Daniel Uncapher

“The Right Kind of Weather for Writing”[1]

Not long ago I went to a conference on[2] the disadvantages of our changing climate[3] in the field of creative writing,[4] a meeting to see what we could do about[5] the disasters and losses of the whole world[6] that everybody already knows all about[7]—how to mitigate them,[8] and how to write about them.[9]

In the face of changing climate it seems impossible that[10] several hundred people flew[11] across the world just for the sake of seeing[12] whether or not they agree with the author altogether; [13]they do. But it’s in our buggy[14] nature to swarm where the sugar is thickest[15] and to work together in furtherance of our own schemes,[16] like bees to the hive,[17] and to suck out every vestige of profit before the accounts reach the corporate balance-sheet[18] we call extinction.[19]

And now the sugar trust is sending out a circular which even some of our populist papers[20] are finding it worth their while to devote special attention to.[21]

A quarterly journal called the Unpopular Review[22] devotes an entire section to the consideration,[23] enlisting all the best talent of the country,[24] the host of writers and poets who have done so much to instruct and amuse us,[25] to explain in so many words how we are going to[26] feel when the world is poison[27] to our bodies and our lives—for of an eviler or uglier death we may not die than to die[28] without someone writing a story.[29]

“Thy eternal summer shall not fade,”[30] they write, although not really profound in argument.[31] The poets cannot do it justice.[32] It is the most important thing in the world, and they are not very interesting;[33] nobody reads them, for it would consume the entire day—which nobody but the most useless of idlers can devote to such a purpose.[34] What time we do have we want much more to give to lying down than to anything else.[35]

Other writers have been writing about the various[36] effects of climate on growth[37] since the invention of the printing press.[38] The American Gaslight Journal says:[39] “Find fault with my climate? Jackass![40] There’s nothing you can do. No one’s going to cut it out—[41]no, not even you,”[42] they write, pretending to pass for sincere and disinterested historians.[43] “But perhaps we can think of something when[44] the oil wells begin to run out!”[45]

They tell us not to worry; that the odds are still in our favor.[46] They want us to believe that the glory and prestige of this country depend upon our being able to[47] keep the air conditioning in operation,[48] keep the planes in the air,[49] keep the printing presses running, providing our already superabundant literature[50] with the chemicals and the cut[51] trees to perform their normal functions.[52]

Of course every word they say about the climate[53] is false; it is the opposite of the fact.[54] These writers are completely mistaken, and we shall even give them a stronger case than they make for themselves;[55] they are liars, but in the book of nature which never lies.[56] They parade the lofty vocabularies of ethics, philosophy, and religion in their daily job of getting money out of somebody.[57]

But then why would anybody want[58] to hear from other writers concerning the occurrence and behavior of this[59] latest extinction in the West?[60]

As if we don’t already know it![61]

Turn to the pages of the[62] Bad News Daily[63] if you want to see what God’s world is like.[64] You will see that the world in which you live and work is a world[65] which is already over-written,[66] on which no more words need by wasted.[67] We have enough words for several hundred years yet,[68] enough words to know ourselves how we are thinking[69] without needing some sort of[70] word genius to describe[71] it for the thousandth time.[72] If you want to hear an example, listen to a department store[73] announcement of a sale, or any one of a dozen[74] ads that come to us in newspaper clippings.[75] Tune in to the proper stations[76] and listen to all the pi-jaw you want,[77] all that wordy nonsense about the[78] peculiarities of our changing climate.[79]

Talk about the weather all the wet day long;[80] you will quickly find it likelier to cause a sore mouth and throat than to cure it,[81] and to scrub no rising[82] carbon from the atmosphere,[83] but in fact contribute a large amount.[84]

#

I know nonsense when I see it.[85] My father knew it, to his cost; for he was twice[86] taken to the hospital for[87] trying to kill himself, once[88] with poison and twice by[89] shooting a hole in his hat.[90]

As a boy he hated the[91] fossil fuels, such as coal and oil,[92] and did everything to avoid them.[93] Thomas Midgley invented[94] the propellant that activates aerosol sprays;[95] in the seventies my father[96] protested against the use of his invention.[97] Indeed, his whole youth and early manhood seem to have been spent in the service of[98] saving the environment.[99] “Turn off the lights,”[100] he would say to his father when he discovered his light[101] was left on all night, “and[102] try not to be simple—for once!”[103]

