The Greenhouse Effect, by Carl Dennis

Hello Friends... 

Sure, we all are doing well... Be careful, we must stay fit and shouldn't fall ill getting our studies affected. We shall eat and drink healthy, exercise regularly, and won't avoid our domestic and social responsibilities. And whatever time we get for ourselves at the end of the day, we must study hard for most of the time, so that we learn to think... and learn. We simply cannot afford to stop thinking, for we are learners, and we are the chosen ones who got the scope to learn... 

Let's learn to think first...

The Greenhouse Effect  

by Carl Dennis [Photo by Zac Calvert, Union University]

The First Reading

Here we meet to read the poem, The Greenhouse Effect, by Carl Dennis. Shall we start, then?-

The gradual warming trend will likely go on 

And the grain belts begin to slide closer to the poles.

The Plains States will be abandoned as giant dust bowls.

Greenland and Antarctica will join the new Great Powers.

Even if we play them off against each other 

For more aid, we'll still be poorer than we are now.

Life will be different, good tillable land so dear

The suburbs will give way to farms, the cities 

Fill up again with people too poor to own cars.

Walking to work or crowding on trollies, 

We'll move down streets lined with practical nut trees, 

Not elms and oaks, with vegetables crowding the front lawns.

The tax base will be too small to support the public buildings.

We'll have to donate hours after work each week

To rake the lawn of the Library and City Hall,

To tuckpoint the chimney of the Federal Building 

If we don't want the place to fall like temples in Rome, 

Don't want sheep to graze in our squares

As they grazed in the Forum for a thousand years.

With a little effort the country will go on.

So what if we've lost our high place to stronger Carthages 

Whose far-flung fleets will be loaded with merchandise 

Cheaper than ours. We'll be glad to watch from the beach

As the lights from Korean armadas pass

On their endless patrols around the world.

Let them have their little time in the sun

We'll say to ourselves as we begin to sway 

To the strains of our native beach band, 

Ignoring the hits from the Arctic on the radio.

Listening to It- The Conversational Approach

How about listening to the poem being recited now? We might find something more as the words hit our ears in the appropriate tune...

How did you find the recital? Was it way different from the way you read the poem earlier? Did you find the listening exercise meaningful? I'm sure you would agree that the conversational tone and rhythm that build up the style of the poem make us feel that the conversation is happening in real time instead of some distant time and thereby make it more effective. The conversational tone also indicates that the issue being raised here belongs to our daily life, and not something fancifully distant.

Now it's time for the discussion...

Let's Begin the Discussion

The Greenhouse Effect: The Title

You all must have heard about the greenhouse effect in your environmental awareness classes. It is a natural process that keeps Earth’s surface warm enough for life. Sunlight reaches the planet and heats the surface. The Earth then radiates heat back toward space as infrared radiation. Greenhouse gases—like carbon dioxide, methane, water vapor, and nitrous oxide—absorb some of this infrared energy and re‑emit it in all directions, including back toward the ground. This trapped heat raises the average temperature of the atmosphere and the surface, much like the glass walls of a greenhouse hold heat inside.

In a balanced state, the greenhouse effect maintains a climate that supports ecosystems and human civilization. However, human activities (burning fossil fuels, deforestation, industrial processes) during the last few centuries have increased the concentration of greenhouse gases, strengthening the effect and leading to acute ecological crises like global warming and climate change.

The title of the poem seems to be quite direct, right? The text, then, must be a discourse on the burning issue of global warming. Let’s read through the poem to see what the poet has to say in this regard, and how he chooses to develop his argument.

The First Line

The gradual warming trend will likely go on

It seems we were right to assume that the title is quite direct. The very first line of the poems asserts the fact. However, have you noted the tone of the poet? Do you find him optimistic, with his faith set upon the wisdom of mankind, hoping they would be smart enough to rectify their misdeeds securing the planet for the next generations? It is hardly so, right? Instead, he seems to feel quite the opposite, saying that the trend will likely go on.

Here, I have a question to ask. If some among you are already active as a green warrior, fighting for the causes of the environment, you know that you feel optimistic about your cause and believe that you can install sense into others. Could you have continued with your agenda if you have felt pessimistic? How then, the poet is about to argue on this when it seems he is not very optimistic about human sensibility?

Lines 2-4

And the grain belts begin to slide closer to the poles.

The Plains States will be abandoned as giant dust bowls.

Greenland and Antarctica will join the new Great Powers.

It is quite interesting to see how the poet is speculating the probable outcomes of the human misdeeds causing the global warming, right? As the temperature keeps on rising, the equatorial and tropical zones might eventually cease to be the producers of the food grains for the world. Rather, it would probably be the temperate zones, closer to the polar regions, which would then rise as our new grain belts. The current human settlements, in turn, might be unfit for living. There might be no vegetation growing there anymore, being draught stricken due to the risen temperature. Those places will perhaps be abandoned as dust filled deserts. The global map of powerful nations would then be drawn fresh, with Greenland and Antarctica as the new Great Powers replacing today’s Giants.

Do you find this interesting, and feel to speculate on your own as well? Have you ever tried to count the consequences of the environmental crises that are our present threats, if we fail to remedy them? How are they different to the ones imagined by the poet? Just to make this activity more engaging, I would like to tell you that the poet got this poem first published in August 1985. Would you like to contemplate how many years have already passed, and how far the poet's speculations have come close to be true?

Lines 5-6

Even if we play them off against each other

For more aid, we'll still be poorer than we are now.

Do you find the hint at international state politics in practice interesting? How do Giants stay giants in global politics? Is it claimed by the sheer virtue of their genius and superiority? Or is it claimed by the sheer cunning of the present Giants who play the rising powers against each other to stunt their promises of growth so that they stays inferior to the present Giants forever?

