tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9087565.post4728059323811256631..comments2023-10-24T07:06:36.815-07:00Comments on Small Precautions: Impact of Global Warming on CaliforniaNilshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04220861634503974376noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9087565.post-31841276579224275792008-01-01T14:36:00.000-08:002008-01-01T14:36:00.000-08:00I am wondering about this emergent genre—you could...I am wondering about this emergent genre—you could call it “prelegy” rather than “elegy”-- which peers into the future and describes what the world will be like when we aren’t there or when parts of nature aren’t there any longer. The prelegy evokes not what was, but what is becoming absent, and it does not with a sense of what might have been (we might have saved those sequoias), but with a sense of possibility/probability that often seems illusory. Some of these elegies use the future tense throughout; others, like this AP article, trip over their mights and coulds (“landscape... COULD look quite different...” “abandoned ski lifts MIGHT dangle...”) and timid passives (“are predicted to”), with only the scientists in straightforward predictive mode: “These things are going to occur...” Which leads me to think that whether we get out of this alive depends greatly on language.<BR/>Thank you, Nils, for your thoughtful commentary in 2007. May 2008 bring more of the same.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com