Edgar Poe spoke to me, briefly.
“You’re right. They think I’m morbid.
I merely enjoyed myself. You do that, too.”
He whispered the final sentence. I was strangely moved,
as if the round red sun broke through dying clouds.
Take a step back and look at large chunks of geological time.
You can see the temps and CO2 levels over hundreds of thousands of years
and see stretches of measurement from the beginning
of the industrial revolution to today.
A little ice age ended in 1850,
about the time Poe and president Zachary Taylor threw off their mortal coil.
The earth has been warmer than it is today for 95% of its history.
Looking at the record from a long term view calms me down;
it gives me hope. Take into account margin of error, and we’re safe, everything is OK,
re: the planet. Winter kind of sucks, perhaps,
but spring is nice and people love their winter sports.
Science is wonderful, and even rules the realm of poetry,
so the best poets have always known.
The All moves our hand.
I wish I were scientific. I’m too much like you.
A humming, irritated fool. Finally too satisfied.
A week ago I was musing on why CO is so much more dangerous than CO2.
I have no chemistry background. I had to fall back on the little I know.
CO must deprive us of oxygen as carbon bonds with oxygen?
CO2 has more oxygen, so it doesn’t take as much oxygen from us.
I’m going to assume CO2 is a byproduct of CO “taking up the oxygen in the room.”
Of course I could look this up,
but I find it more pleasant
to muse on it with my own crude detective skills.
How in the world carbon and oxygen bond in the first place, and in what amounts, I’m not sure.
Does a wood fire put out any CO as well as CO2, and how much, and why?
The air is N2O—I guess we’re lucky CO is not plentiful!
And CO2 isn’t plentiful, relatively speaking, either.
There is quite a lot of CO2 in our breath.
I assume N2O2 would asphyxiate us, as well, if that even exists!
I should have been a chemist. Oh well.
Edgar Poe wrote a short story in which the people of earth rejoice
when they realize a “death star” which moves in and embraces earth from afar is only oxygen.
Isn’t science finally a matter of asking questions? It isn’t hard.
The world becomes greener and people get “high” on the benefits of more oxygen.
Until…ooops. Fire engulfs earth—because of the oxygen. Oh, Eddie. What a card.