The World Demands It
1 Denial
I ran north and left the sun behind. I left the cacti and the vanishing rivers, too. Winter lasts for eight months in the north. I hate being cold. But drifts of snow and low, grey clouds press down like a lid to insulate us. A freshwater sea runs under our feet — a vast aquifer that sloshes and swirls. Like a lullaby it sings us to sleep humming songs that belong to places we want to forget, Joni’s “River” and Jerry’s “Shenandoah”. Places that bend to hurricanes and emerge sodden and somber with haunted eyes. Places beyond our snow globe.
2 Anger
Scientists are arrested weekly. I need to join them. I can. White people can do that shit without being killed. The kids are in the streets shouting. Our house is on fire. Pictures of houses on fire plaster the internet. Australia, California, Oregon. This is not a metaphor. In Montana, fires ring my city every summer smothering us in smoke and ash. Once, the army corps guided us through the Lolo Peak fire. Flames darted out to lick our tires on both sides of the road. Scientists aren’t rowdy types but now they’re getting handcuffed. They’re on YouTube telling us to “grow the fuck up”. Governments shrug and put their hands into oil executives’ pockets. My kids will inherit an island of cinder, plastic-clogged water sloshing at its edges. We scream and keep screaming. Keep fucking fossil fuels in the ground.
3 Bargaining
My energy bills are higher than they should be given how cold my hands are. Still, the energy company sweet talks me, whispers “60% renewables” in my ear. I’m listening… “What about the other 40%?” I ask. “Coal but we’re phasing it out.” The energy company is so proud. “What then?” I ask. “To keep up with demand, we’ll use natural gas,” they say. Still proud. They admit it’s not solar or wind. “It’s the best we can do,” they shrug. “Which is SO good.” I cup my hands over my mouth and exhale to warm them. Wavering.
4 Depression
There are some wolverines left in Montana but no one knows how many. No one wants to fund a study. Estimates suggest roughly 350 wolverines remain in the lower 48. Many die crossing highways. We shred their territory into ribbons. Speed over life. Cheap flights. Driving 80 to catch a concert or buy produce swathed in plastic. Scientists have a list of the species that will vanish next: Blue Whales, Red Pandas, Lemurs, and Galapagos Penguins. You can’t count them all. Every twenty-four hours, dozens of species vanish. I once had a student from the Maldives. His country was searching for a new homeland. Soon, we will all be climate refugees. Twenty fossil fuel companies cause a third of carbon emissions, but oil and gas executives say they have to keep drilling. “The world demands it,” they insist.
5 Acceptance
In “The Dog Stars”, by Peter Heller, most of the world dies from diseases. I read it in one night, flipping pages with horror. Recognition. The book becomes an instruction guide. I need a small plane. Guns. Years of rations. I need to learn to hunt and fish. I should go deep into the mountains. Defend my territory. My cousin, an engineer who specializes in renewable energy systems, tells me of bunkers he’s visited. The wealthy are building mansions underground. Everything will run on solar and wind. I rethink my plans. I don’t have a chance. Most of us don’t. We’ll face what’s coming, shoulder-to-shoulder. We are all we have.
Originally from New Mexico, Emily Withnall now teaches and writes in Missoula, Montana. Her work has appeared in Al Jazeera, Tin House, Gay Magazine, The Kenyon Review, River Teeth, The Rumpus, Orion, and Ms. Magazine, among others. She is a recipient of the AWP Creative Nonfiction Kurt Brown award, and has received fellowships from Fishtrap Summer Workshop and Under the Volcano. She currently serves as an economic justice fellow for Community Change and she is at work on a book about domestic violence and hydraulic fracturing. Her work can be read at emilywithnall.com.
*
If you like Jellyfish Review, please please please support us with a donation. We want to pay our writers this year and need funds to make that happen.
Thank you!
*
Next: Excerpts from the History of Clocks by Star Su
*
Previous: In which I ask my husband if we should migrate by Clare Chai
*
Image: mareo_diaz Nils Udo CC2.0
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
Jellyfish Review 