~by Colleen O’Brien
I sit by the Racoon River in a park called Henderson outside the prairie town of Jefferson, Iowa.
The river is high and a trifle wild because of several rain showers over the past week and one ferocious windstorm that cut straight through town from southeast to northwest.
Whole trees downed and half-trees, too, plus a thousand branches, although I saw few damaged structures. The great piles of debris in town are being taken care of by homeowners and city crews, while out here by the river, county conservation employees set to rights the usually tidy and peaceful park.
I figure the storm was really a mess made by us humans refusing to take care of our nest, our beautiful planet Earth.
Climate Change, Climate Crisis, Climate Emergency or Climate Chaos – take your pick – is what I believe caused the thin, straight-arrow storm that blew catty-corner through town. It seemed to me one more warning of the earth’s atmosphere in disarray because of the exhaust from fuels that I must burn to run my car, heat and cool my home, support farmers who grow what I eat.
The heat and chemical discharge from the machines that do all this is so intense it is now embracing the planet like the oldest rag of a disreputable blanket full of holes; it used to be a full comforter that protected me from the sun’s surface temperature of close to 10,000 degrees Fahrenheit.
Weather information from the website “UN75, 2020 and Beyond” says that the increasing wildness of world climate is the “defining crisis of our time…a race we are losing but it is a race we can win.”
That’s both frightening and hopeful.
If only we would quit burning fossil fuels – oil, natural gas, coal, wood – and adopt the new, efficient and cheaper[!] nature-based technologies that do not pollute.
The UN’s final words on saving the earth are worth paying attention to:
“If government, businesses, civil society, youth and academia work together, we can create a green future where suffering is diminished, justice is upheld and harmony is restored between people and planet.”
A good place to start in preserving our personal world, America, is to elect a wise and forward-looking government instead of one that is ripping us off.
Sitting here by the Racoon River as it flows past giant cottonwoods and oaks, which it’s done for eons, eases my Earth anxiety. But my memory comes up with a bleak joke about Iowa becoming the new Florida: as the icecaps melt, we will become a huge lake with skinny palm trees rather than the rolling, fruitful prairie that holds back the Mississippi and the Missouri.
~~~ ~~~
In Iowa’s primary a week ago (June 2, 2026), out of 6,132 registered voters of a Greene County population of 8,771 (from the census of 2020, estimated to be 8,658 by 2025), only 1,150 people voted. That’s a whopping 18.75 percent.
No wonder our nation’s edging away from democracy.
This is the kind of voter participation that permits an authoritarian to become a fascist leader. This is the kind of voting that turns a country into a greedy bunch led by the above type who finagles a one-system government in order to power up the suppression of any opposition.
Our authoritarian started by ignoring the Constitutionally mandated free speech for our newscasters, reporters, entertainers, artists and ordinary citizens like me. He moved on for no reason to angry militarism that attacks other countries at will. He talks trash about Blacks, Browns and females. He intimidates teachers into lying to our children about our history of slavery.
Having looked up fascism in the dictionary, I read the end result: “See Nazism.”
Primaries are historically low-voting days. If we’re smart, come the midterm election in November, we will roust out every adult over 18. Dream on, I think cynically. But at least I hope we do better than Greene County’s primary turnout of 18.75 percent, which consisted of 722 Republicans and 428 Democrats.
I think about this and keep in mind the metaphor of how I like my country to be – forever clean rivers of pure beauty and peace. I think about what freedoms I have and inform myself about what kind of education our kids are getting, how much I pay for everything, what will happen if I can’t afford medical care, if I’ll continue to receive Social Security; and I ponder often on when we’re going to quit despoiling our entire earth before it finally gives up on us and becomes a planet of physically unbearable temperatures for humans, animals and oaks.
