Gary Fincke

Experience has shown how difficult it is to make a dent in the ignorance of those who are indifferent to or even skeptical about climate change. To make an impression, coming at it from an angle might be an advantage. For one, let someone else do the preaching. Let a persona like Miss Hartung send out a dire warning. And let it be vivid and concrete and frightening. Let her have a distinctive voice. Let her speak as if we were children. As if we needed to be educated. As if we were so satisfied with ignorance that we needed to be shocked. As if we needed to be terrorized. That’s what I aimed for in the poem published in Plant-Human Quarterly, “Miss Hartung Explains Climate to the Intermediate School.”