child's fingers are crumbling sleep from a dog's eyes,
A moon, big with change, is on the rise.
Runic Dance (1997)
The child's fingers are crumbling sleep from a dog 's eyes,
Whiskered muzzle tips upward, seems to grin;
A moon, big with change, is on the rise.
Ancient Orion strides dreaming winter skies,
Cats shift noiselessly below, grooming frost-sparked skin;
The child 's fingers are crumbling sleep from a dog 's eyes.
Orion will stalk the seven sisters till our cradling globe dies,
Everlasting as Draco, or a whirligig's spin;
A moon, big with change, is on the rise.
Plied with clear nectar bees serve up no lies,
Within the paper-belted hive all are concentrated kin;
The child's fingers are crumbling sleep from a dog's eyes.
A leaf bloated mourning cloak worm spins on silk for size,
Light striking the cocoon shows up gold, and tin;
A moon, big with change, is on the rise .
Polaris cheers the steadfast, Venus puzzles the wise,
The risen, cloaked imago searches futurity amidst silent, hymeneal din:
The child's fingers are crumbling sleep from a dog's eyes,
A moon, big with change, is on the rise.
Barbara's Song (1988)
The hands of autumn waves press the tulip's dike,
Deep shadows darken the mirror of our exacting age;
Fortune collects her due at the end of the common hike.
The shrike spared its sparrow at the fence-wire spike,
But wise, prairie fowlers are wary of mirage;
The hands of autumn waves press the tulip's dike.
Fish lose their scales in the pinch of commitment's fyke,
In tears amidst our losses we learn evening rage;
Fortune collects her due at the end of the common hike.
Mild-blue mint flowers bloom by the lupine's arcing spike
While hail showers pelt the dial of a purring gauge;
The hands of autumn waves still press the tulip's dike.
Momentary triumph in the sweep of Fortune's sight
May leave us weak in judgement as we quit the stage;
Fortune collects her due at the end of the common hike.
When welcoming sun warms the crest of a winding pike,
The ripe pear of vindication falls as more than a gambler's wage:
The hands of autumn waves press the tulip's dike,
And Fortune collects her due at the end of the common hike.
Bhakti Poem (1976)
Our brazen flowers put forth no scent,
They were lost far out to sea;
What I told you is what I meant.
The moray or an angel may hide in a coral vent,
Rebounding light sears the eye on a glacier or in a lee;
Our brazen flowers put forth no scent.
A living lotus petal is quickly spent,
But its essence could swallow the sea;
What I told you is what I meant.
By love, not tokens, our souls are sent
To that perfect spot beneath the bodhi tree;
Our brazen flowers put forth no scent.
When the veil is finally, gently, rent,
We stand before truth all know equally;
What I told you is what I meant.
My ships have all gone where last evening's sun went,
The worthless flowers on board would have called no bee:
Our brazen flowers put forth no scent,
What I told you is what I meant.
Authenticity (1972)
Songs by birds are sometimes lies,
Hear Kaye's parrot croak "love" in her cage;
Most real songs "come from," aren't "by."
When Kaye asked "Engage?," her smile was wry,
And you wept, silent, water drying on a page,
Learning, songs by birds are sometimes lies.
"Will you take me," you asked, "beyond my lies?,"
And then she brewed you a tea from sage;
Most real songs "come from," aren't "by."
I knew an old music man quite shy,
He put notes down, no name on the page;
Songs by birds are sometimes lies.
Once we heard bodies, thrumming with flies,
So did some buzzards, sounding-cries like rage;
Most real songs "come from," aren't "by."
My musician watched with stone-clear eyes,
From whence his temper - anger? age?
Songs by birds are sometimes lies,
And most real songs "come from," aren't "by."
Esthetique de Deux
Seasonally now, we sing of couplings.
When younger we stroked with wonder
The unicorn's or gryphon's back, but knew no song.
When we dreamed later dreams choral shells sprang into halves,
Spangling us in tones from a seaside source,
But still we knew no song.
There were springs when much seemed more than it meant,
Joy in beams of solitary light,
But even then we knew no song.
Then there came the struggles and white water,
With an end to spectacular dreams.
Aches in black and white caused the fall of illusions and leaves,
The close of summers for one.
At the end
We know the aesthetic of two.
Untitled
The kestrel hovers over an open lake,
a peregrine stoops on flirting fowl below,
A harlequin glides with young in tow,
while tufted boars root in a thorny brake.
All nature seems at work,
the end gradually, greening, growing clear,
Within scant weeks young leaves will wax full sere,
and late cygnets within chalky shells begin to
perk.
The widow walks from porch out to pebbled clay,
memory a muted, echoing, murmuring lay,
Brushing the last crumbs of sod from a whitegardening
glove,
she is a woman made better, not bitter, by love.
