
Global warming alarmist Al Gore joked to his publisher that W. B. Yeats had penned the poem in Gore’s latest book; sadly, the publisher seemed to fall for it, before Gore admitted to scribbling it.
Introduction and Text of “One thin September soon
The former vice-president’s untitled piece appears in his book, Our Choice, which purportedly offers the antidote to AGW (anthropogenic global warming).
Gore’s untitled verse is chopped up into seven three-line sets, which may charitably be labeled tercets. In this farcical verse, the AGW fanatic has his speaker pontificate from the position of a shepherd, who is crying to the world about the impending doom that human mankind is bringing on the world through the use of fossil fuels.
Through his many sermons and written tracts on the fabricated issue of AGW, the former failed presidential candidate shows that he fancies himself a kind of modern-day John-the-Baptist crying in the wilderness, which is growing hotter and drier year after year, despite the fact that there has been no “warming” since February 1997, and now temperatures have actually started to cool, according to official NASA global temperature data.
Never mind the inconvenient facts, Gore heralds his speaker to bark loudly about the concocted problem and to offer his saintly wisdom in his untitled “poem”—wonder when Gore will publish a collection of his poetry. Likely, never. It seems that the political gasbag has penned only one “poem” which barely qualifies as doggerel.
One thin September soon
One thin September soon
A floating continent disappears
In midnight sun
Vapors rise as
Fever settles on an acid sea
Neptune’s bones dissolve
Snow glides from the mountain
Ice fathers floods for a season
A hard rain comes quickly
Then dirt is parched
Kindling is placed in the forest
For the lightning’s celebration
Unknown creatures
Take their leave, unmourned
Horsemen ready their stirrups
Passion seeks heroes and friends
The bell of the city
On the hill is rung
The shepherd cries
The hour of choosing has arrived
Here are your tools
Commentary
Supposedly well read in scientific literature, AGW alarmist Al Gore gets the science of the Earth wrong as he has his speaker claim to be “crying in the wilderness” like some modern day John-the-AGW-Baptist.
First Tercet: Beginning with a Fantasy
One thin September soon
A floating continent disappears
In midnight sun
Gore’s speaker begins his piece by asserting that soon one of these Septembers—and it will be a “thin” September, not like the usual thick Septembers—the midnight sun will embrace the disappearance of a continent that floats.
This first assertion presents several problems:
- it must be referring only to the continents at the Earth’s extreme north and south;
- floating continents exist only in fantasy,
- he has to be referring to Antarctica because the Arctic is not a continent at all;
- the midnight sun refers to a phenomenon that occurs in summer at each pole when the sun does not set.
For the midnight sun reference, the speaker has to be referring to the non-continent Arctic because he names the month of September. There is midnight sun in the first three weeks of September at the North Pole but not at the South, whose summer is from December 22 to March 21.
This confusion of poles gets the verse off to an inauspicious start. The reader might remember that the composer of this pigswill is a man who is supposedly steeped in scientific studies in support of his global warming theory. Yet, he engages a non-scientific fantasy and confuses the facts regarding activities at the Earth’s poles.
Second Tercet: The Conundrum of Postmodern Claptrap
Vapors rise as
Fever settles on an acid sea
Neptune’s bones dissolve
According to AGW proponents, ocean waters are becoming acidic because of the lethal effects that the warming is having on various sea creatures, including coral and urchins. Gore’s speaker refers to these sea creatures as Neptune’s bones that are dissolving.
The absurd conflation of the bones of a mythological god and sea creatures bends the piece to the frowziness of postmodernism, where nothing matters because nothing makes sense anyway. Yet this man of hard science wants to influence politicians and governments to make policies that will affect all citizens worldwide.
Third Tercet: A Pile of Images
Snow glides from the mountain
Ice fathers floods for a season
A hard rain comes quickly
Because of the warming, snows begin to loosen and slide down mountains while melting ice gluts the ocean, and then the rains begin, those horrid rains! And they are “hard” rains—recall that other noted poetaster/plagiarist, Bob Dylan.