We need to keep in mind that our poet is an American by nationality, and he is under the belief that even such cunning practices would not be sufficient for them (present Giants) to retain their position of superiority once the global climatic map is redrawn affecting the current human settlements, available resources, and power politics.

But how will be the life once the map is redrawn? What are your speculations? Let’s tally ours with the poets:

Lines 7-10

Life will be different, good tillable land so dear

The suburbs will give way to farms, the cities

Fill up again with people too poor to own cars.

Walking to work or crowding on trollies,

The poet assumes that it's going to be different from as it is now. Fertile lands that are tillable won't remain as valuable as they are now. Being desperate to produce our food, our farms will encroach into the suburban residential settlements. It's going to re-shape the economy of the countries. Today's rich and elite community will disappear from the urban pockets which will in turn be filled up with the working class either walking or commuting via the crowded public transport to their workplaces instead of riding private cars. What do you think?

Lines 11-12

We'll move down streets lined with practical nut trees,

Not elms and oaks, with vegetables crowding the front lawns.

Difficult time would imbibe desperate measures. People would lean onto growing vegetables and edible nuts which would be more practical than growing decorative elms, oaks, and lawns.

That we would do away with oaks and elm trees sound bad for they support other species of animals and birds, thus playing important ecological roles. However, lawns, exclusive to the rich and elite class, are not the same, as they are quite expensive in terms of ecological damage they induce. Forests are cleared, trees are felled, and only decorative grasses are grown at the expense of huge irrigation, only to satisfy the aesthetic pleasure of the rich. I won’t personally mind lawns turning to farms growing vegetables, but yes, losing the elms and oaks is a more serious loss. What do you say?

Lines 13-19

The tax base will be too small to support the public buildings.

We'll have to donate hours after work each week

To rake the lawn of the Library and City Hall,

To tuckpoint the chimney of the Federal Building

If we don’t want the place to fall like temples in Rome,

Don’t want sheep to graze in our squares

As they grazed in the Forum for a thousand years.

Since people will grow poorer, the poet assumes that the state tax fund would run at a deficit. It would not afford to pay for the maintenance of the state buildings anymore. When the state would find it difficult to get more money out of the common people as tax, they will simply latch unto their free labour forcing them to work overtime for free for the sake of their patriotism. Yes, states rarely stop extorting their citizens. The common people would rake the lawns of the libraries and the city halls, would repair the chimneys of the Federal Buildings where the powerful statesmen reside at our expenses, for free, while they, the statesmen, and their policies fail miserably to counter the global warming issues. Without the effort of the common working class, even today’s [1985's] America might very well repeat and replay the fall of the great Roman Empire.

Do you sense some irony in here?- That greatness is achieved, maintained and restored by the sole effort of the working class, and it’s always the whim and inefficiency of the statesmen who bring them their doom?

Line 20

With a little effort the country will go on.

Do you feel the effort required is going to be little? The country will go on… Whereto? Would you like to call this a progress? Or a trek backward? Do you feel the poet is being ironical? If you agree, now you have a good reason to explain why the poet is developing his argument in spite of being pessimistic about the entire situation. Is he trying to slapstick his readers to sense?

Lines 21-29

So what if we’ve lost our high place to stronger Carthages

Whose far-flung fleets will be loaded with merchandise

Cheaper than ours. We’ll be glad to watch from the beach

As the lights from Korean armadas pass

On their endless patrols around the world.

Let them have their little time in the sun,

We’ll say to ourselves as we begin to sway

To the strains of our native beach band,

Ignoring the hits from the Arctic on the radio.

Carthage, the ancient Phoenician city, an epicenter of trade and commerce, used to dominate the entire Mediterranean belt. [Please note how the poet is using this proper noun as a class noun just by adding the plural marker at the end of the noun, thus extending the scope of the meaning by turning a singular instance to a more generalised trend.] However, at the end of their long conflict, the city lost it’s glory to Rome and got rebuilt by them. Empires rise and fall, and history witnesses and admits all. So, there is nothing to rue if the Americans lose their high position to some new dominating power, some new Carthage, who would in turn beat them in trade with their cheaper merchandise. 

Do you note the ambiguity of the word ‘cheaper’? It might mean lesser in price, but at the same time you may connote it as something poorer in quality. Do these lines remind you of China, taking over the lion’s share of the entire global market with their cheaper options, both in price, and in quality? Do you feel that the poet might have used this ambiguous word deliberately?

Needless to say, these Carthages/dominating powers, again in due course will lose the some new power rising to prominence. So, it’s better to accept the decadence and downfall calmly and watch the other rising powers [like the (north) Koreans?] dominate the entire globe. How bitter do you find the satire here? You might recall that during the Korean War, China and Russia were the Allies of North Korea whereas South Korea had the support of the UN Command led by the US. Since then, the relationship between North Korea and the US has been quite cold, if not hostile. And if due to the rise in global temperatures, power maps get redrawn, advantage would be for the nations closer to the polar regions.

The poet seems to propose a calm resignation: to let the new powers have their little time in the sun, for it would be very soon when the entire planet will be a giant bowl of dust, not fit for supporting life anymore. Till then, the Americans might sway to their own native tunes in their own land, ignoring (or maybe they wouldn’t be anymore able to afford to listen to foreign music) the new hit songs from the Arctic belts, for economic dominance precedes cultural prominence, if not dominance. If the past success have turned the Americans blind and ignorant, their present inaction in rectifying their mistakes would bring them their downfall. And the sad part is that their ignorant minds wouldn’t even realise the loss they would suffer. 

Do you think it's going to be true only for the Americans? Don't you feel threatened for similar reasons just because you are from some other nation? Why don't you share your mind in the comment box down below? 

We are all ears...