Untitled
With all the nerves
Which begged no questions
With every stretch of skin
As open as an eye,
I could comb but one, dumb
Bristle of sense,
At the parting of the sheets,
The rustle of your leaving;
The arc of a lover's turning
Spins a great, blank volume,
Each final turning swells the turnover
One more.
The loves of some are few and
cumulative,
Loving by increment, their
recollection is whole;
The loves of some are as if struck from a
cigarette lighter,
Loving like shrewd consumers,
Their recollection is of sufficient, if
variable, supply.
I cannot teach time to add,
The wheel is worn, my flint a sliver,
Ground bone smooth.
Stroking the whiskered muzzle
Of the hollow each leaves,
My patient memory is of perimeters.
When a lover leaves, a rising moon
Will begin to fall,
If paling before the dawn, its imperfect
circle
Fades into unwelcome light.
In the dark,
The memory of its whiteness
Marries the memory of your shining
fingers,
As they lashed themselves, content
for a time,
Yielding in the measures,
The willingness of my hair.
Fertile under their furrows
Was a vision conceived
Planetlike in acceptance,
Intensely nude as a glimmering
scythe.
Now all the dry waters
Have taken seed in barren wind,
And beyond the blind casement
Your vivid absences move me like
abandoned pups,
Are just that many angels
Beginning to bury their dead.
Libido - Albedo
published in the anthology The Road Before Us: 100 Gay Black Poets (1991)
The moon, most say, is a feminine symbol,
But we assert it sheds a virilizing light.
It shines for the lover,
Red starflower in his heart flexing in its ambition.
White light gives back all the rays it is,
The dark, its absence, accepts them all.
You came to me offering love with a torque in it,
And I took it, twist and all.
We embraced, one belly, one thought.
Only in the wild minds of the lonely
Does fancy burn more brightly:
Our passion knows no gender.
Untitled
Air clear as rain-cleansed crystal, cool,
Bluebirds spinning upward, long past thought,
As falling feathers drift, by fair winds caught,
What knowing glints reflected in a cliff-cupped pool?
As bass cruise, hungry, in single-minded school,
Tempting the angler and by tempting ruses taught,
Why the obscure reason by some supple-witted sought,
Searching natural need and consequence past Gaia's Golden Rule?
Venus, the morning star,
May stand indicted at reason's bar,
But insistently heard, through all complaint,
Is love's excuse, however faint.
That sense of expense,
And the nightmare of endless recompense,
Provides a glimpse of what we might see,
Were we to gaze into the eyes of a cheated bee.
Selections from the
Poetry, Art, and Writings of
Frederick David Watts
with photo and magazine Reflections
Selections from the
Poetry, Art, and Writings of
Frederick David Watts
with photo and magazine Reflections
-------------------------------------------
AN INCONVENIENT TRUTH
A film by Albert Gore
Al Gore's film, "An Inconvenient Truth," is a lucid and well-organized presentation of our present ecological dilemma. At about an hour and a half in length it touches on many themes, but its central focus is the ever more pressing problem of global warming. An impressive array of scientific data, much of it imaginatively presented, is marshalled to support a now incontrovertible fact. Industrial pollutants (often referred to as "greenhouse gasses"), particularly carbon dioxide, are causing a portion of the sun's heat, formerly reflected back into space as infrared radiation, to be trapped within the Earth's atmosphere, thus raising the temperature of the Earth.
That this rise in the Earth's temperature is not simply a natural, cyclical phenomenon, as some have tried to claim, but largely the result of human industrial activity, is a premise Gore's film bolsters with graphs and charts clearly plotting the relationship between carbon dioxide levels and accompanying degrees of temperature rise over historical time. Gore is very clear in pointing out that the vast majority of the scientific community supports the human provenance of global warming, that this interpretation of climate change is not "just a theory" but a fact.
"An Inconvenient Truth" provides many slide photographs illustrating the effects global warming has already had on our planet. Especially dramatic are the photographs of changes that have taken place in glaciers and ice fields over periods as short as ten years. It is chilling to witness the shrinkage due to warmer temperatures which has already occurred, and the consequences, both actual and potential, are clearly outlined. The film treats in specific detail the perils inherent in the progressive melting of the Greenland ice field and that in western Antarctica. If the trend continues unchecked, we can anticipate rising sea levels and dangerous changes in vital ocean currents like the Gulf Stream, to mention but two. Paradoxically, as the film points out, global warming is also responsible for the increasing desertification of large parts of Northern Africa and other areas. In addition, human misuse of water resources has resulted in several once mighty rivers no longer reaching the ocean during the dry season, a reality with multiple consequences for the natural world and humankind alike.
