Pope Francis got me choked up over this one: “Some effects of the climate crisis are already irreversible, at least for several hundred years, such as the increase in the global temperature of the oceans, their acidification and the decrease of oxygen. Ocean waters have a thermal inertia and centuries are needed to normalize their temperature and salinity, which affects the survival of many species. This is one of the many signs that the other creatures of this world have stopped being our companions along the way and have become instead our victims.”
…Other creatures of this world have stopped being our companions
along the way and have become instead our victims?”
Let me name some of our former neighbors that have fallen by the wayside,
Not yet extinct, but vanished from so many of their past habitats: vaquita,
Colorado River pike minnow, Sonoran mud turtle, Nichol’s turk’s head cactus,
San Marcos River wild rice, Okeechobee gourd, blowout penstemon,
Coachella Valley fringe-toed lizard, Kentucky hell-bender salamander,
Southwest willow flycatcher, sunflower sea stars and whorled sunflowers.
What of the victims of incidental take-downs in your neighborhood, the road kills,
The accidental bulldozings and oil spills, the native bees parasitized by invaders,
The microbes and invertebrates in desiccated lakes, now dry playas?
Who is going to see that they are resurrected before Easter Day?
