unearthing the good news

Greetings, Poetry People. 2026 is what you might call a Challenging Year so far, and some of the worst headlines are getting buried under other terrible headlines (that also require our attention. Watch this to understand again how Renee became a "legitimate target" and steel yourself for what we--specifically 99% of us--have to give up to make change).

But I'm actually here on this Friday, traditionally Climate Friday at mjlu, to make sure that I dig up some good news for you during the week when the Administration of Greed & Destruction is doing their worst for the environment.  Let's clap back at the following headlines:

"Trump Withdraws U.S. from Major Global Climate Agreements
On January 7, 2026, the Trump administration released a memo. It ordered the country to pull out of 66 international organizations. This includes key climate bodies like the UNFCCC (a multinational treaty) and the IPCC (the UN scientific group that reviews climate research).

“I (Pres. Trump) have considered the Secretary of State’s report and, after deliberating with my Cabinet, have determined that it is contrary to the interests of the United States to remain a member of, participate in, or otherwise provide support to the organizations listed in section 2 of this memorandum.”"


"Under Trump, U.S. Adds Fuel to a Heating Planet
By pulling the United States out of the main international climate treaty, seizing Venezuelan crude oil and using government power to resuscitate the domestic coal industry while choking off clean energy, the Trump administration is not just ignoring climate change, it is likely making the problem worse."

"U.S. carbon pollution rose last year. Experts blame a cold winter, natural gas prices and data centers.
Whereas U.S. emissions fell in prior years, the country spewed 2.4% more heat-trapping gases from fossil fuels in 2025 than in the year before, according to new research."


So what could there possibly be to hang on to, to celebrate? Try these nuggets:

"Over a quarter of all vehicle sales around the world are now EVs!
“Plug-in cars have been comprising more than half of all sales in China and just under a third in Europe in recent months. EVs have had a sales share of more than 20% in recent months in Turkey, Thailand, and Vietnam...If you think the EV revolution is losing speed, it’s probably just a sign that your own domestic market is getting left behind.”
EVs aren’t a perfect solution, of course...However, EVs today are already much, much better than fossil-fuel-powered vehicles. Unless every watt of power you use to charge the EV comes from coal, EVs produce much lower emissions and require far less mining for resources than regular internal combustion engines. And the more the grid decarbonizes, the greater the benefits."


"5 of Our Top Legal Wins From 2025 - EARTHJUSTICE

The onslaught of environmental attacks from polluting industries and their allies in the Trump administration is not slowing down – but neither is the pace of our litigation.
1. Protecting Pacific Islands Heritage Marine National Monument
5. Protecting the Gulf of Mexico from Offshore Drilling
*Bonus Win: In Settlement of Greenwashing Lawsuit, Tyson Agrees to Stop Making Climate Claims"

"Offshore wind developer prevails in U.S. court 
A federal judge ruled Monday that work on a major offshore wind farm for Rhode Island and Connecticut can resume, handing the industry at least a temporary victory as President Trump seeks to shut it down."

It's not easy to find sources of good climate news, but I'll repeat and add to some of my go-to sources:

• What If We Get It Right? with Ayana Elizabeth Johnson  https://ayanaelizabeth.substack.com/
• Talking Climate with Katharine Hayhoe  https://www.talkingclimate.ca/
• https://yaleclimateconnections.org/
• https://one5c.com/ for practical tips and encouragement

And then I came across this, for those of us suffering debilitating climate (or other "public") grief:

“Unthinkable resource hub.”
"From Unthinkable, a “nonprofit tackling the mental health crisis within the climate crisis,” this rich library of resources offers – among many other things – personalized help for individuals who want to move through distress into focused action."

And now, the poetry part of our program today: the Poets.org Treehouse Climate Poem Prizewinner for 2025.

A dead whale can feed an entire ecosystem
Rachel Dillon

but in this poem nothing dies.

Alone in the poem, I make myself
brave. No—I show brave
to my body, take both to the ocean.

Come hurricane, come rip current,
come toxic algal bloom.

In March, I drift past the estuary
to watch an eight-foot dolphin
lap the Mill River

like a cat pacing a bathtub,
sick and disoriented.

Biologists will unspool her empty intestines,
weigh her gray cerebellum.
She swam a great distance to die

alone. I’m sorry—I lied. I can’t control
what lives or dies. I need a place

to stow my brain. To hold
each moment close as a sand flea
caught in my knuckle hairs.

Please, someone—
tell me a poem can coax

oil from a sea bird’s throat.
Tell me what to do
with my hands—my hands—

what can my hands do now?

