WEBVTT

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Wow, Oregon.

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Oregon has a serious history.

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Do you know that
free Black people

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weren't allowed to be in
Oregon until the late 1920s?

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So you know.

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I have so many people to thank.

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I want to thank Hannah and
Brian and Lisa, and Sarah

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squared, and Gregg, and Tyler,
and my wonderful docents who

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drove me and took me to
Rosa's Mexican yesterday

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for the most delicious bowl
of soup, which I really needed

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because I have a bit of a cold.

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And all the faculty and
students who welcomed me today,

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and Mathias for my dreams.

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And Aisha and everyone at the
Poetry Center, and, of course,

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all of you.

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Thank you for taking the
time to come and think

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about the world with me.

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In the 2005 book, Living With
The Changing California Coast,

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authors Gary Griggs,
and Kiki Patsch,

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and Lauret Savoy inform us that
80% of California's 35 million

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people now live within 30
miles of the shoreline.

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And this number
continues to increase.

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They go on to tell us that in
20 years since the first edition

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of the book, the state's
population had grown 40%,

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from 25 million to 35 million.

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And many of these people have
moved to coastal communities.

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This population growth
figure is even 10% faster

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than the remarkable
interpretation of data

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with which I am
familiar, and that data

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suggests that the
population of California

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doubles every 50 years.

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The most recent statistics
recorded in 2014

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show that the population of the
state is 38.8 million people.

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To put this in
perspective, Canada,

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the geographically enormous
nation to our North,

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boasted a population
of 35 million people

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in that same year.

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The difference between the
population of California

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and the population of Canada
is equal to the population

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of Orange County.

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Just one of California's
many shore-loving regions.

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Living with the change
in California coast

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also told me that for the
bulk of the 20th century,

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sea-levels rose by about
1/10 of an inch per year

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or about an inch a decade.

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That's about 2.5 milimeters,
if you're sciency

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in your way of
thinking of things.

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A look at climate.nasa.gov's
climate/sea levels page

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tells me that from May of
1993 when sea levels were

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at 4.9 millimeters,
their satellite sea level

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observations have
measured an increase

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of over 80 millimeters.

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The sea-level was
measured in April of 2016

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at 87.1 millimeters.

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This equates to a sea-level
rise of about 3.5 inches

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in 23 years, which
is a bit faster

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than the rate of sea-level rise
in our pre-industrial past.

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But which, as you may
know, is slow in comparison

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to the rates of
sea-level rise predicted

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as melting ice caps and
decreased glaciation

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coupled with the expansion
of warming sea waters

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increases the rate
of sea-level rise.

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According to the
book's authors--

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This was like the
cozy little book

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I read the other night
before I went to sleep--

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most scientists recognize
that rates of sea-level rise

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are increasing.

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And that acceleration beyond
present rates is likely.

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We are still uncertain,
however, whether sea levels will

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rise another nine inches
or so as experienced

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during the last century
or three feet or more as

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has been predicted by some.

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Either way, the
increase will mean

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the inundation of
low-lying coastal land

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and the erosion of the
shoreline processes, which

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we should begin to
anticipate and plan for.

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I'm going to add that we are
seeing what might look like--

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what this all might look like
in America and around the world

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already.

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The New York Times reported
that this year in January,

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the Department of Housing
and Urban Development

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announced grants totaling
$1 billion in 13 states

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to help communities
adapt to climate change

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by building stronger levees,
dams, and drainage systems.

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One of these grants, $48 million
for Isle de Jean Charles, which

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is located at the Southern end
of the Gulf Coast of Louisiana,

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is something new.

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It is the first allocation
of federal tax dollars

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to move an entire
community struggling

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with the impacts
of climate change.

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The homes on Isle
de Jean Charles

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have been inundated by the
effects of rising sea levels.

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Off of an atoll called
Kiribati, near New Zealand,

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a man named Ioane
Teitiota applied

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to become the world's first
official climate change

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refugee in September of 2015.

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But the courts of New
Zealand denied his claim,

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and sent him back to the island
that at its highest point

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is only 3 meters
above sea-level.

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A search of news articles about
the threat of rising sea-levels

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in places like Micronesia
suggests a bleak future

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for Mr.--

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people like Mr Teitiota.

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Scientists are
telling Micronesians,

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there will probably
be three more feet

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of sea level rise in
less than 90 years,

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with 6 and 1/2 more feet as
an estimated upper bound,

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a distinct possibility.

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"Even a small rise
of one meter,"

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says this article I was
reading, "would already

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have a devastating effect."

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This is from Masao Nakayama,
the permanent representative

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of the Federated
States of Micronesia.

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If it gets to a meter
or higher, the islands

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would get uninhabitable.

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A rising water table is
already turning salty

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in the center of
islands, killing

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staple food crops like taro
and many other kinds of plants.

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Sea-level rise is
the most scary.

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You cannot put sea walls on all
the islands, about 600 of them.

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Five hundred are small
islands, like atoll islands,

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says Nakayama.

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Why am I reading to you
all this science at news

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at what is supposed to
be a poetry reading?

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On Tuesday, my daughter,
Callie, who is in many ways

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the star of both of
my forthcoming books,

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told her grandparents that
she wanted them to call her,

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California.

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She was born in California.

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She told them, and
her name is contained

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within the state's name.

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In fact, by the way, she's
named after my grandmother

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and my grandmother's
grandmother,

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but California,
she wanted to be.

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Her insistence made me aware
of the fact that even though we

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live in Colorado, my daughter's
imagination center is

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in many ways still set
in the state of her birth

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and her earliest years.

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This is the same state where
both her mother and father

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lived for nearly 30
years of our own lives,

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both separately and together.

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And one about which we
likely talk and think

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about more frequently than
we are able to recognize.

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What I am saying is
that in our household,

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California dominates
our imagination.

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When I think of landscape
in which to set a poem,

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I usually think of
California generally.

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And more specifically, I think
of some area within 30 miles

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of the California coast.

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