In its format, "An Inconvenient Truth" alternates between Mr. Gore explaining the various scientific aspects of global warming and narrated scenes from his political career and personal life. He is typically modest and understated in tone in these latter portions, but in, for example, his recounting of the 2000 presidential campaign and its aftermath he manages to work in a telling implicit indictment of the Bush administration's handling of our environmental crisis. The story of his boyhood on a farm and what it meant for him convincingly suggests the source of Gore's love of the land and his firsthand experience of what stewardship of it requires. Especially moving was Gore's sharing of the tragedy of his older sister's death from lung cancer. She was a cigarette smoker, and although the family had long cultivated tobacco, her death moved them to cease its production. Personal touches such as this lent the film a special immediacy, and well complemented the more objective sections on the scientific and technological facets of global warming.
I have been concerned with the environment and aware of the problem of global warming for some time, but "An Inconvenient Truth" presented the issues to me with a comprehensiveness and an urgency I have rarely experienced before. The film was cinematographically excellent, and this contributed to its impact. The cumulative effect of so much bad news might have been to induce despair, but in the final scenes of the film Mr. Gore puts forth some reasons for hope. Despite, for example, the Bush administration's resistance to international efforts to curb greenhouse gas emissions progressively by 2010 and 2020, several Northeastern states, along with California and Oregon, have decided independently to follow the Kyoto Protocols themselves.
The film stressed the point that each of us individually can take steps to lessen the waste we generate and reduce the energy we consume, as well as make our legislators aware of our environmental concerns. The giant petroleum companies and the industries associated with them can be induced to be more responsive to our global crisis by increased public and governmental pressure, and by educating them to the fact that more efficient and environmentally responsible technologies can be profitable. "An Inconvenient Truth" is a timely and accomplished documentary which deserves the broadest possible audience.
Frederick David Watts
6/30/06
for Connecticut Fund for the Environment (CFE)
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GLOBAL WARMING
A statement by Connecticut Fund for the Environment
We at the Connecticut Fund for the Environment (CFE) are aware of your concern for the environment, both local and global, and would like to take this opportunity to communicate with you concerning the problem of global warming: what it is, its environmental and economic consequences, and some of the many ways in which CFE is actively addressing the issue. Our primary focus is the state of Connecticut, but our initiatives have impact and inspire action in other parts of the nation and the broader world.
Global warming is no "controversial theory," as some have tried to claim, but a fact, a fact accepted by the vast majority of the scientific community. It refers to the progressive rise in the Earth's temperature, over relatively recent historical time, as a result of human industrial activity. Industrial pollutants (referred to as "greenhouse gasses"), particularly carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide, are causing a portion of the sun's heat, formerly reflected back into space as infrared radiation, to be trapped within the Earth's atmosphere, thus raising the temperature of the Earth.
The melting of glaciers and ice fields has been one consequence of global warming, and this has been especially critical in the Greenland ice field. Greenland harbors about 10 percent of the world's fresh water in its ice sheet, which is up to two miles thick in some locations. According to a recent report by NASA scientists, ice losses now far surpass ice gains in the ice sheet and these losses are accelerating. Scientists estimate that if the Greenland ice sheet melted completely, the world's oceans would rise more than 20 feet. Should this be allowed to occur, many major world cities could be at risk of flooding from coastal surges, including New York, Miami, London, Tokyo, Shanghai, China, Mumbai, India, Buenos Aires, Argentina, and St. Petersburg, Russia.
In late October of this year a landmark, 700-page report entitled "The Economics of Climate Change," authored by Sir Nicholas Stern, a senior British government economist, issued a stark warning. As a result of unchecked global warming, the Earth "faces a calamity on the scale of the world wars and the Great Depression unless urgent action is taken." Stern's report stated that at current trends global temperatures will rise by two degrees Celsius within the next fifty years or so, and that the Earth will experience several degrees more of warming if pollutant emissions continue to grow. In addition to melting glaciers and rising sea levels, global warming will be responsible for declining crop yields, the extinction of 15 to 40 percent of animal species, new shortages of drinking water, higher death tolls from malnutrition and heat stress, and more widespread outbreaks of malaria and dengue fever. The underdeveloped world would be most profoundly affected, but that in itself would have worldwide implications. Stern's report concluded that" Ignoring climate change will eventually damage economic growth," and that" Our actions over the coming decades could create risks of major disruption to economic and social activity, later in this century and in the next, on a scale similar to those associated with the great wars and the economic depression of the first half of the twentieth century." The report struck a hopeful note, however, because it stressed that, in Stern's words, "The benefits of strong, early action considerably outweigh the costs. We can grow and be green."