Nothing went to waste.[104] He never consumed anything but the smallest quantity of[105] ice cream, which he seemed to relish exceedingly,[106] and was always careful to walk[107] instead of driving to his office each day.[108] His clothes were made for a much bigger man, or at least as if cut out on the same plan as children’s, to “allow for growing.”[109] He even wrote letters to the Times.[110]  “Solar power is the most important problem of our day,”[111] reads one article;[112] “we must save our future citizens[113] from the fires we lit.”[114]

By the time he died he neither[115] recycled paper[116] nor re-used, except in one or two minor instances,[117] the bottles of water so prepared and sold.[118] He left the lights on and[119] the A/C running,[120] and he would eat two or three[121] buckets of meat,[122] fried up with potatoes and greens,[123] while driving around a curve at about 40 miles an hour,[124] blowing carbon dioxide into a clear solution of[125] nitrogen, oxygen, and water vapor[126] like a dragon belching fire.[127] Even his own son rose up in rebellion against him.[128]

So he did what he wanted, regardless of anybody;[129] he shot himself after setting fire to the[130] world he left behind him,[131] and left the world to darkness and to me.[132]

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It was pathetic, really it was.[133] One ought to pull oneself together and shake off such nonsense.[134] But my father saw this movement, realized that[135] it was doomed, and no precautions or exertions of man could avail to stop the devastation,[136] so he stopped it himself.[137]

And perhaps he was not far wrong.[138] Since the seventies the situation has changed fundamentally.[139] Not only are we living in a new climate; but we are living in a swiftly and mysteriously changing climate.[140] Birds drop out of the sky,[141] the insects die off in situ.[142] Snow falls in summer,[143] and in winter the mercury often[144] breaks the thermometer.[145] And one day you’ll go to[146] the grocery store to buy some things[147] and find no fish[148] sat upon a bed of ice,[149] not even any ice to be had.[150] And we just keep on fighting the hardest we know how for the sale, and our business increases every year faster than we can take care of it.[151]

The plain, solid, absolute truth is that, wherever a man may be, the climate of that place is only about one tenth of the climate he is living in. The other nine tenths are the climate he has brought with him.[152] In studying climate we study man,[153] and man has been far more successful in overcoming the physical and biological forces of nature than in conquering human nature,[154] which remains as it falls;[155] in a perpetual state of[156] climate collapse.[157] Sometimes he writes mere mawkish nonsense, and at others he simply[158] stands at the windows biting his nails.[159] In either case he knows perfectly well what the result of the hand will be.[160]

The only question left is,[161] will he publish it?[162]

[1] G. A. Schmidt, “Detailed Reports on Our Home Missions” from The Evangelical Herald, Vol. 22 (1923)

[2] Willard Grosvenor Bleyer, How to Write Special Feature Articles (1919)

[3] Thaddeus Stevens Kenderdine, California Revisited, 1858-1897 (1898)

[4] “Editorial” from The Writer, Vol. 38 (1926)

[5] Rev. H. W. Pierson, A Letter to Hon. Charles Sumner, with “Statements” of Outrages Upon Freedmen in Georgia, and and Account of my Expulsion from Andersonville, GA., by the Ku-Klux Klan (1870)

[6] “Wrecks, Life-boats, and Lighthouses” from The Edinburgh Review, Vol. 115 (1862)

[7] “Continental Holidays: Notes for the Inexperienced—and Experienced” from T. P.’s Weekly, Vol. 2 (1903)

[8] Yoritomo-Tashi, Influence: How to Exert It (1916)

[9] Walter A. Dyer, “The Dog on the Farm” from Farm Knowledge: A Complete Manual (1919)

[10] Frederic Edward Clements, Plant Succession: An Analysis of the Development of Vegetation (1916)

[11] Edmondo de Amicis, Holland (1880)

[12] Margaret Agnes Paull, Still Waters (1857)

[13] Charles Kingsley, Health and Education (1874)

[14] Robert Moore Williams, “The Next Time We Die” from Amazing Stories (February 1957)

[15] G. D. Crain, Jr., “The Worth of the Small Buyer” from The American Elevator and Grain Trade, Vol. 35 (1916)

[16] Charles Dickens, Our Mutual Friend (1865)

[17] “The New Stocking” from Punch, or The London Charivari, Vol. 99 (1890)

[18] “Eastern Counties” from The Railway Times, Vol. 18 (1 December 1855)

[19] Henry Smith Warleigh, Immortality in Christ: or, Eternal Death (1875)

[20] “Cuba” from Sugar, Vol. 3 (1901)

[21] “Gone But Not Forgotten Costumers” from Confectioners Journal, Vol. 52 (1926)