Thanks to our host Jan at bookseed studio for bringing us all the inspiring MLKJr goodness today, and

make sure you walk out of somewhere into the shared light of action at 2pm on Tuesday.

hovering into 2026: a winged color goddess

Have I ever been here before? Realizing on Saturday morning that on Friday I morning I had not given one inkling of thought to the fact that it was Poetry Friday, the first one of the new month? The New Year?

I'll go and look, but ... I don't think so. And I haven't posted since the first Friday of November, and I haven't really written  a n y t h i n g  since Dec. 3, and (all join in) THAT'S OKAY. But it is odd that all of this has happened without intent, giving me a strong feeling of flakiness. (I once wrote a poem about the horror of being a flaky person, which came out like this,* so some part of me knows better.)

The thing is, while all of you were busily linking your Poetry Friday post with our hostess with the mostess Catherine, I WAS in fact thinking my first OLW thoughts in years, looking for the word that will hold me during this transitional time as Fiona and I gear up to start, in late August, spending 9 months of every year in England, returning each summer to Silver Spring. More on the word later.

First up is the Inklings challenge, set by said hostess Catherine, and based on a little poem by further Inkling Mary Lee (who also rounded us all up and has provided the list of hosts and code to feed the HTML dragons--thank you, Mary Lee, for helping us run). We are to write a little poem that begins “This is January” or “January.” I especially enjoyed the first line of her follow-up to the poem she posted on December 12: "This is December, as much or more than ..." 

So...

This is January

This is January, as much or more than
cleaning up the confetti, putting away the decorations,
assessing the year gone by,  prognosticating the year to come:

the pleasurable stillness of waking, for once,
as the low, slow sun is already slatting the wall;
of taking up a book instead of a handful of screed and screen;
of scrambled eggs in bed and a moderate walk in the wind.

May nothing trying cross my door, on this first of January at least.

draft (c) HM 2026

And now, my word for 2026:                 l o n g a n i m i t y

"Longanimity is a word with a long history. It came to English in the 15th century from the Late Latin adjective longanimis, meaning "patient" or "long-suffering." Longanimis, in turn, derives from the Latin combination of longus ("long") and animus ("soul"). Longus is related to English's long and is itself an ancestor to several other English words, including longevity ("long life"), elongate ("to make longer"), and prolong ("to lengthen in time"). Now used somewhat infrequently in English, longanimity stresses the character of one who, like the figure of Job in the Bible, endures prolonged suffering with extreme patience." 

                                                            https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/longanimity

Now, to be clear, my personal trials are nothing compared with Job's, but do I tend to cause myself quite a lot of internal suffering?    Why, yes--yes I do.   So I have chosen this word over "patience" (a thing I already know that I do not excel in) and over something more like "optimism" or "faith," because it's a quirky word that is fun to say, and because it reminds me that my soul and I am playing a long game, that if I can hang back a little and see what develops, rather than anxiously leaning in and attempting to execute items from my many lists before their time, things are likely to work out fine. It makes me feel wiser than I am wont to feel.

Thanks to Catherine for the challenge, to Mary Lee again for the starting point and our community's bonne continuation, and to all of you for being here, rain or shine. Read what they and my pals Margaret, Linda and Molly have wrought here, and be well!

Catherine @Reading to the Core
Molly Hogan @ Nix the Comfort Zone
Linda Mitchell @ A Word Edgewise
Mary Lee @ A(nother) Year of Reading
Margaret Simon @ Reflections on the Teche

*******BONUS POEM*******

*Goddess Lesson #1

Let’s fantasize,

which is not the same thing as plan.

Plan means picture it through,

time it out, write it down,

commit.  And you know what that means:

follow through.  Get it done.

Flaking is not an option.

Being flaky is the worst possible thing:

it suggests that you are

                         not in control 

of the situation. It suggests that 

you are living in some fantasy

where the plan is not pictured,

not timed, not written down, where

things just happen of their own accord,

one thing leading to another in 

some kind of natural, easy flow that 

does not require your constant efforting 

and which results in all kinds of 

         serendipity,

moments where you see as you 

had not seen before, things are created,

colors sprout wings and name themselves

after the goddesses of every civilization;

they swarm around you, lifting you, 

carrying you so lightly that neither are you

burdened nor are you a burden–

Instead you are a beautiful 

luminescent flake

of snow, of buttery pastry, of ash or 

of skin that has done its duty of its own 

accord and floats, drifting on the natural, 

easy breath of a fantastic

winged color goddess

© HM 2021, 2025