Photo by Athul Cyriac Ajay on Unsplash

I wish I could save the world with one keystroke
Delete carbon dioxide from the atmosphere
Duplicate animals and plants from endangered species
Paste forests over mutilated landscapes

I wish I could Command-Z all of our mistakes
Unbleach the corals
Unacidify the oceans
Unmelt the glaciers
Undeplete the soil

I wish I could save the world in BOLD CAPITAL LETTERS
With the urgency italicized and underlined
Even though I know it’s obnoxious
And kind of overkill

I wish I could save the world with a Photoshop brush
Paint over bad layers
And convert grayscale to color

A YEARs-LONG CREATIVE EXPLORATION OF THE CLIMATE THROUGH 100-WORD STORIES • WEEK 10

Photo from iStock

There are 1.2 million of them, little biological gems, more precious than the most precious stones, evolutionary miracles tucked away in the side of a mountain way up there, where mountains are perpetually frozen, or at least should be, a sort of rainy day fund, a genetic IRA to be withdrawn only in case of emergency should humans or the planet go berserk, an unlikely investment in hope, a commitment to the belief that we can overcome, that we can prevail, a recognition that they alone hold the wild and exuberant future of all life on Earth.

Inspiration: ‘Doomsday’ Arctic seed vault gets boost as efforts to secure food supplies ramp up

A YEARs-LONG CREATIVE EXPLORATION OF THE CLIMATE THROUGH 100-WORD STORIES • WEEK 9

Photo by Diana Polekhina on Unsplash

My sinuses swollen shut
my throat like sandpaper
my breath highjacked by a sneeze machine
I search for ideas for a story:

Malls turned into colleges
Greta’s new book
Plastic made from food waste
Public art that generates clean power
Indigenous moose hunting
Blizzards in California

I stare at the words blankly
…
I
cannot
think
through
this
haze

Two negative COVID tests
and then a third for good measure
It’s been three years – I had forgotten what it feels like

 Despite the urgency
I guess even climate action must wait
for good health to return

A YEARs-LONG CREATIVE EXPLORATION OF THE CLIMATE THROUGH 100-WORD STORIES • WEEK 8