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Wednesday, July 09, 2025

LIVES SWEPT AWAY

by Philip Kitcher



“A flood”, he says, “once in a hundred years”:
            unwilling to concede
            our planet’s urgent need,
he shows no true engagement with their tears.
 
Disdaining loss of human life, he stokes
            the storms, the fires that burn.
            This willful child won’t learn
the truth: that climate change is not “a hoax”.
 
Because of his refusal to believe,
how many future families will grieve?


Philip Kitcher has written too many books about philosophy, a subject which he taught at Columbia for many years. His new book The Rich and the Poor (Polity Press) is all about the costs of abandoning morality in politics and public life. His poems have appeared online in Light, Lighten Up Online, Politics/Letters, Snakeskin, and The Dirigible Balloon; and in print in the Hudson Review.