[22] “Notes and News” from The South Atlantic Quarterly, Vol. 13 (1914)

[23] John Patterson MacLean, The Mound Builders: Being an Account of a Remarkable People (1904)

[24] “Screw-Propulsion: Its Rise and Progress” from The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5 (March 1860)

[25] Sir Henry H. Cunynghame, Time and Clocks (1906)

[26] Commander, Clear the Decks!: A Tale of the American Navy To-day (1918)

[27] Richard Baxter, The Crucifying of the World (1658)

[28] William Morris, “The History of Over Sea” from Old French Romances Done Into English (1896)

[29] Basil Creighton, The History of an Attraction (1917)

[30] William Shakespeare, “Sonnet 18” (1609)

[31] John Sinclair, Thirty-two Years of the Church of England, 1842-1874 (1876)

[32] Stanley J. Keith, “Tone” from Musical Messenger, Vol. 16 (1920)

[33] William Somerset Maugham, The Moon and Sixpence (1919)

[34] “The Political Indicator” from The Parliamentary Review, Vol. 1 (1833)

[35] Henry James, Notes of a Son and Brother (1914)

[36] “Advertisement for The Boy Problem in the Home” from The Congregationalist, Vol. 100 (1915)

[37] William Leslie Mackenzie and Edwin Matthew, The Medical Inspection of School Children (1904)

[38] “Mr. Kinne’s Report on Agriculture” from Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the New York State Agricultural Society, Vol. 5 (1846)

[39] “Itinerant Meter Testers” from The Petroleum Gazette, Vol. 14 (1909)

[40] Booth Tarkington, The World Does Move (1928)

[41] F. L. Wallace, “Tangle Hold” from Galaxy Science Fiction (June 1953)

[42] Thomas W. Hanshew, The Riddle of the Night (1915)

[43] Antoine Varillas, The History of William de Croy, Surnamed the Wise (1687)

[44] Rossiter Johnson, Phaeton Rogers: A Novel of Boy Life (1881)

[45] United States, “Defendant’s Testimony” from Petitioner vs. Standard Oil Company of New Jersey (1908)

[46] George Warfield Clark, The Atlas of Life and Its Opposing Forces (1920)

[47] Peter Rylands, “Annual Address to his Constituents in the Public Hall, Warrington, December 10, 1870” from Speeches (1890)

[48] “Excerpts from the Testimony of Wendell Berge, Assistant Attorney General of the United States, Before the Sub-Committee on War Mobilization” from Records and Briefs of the United States Supreme Court (1946)

[49] Robert Sidney Bowen, Dave Dawson on the Russian Front (1943)

[50] James V. Boudreau, “The Successful Art Teacher” from The Ohio State University Bulletin, Vol. 28 (1923)

[51] “Horticulture” from Experiment Station Record, Vol. 20 (1909)

[52] William Solotaroff, Shade-trees in Towns and Cities (1911)

[53] Velma West Sykes, “Come On, Let’s Toot! Have Missourians Been Too Modest?” from The Swine World, Vol. 9 (1921)

[54] G. K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy (1908)

[55] Thomas Collyns Simon, Scientific Certainties of Planetary Life: or, Neptune’s Light as Great as Ours (1855)

[56] Jean-Jacques Rousseau, A Discourse Upon the Origin and the Foundation of the Inequality Among Mankind

[57] John Macy, “Indiscretions of a Juror: Reflections of a Victim to a Three Months’ Siege” from Case and Comment, Vol. 17 (1910)

[58] Herbert L. Baker, “Co-Operation in Press Equipment” from American Printer and Bookmaker, Vol. 55 (1912)

[59] The Oölogist: For the Student of Birds, Their Nests and Eggs (1921)

[60] Albert Barnes, Notes, Explanatory and Practical, on the Book of Revelation (1859)

[61] Mrs. Mina Hall Epley, “Winning the Crown” from Religious Telescope, Vol. 73 (1907)

[62] G. K. Chesterton and F. G. Kitton, Charles Dickens (1903)

[63] John Talbot Dillon, The History of the Reign of Peter the Cruel, King of Castile and Leon (1788)

[64] Václav Tille, Little Tom (1922)

[65] Warren Hilton, Applied Psychology: Making Your Own World (1914)

[66] Dinsmore Ely, Dinsmore Ely, One Who Served (1919)

[67] Paul Shorey, “Book Review” from Classical Philology, Vol. 8 (1913)

[68] Hinton Gilmore, “What a Waste of Words!” from Cartoons Magazine, Vol. 17 (1920)