It is in the spirit of those hopeful words that CFE is working to be the foremost not-for-profit organization leading efforts in Connecticut to confront the issues of environmental protection and global warming, and respond with positive actions. Whether the problem be global warming, the preservation of open space, the ensuring of clean drinking water, or cleaning up Long Island Sound, CFE's recent accomplishments make clear the effectiveness of our cooperative work with state and municipal governments and agencies, other not-for-profit partners, and local citizens. Because the federal government has done very little to curb the greenhouse gas emissions that are causing global warming, states must take the initiative. In line with some of the forecasts of the Stern report, likely effects of global warming in Connecticut include increased asthma and respiratory illness, more heat-related deaths, higher populations of disease-carrying insects, increases in harmful algal blooms, lobster die-offs, and the erosion and flooding of coastal areas. We have weighty challenges before us.
One of CFE's most prominent recent accomplishments has been the legislative establishment of "clean cars" standards. Passenger vehicles account for 40 percent of the nation's oil, and passenger vehicles are the largest source of greenhouse gas emissions in Connecticut. The Clean Cars Alliance and our partners have made tremendous progress over the last three years towards reducing greenhouse gas emissions from the transportation sector. Due to our efforts this year, Connecticut consolidated its reputation as a national leader by passing a law establishing a comprehensive motor vehicle labeling program that will enable purchasers to compare the global warming impacts of all new light-duty makes and models. This was only the second program in the nation to mandate that greenhouse gas information be displayed on all new motor vehicles sold. This law also creates a vigorous consumer education program, including a state agency-sponsored media campaign that underscores the link between motor vehicle emissions and global warming.
CFE scored a local success by working together with the Department of Environmental Protection, the New Haven Environmental Justice Network, and the Connecticut Coalition for Environmental Justice to reduce air pollution in downtown New Haven and its attendant risks to vulnerable populations such as children and the elderly. As a result of our combined efforts, St. Raphael Hospital has agreed to burn natural gas instead of oil in all three of its boilers from April to August. It has also agreed to a cooperative environmental audit, to best arrive at means of reducing all pollution streams from the Hospital.
On March 10 of this year CFE formally filed to intervene in Shell Oil and TransCanada's permit application for a Liquified Natural Gas complex ("Broadwater") that could have potentially serious negative consequences for the ecology of Long Island Sound. CFE is the only environmental organization that filed to intervene. Being a party to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission's permitting process for the proposed project will allow us to introduce testimony and evidence against Broadwater for the Commission's consideration. CFE commissioned a comprehensive analysis of our region's energy alternatives from Synapse Energy Economics which strongly indicated that Broadwater is unnecessary. The report concludes that the future energy needs of New York and Connecticut can be met through more energy efficient proven programs and increased sources of renewable energy. We hope and expect that our input will have decisive influence on the outcome of this important issue.
Building on the momentum of the solid success of the Clean Cars Alliance mentioned earlier, over the coming three years CFE's Clean Air Campaign goal is to move Connecticut to the fore as a national leader in fighting global warming and reducing toxic air emissions. While the Governor's Steering Committee on Climate Change noted the benefits of working cooperatively with other states, it also recommended that Connecticut advance independently in order to make the very most of the opportunities for progress. Success in any one state could serve to galvanize and inspire other states to move forward, and Connecticut is set to lead the region and the nation in this effort.
To help make this vision a reality, CFE has invited the Vervane Foundation to work together with us through a three-year, $75,000 grant ($25,000 per year), assisting us to provide strong support for, and adoption of, a detailed package of investments targeted to advance the objectives of CFE's Clean Air Campaign and Connecticut's Year 2020 Climate Change Action Plan goals. Connecticut's Plan sets the overall target of a 20 percent statewide reduction in greenhouse gas levels by the year 2020. The investments will be made in the sectors of energy, transportation, and construction. Specifically, these investments will advance the CFE's Clean Air Campaign's objectives in the following ways:
1. Monitoring progress of, and building and mobilizing support for, timely implementation of Connecticut's Year 2020 Climate Change Action Plan.
2. Providing legal and technical leadership to ensure effective implementation of the Greenhouse Gas Vehicle Labeling program and its associated consumer education opportunities.
3. Supplying technical and educational leadership in energy efficiency with respect to new "Green Buildings" standards for schools, and residential and commercial buildings.
4. Working with the Connecticut Alliance Against Diesel Pollution to reduce toxic pollution and greenhouse-gas emissions from houses and construction equipment.
In the recent words of James Gustave Speth, author and Dean of the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies, "We are now in the most important race in human history- the race to change our politics, our technology, and our personal consumption choices much faster than the world economy grows. Only unprecedented action taken with a profound sense of urgency can forestall an appalling deterioration of our national assets. This is the challenge of environmental management."
We hope we have been able in this brief letter to give you a sense of the nature and immediacy of the problem of global warming, some of the accomplishments in this area CFE has already achieved, and the initiatives to which we are committed to ensure the health of Connecticut's environment. It is our continuing aim to maintain a leadership role in the region's effort to develop effective, economically viable solutions for our environmental challenges, and take positive actions to make those solutions realities.
Frederick David Watts
11/06
for Connecticut Fund for the Environment (CFE)