The politician-cum-poetaster then makes those three claims of the melting that the earth is enduring: all obviously caused by the heat, all slapped together without punctuation or conjunction, possibly because everything is happening almost simultaneously. As the snow and ice suddenly become a hard rain, the reader might then suspect the prompt need of an ark.
Fourth Tercet: As Lightning Celebrates
Then dirt is parched
Kindling is placed in the forest
For the lightning’s celebration
However, the next scene takes the reader to dry land where dirt is parched, and out of the blue, someone has placed small slips of wood in a forest where lightning can catch them to flame as it celebrates.
The doggerelist does not reveal who placed that “[k]indling” in the forest so that lightning could set it aflame for its celebration. Why, one might wonder, would lightning be “celebrating” anyway? But by now the gentle reader has become aware that taking anything in this piece seriously is a fool’s errand.
Fifth Tercet: Getting Ready for the Apocalypse
Unknown creatures
Take their leave, unmourned
Horsemen ready their stirrups
There are many species of animals on Antarctica, but Gore’s speaker chooses to claim that they are unknown as they “[t]ake their leave.” It seems that such a situation would merit some drama, instead of the faint, euphemistic “take their leave.” But then they are unmourned. He, no doubt, would at least have them be mourned, despite their being unknown.
Perhaps the most bizarre and useless line in the entire piece is, “Horsemen ready their stirrups.” There seems to be no reason for that line, for it connects to nothing. And if the bizarre notion of an allusion to the “Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse” springs to mind, it will offer no resolution of any kind. The Book of Revelation has suffered many absurd interpretations, and if Gore’s speaker is attempting to add another, it results in the lamest of the lame.
Sixth Tercet: A Gorean City on the Hill
Passion seeks heroes and friends
The bell of the city
On the hill is rung
The brave shepherd is passionately seeking others who will help him get his message out, that the earth is becoming a scorched, iceless dustbowl with the oceans rising. The speaker/shepherd now credits himself with ringing that all important bell in that all important place—that “city / On the hill.” The solipsism of this piece is nausea invoking. Could the city on the hill be that same place to which President Ronald Reagan referred?
A troubled and afflicted mankind looks to us, pleading for us to keep our rendezvous with destiny; that we will uphold the principles of self-reliance, self-discipline, morality, and, above all, responsible liberty for every individual that we will become that shining city on a hill.
Ronald Reagan
It is likely that Gore’s speaker does, in fact, refer to that same place, but for very different reasons, for the policies thus far suggested to stop global warming would stifle the individualism and freedom of all world citizens, especially those in Third-World nations.
Seventh Tercet: The Shepherd Handing Over the Tools
The shepherd cries
The hour of choosing has arrived
Here are your tools
In the final three-line set, Gore’s speaker reports that he, as this good crying shepherd, is telling his listeners that the time for action is at hand, and he has hereby come to hand to them all the tools they need.
This self-important, fake-science spewing “shepherd” is offering in his new book the necessary “tools” that his sheep will need as they waddle with him down this fantastical path to an Earth-saving global temperature. Whatever that is?
Please note: Fredrick P. Wilson, in his comment, “Ugly, Economically Disastrous, Green Choices,” offers a useful review of Gore’s book, Our Choice, on Amazon.
Sources
- Christopher Monckton of Brenchley. “No global warming at all for 18 years 9 months – a new record.” Cl*m*te Depot. November 4, 2015.
- Aaron Brown. “Did You Know the Greatest Two-Year Global Cooling Event Just Took Place?” RealClear Markets. April 24, 2018.
- Dr. Christopher S. Baird. “What keeps the continents floating on a sea of molten rock?” Science Questions with Surprising Answers. July 18, 2013.
- TV-Tropes: The All Devouring Pop-Culture Wiki. “Floating Continent.” Accessed August 2, 2019.
- Bob Dylan. “A Hard Rain’s a-Gonna Fall.” Genius. Accessed August 1, 2019.
- Sean Michaels. “Bob Dylan is ‘a Plagiarist’, claims Joni Mitchell.” The Guardian. April 23, 2010.
- Ronald Reagan. “Shining City on a Hill” – 1988 State of the Union Address. C-Span. January 25, 1988.
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