[69] Helen Rand, “Measure Your Vocabulary: A Diagram Method” from The Editor, Vol. 60 (1923)

[70] “Extending the Boundaries: How the Field of the Commercial Car is Widening” from The Automobile, Vol. 26 (1912)

[71] Owen Barfield, History in English Words (1926)

[72] William Still, The Underground Rail Road (1872)

[73] Dale Carnegie, The Art of Public Speaking (1915)

[74] George F. Hamilton, Retail Shoe Salesmanship (1920)

[75] “Neglected Opportunities for Growth” from Monument Reporter, Vol. 42 (1909)

[76] “Radio Enters Jail” from Electrical Experimenter, Vol. 13 (1925)

[77] Ford Madox Ford, Some Do Not… A Novel (1924)

[78] George Searle Philips, The Gypsies of the Danes’ Dike: A Story of Hedge-side Life (1864)

[79] William Johnson Fox, Finsbury Lectures (1838)

[80] Geoffrey Dearmer, “Things Talked About: A Red-Letter Survey” from The World Today, Vol. 43 (1923)

[81] Nicholas Culpeper, “Woodbine, or Honey-Suckles” from The Complete Herbal (1801)

[82] Mr. John M’Douall Stuart, “Diary of Explorations North of Murchison Range” from The Journal of the Royal Geographical Society, Vol. 32 (1862)

[83] Charles Andrew Cotton, Geomorphology of New Zealand: Pt. 1 (1922)

[84] John Bowring, Autobiographical Recollections of Sir John Bowring (1877)

[85] David Herbert Lawrence, The Lost Girl (1921)

[86] John Gerard, The Condition of Catholics Under James I (1871)

[87] Irving E. Cox, “Adolescents Only” from Imagination: Stories of Science and Fantasy (January 1953)

[88] Charles Edward Russell, “Strange Lineage of a Royal Baby” from The Cosmopolitan, Vol. 43 (1907)

[89] Ruth A. Gegenheimer, “After-Care Work With Mental Patients From the Point of View of a Psychiatric Social Worker” from Mental Hygiene, Vol. 8 (1924)

[90] “Here and There Upon the Globe: The Land of the Vikings” from Girls’ Book of Treasures (1893)

[91] Earl Nelson, “A Great Layman” from St. Andrew’s Cross, Vol. 20 (1905)

[92] William R. Corliss, Direct Conversion of Energy (1968)

[93] Allen B. West, “Chronology of the Years 432 and 431 B.C.” from Classical Philology, Vol. 10 (1915)

[94] American Iron and Steel Association, Bulletin of the American Iron and Steel Association, Vol. 27 (1893)

[95] J. E. Lamar, Industrial Minerals and Metals of Illinois (1965)

[96] Elliott O’Donnell, Twenty Years Experiences as a Ghost Hunter (1916)

[97] U. S. House of Representatives, “Deposition—Henry M. Shreve” from House Documents, Vol. 121 (1860)

[98] “The Virginia Navy of the Revolution” from Southern Literary Messenger, Vol. 24 (1857)

[99] Library of Congress, “Motion Pictures and Filmstrips” from Catalog of Copyright Entries: Third Series, Vol. 24 (1970)

[100] Carey Rockwell, The Space Pioneers (1953)

[101] Peter B. Kyne, Kindred of the Dust (1920)

[102] Constance Lytton, Prisons & Prisoners: Some Personal Experiences (1914)

[103] H. B. Fyfe, “Tolliver’s Orbit” from If: Science Fiction (September 1961)

[104] Mary Theodora Whitley, Boys and Girls in Other Lands (1924)

[105] “Jeremy Bentham” from The Law Quarterly Review, Vol. 22 (1906)

[106] George Watterston, Wanderer in Washington (1827)

[107] Mabel Osgood Wright, Dogtown (1902)

[108] Charles David Musgrove, Nervous Breakdowns and How to Avoid Them (1913)

[109] Aunt Evergreen, Ellen French (1866)

[110] “Benjamin Robert Haydon” from The Eclectic Magazine of Foreign Literature, Science, and Art, Vol. 30 (1853)

[111] “The Changing World” from The Independent, Vol. 106 (1921)

[112] “The Educational Outlook” from The School Journal, Vol. 68 (1904)

[113] “The Evils of the Night Messenger Service” from Success Magazine, Vol. 13 (1910)

[114] Ernest Henry Shackleton, South: The Story of Shackleton’s Last Expedition, 1914-1917 (1919)

[115] John Gibson Lockhart, Reginald Dalton (1849)

[116] Junior Park Ranger Program, Montezuma Castle and Tuzigoot National Monuments

[117] J. T. Carpenter, “Using Thirty-Three Perfect Less Oil” from Factory, the Magazine of Management, Vol. 8 (1912)

[118] “Trademark of a Product of Nature” from The Albany Law Journal, Vol. 3 (1871)

[119] Frances A. Ludwig, “Doing Without Mother” from American Illustrated Magazine, Vol. 90 (1920)

[120] C. A. Butcher, “Automatic Substations for Supplying 1500 Volts Direct Current to Suburban Railways” from Journal of the American Institute of Electrical Engineers (1924)

[121] Upton Sinclair, “Cunnylums: An All-True Story” from The Independent, Vol. 54 (1902)

[122] Gertrude Van Duyn Southworh, Our South American Neighbors (1924)

[123] John Stephen Farmer and William Ernest Henley, Slang and Its Analogues Past and Present (1890)

[124] Claude Perrin Berry, The Law of Automobiles (1924)

[125] John J. Pilley, Chemistry of Common Objects Adapted to the Alternative Elementary Stage of the Syllabus of the Department of Science and Art (1892)

[126] Mr. Schell, “Lesson: Fourth Period Class, Elementary Science, March 12, 1913” from The School Review, Vol. 22 (1914)

[127] Ruth Louise Gaines, A Village in Picardy (1918)

[128] Charles Simeon, Horae Homileticae: Judges to Second Book of Kings (1855)

[129] Hutchins Hapgood, An Anarchist Woman (1909)

[130] Nick Carter, The Suicide: or, Nick Carter and the Lost Head (1915)

[131] Isabel Katherine Hornibrook, Pemrose Lorry, Camp Fire Girl (1921)

[132] Henry David Thoreau, Walden (1854)

[133] Onoto Watanna, Cattle (1924)

[134] Anton Chekhov, The Sea-Gull (1895)

[135] Alexandre Dumas, My Memoirs, Vol. 1 (1891)

[136] “Society for the Promotion of Christian Knowledge” from The Church of England Magazine, Vol. 21 (1846)

[137] William James Mutch, Graded Bible Stories (1914)

[138] Dudley Costello, “The Camp at Boulogne” from New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 102 (1854)

[139] “Balkan Issues” from Current History: A Monthly Magazine of the New York Times (May 1918)

[140] A. J. Caldwell, “Instructors of the Blind: New Ideals for Changing Conditions” from Biennial Convention of Instructors of the Blind (1926)

[141] “High Flights of Migrating Birds” from Youth’s Companion, Vol. 70 (1896)

[142] William Morton Wheeler, “An Ethological Study of Certain Maladjustments in the Relations of Ants to Plants” from Bulletin American Museum of Natural History, Vol. 22 (1904)

[143] Alfred Judson Henry, Climatology of the United States (1906)

[144] Samuel Maunder, The Treasure of Geography (1875)

[145] Arthur Thomas Simmons, Physiography for Beginners (1896)

[146] Hugh Walpole, Jeremy (1918)

[147] Joanna E. Wood, The Untempered Wind (1894)

[148] James Donnegan, A New Greek and English Lexicon (1842)

[149] W. Clark Russell, The Frozen Pirate (1887)

[150] E. W. Savi, Banked Fires (1919)

[151] “Promising Outlook for 1912” from Printers’ Ink, Vol. 78 (1912)

[152] Ellis Parker Butler, “How’s Your Climate? Have You Got It With You?” from American Illustrated Magazine, Vol. 89 (1920)

[153] Alfred Haviland, Climate, Weather, and Disease (1855)

[154] Carl Conrad Eckhardt, “War and Peace in the Light of History” from History Teacher’s Magazine, Vol. 8 (1917)

[155] “In What Manner it is to be Understood that as the Tree Falls so it Remains; Also Concerning the Memory” from The Intellectual Repository for the New Church (1843)

[156] William J. O’Neill Daunt, Ireland and Her Agitators (1867)

[157] Marquess George Nathaniel Curzon, Persia and the Persian Question, Vol. 2 (1892)

[158] A. G. K. L’Estrange, History of English Humour, Vol. 2 (1878)

[159] John Galsworthy, Windows (1922)

[160] John Nevil Maskelyne, The Secrets of Cheating (1894)

[161] E. W. Laisne, “Direct Methods in Charging Fees for Optometric Services” from The Optical Journal and Review, Vol. 51 (1923)

[162] Henry James, The Outcry (1911)