“One cannot open a newspaper without being disgusted by new records of shame…. the house and land we occupy, have lost their best value, and a man looks gloomily at his children, and thinks, ‘What have I done that you should begin life in dishonor?’”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1851

A devastating image by photographer Brook Mitchell in the NYTimes. Nails the stakes of climate change: It is our children who will have to sift through the wreckage.

I was particularly affected by the photo, as I have a towheaded almost-six-year-old who looks a lot like Harry. (“Where have you been my blue-eyed son?” Dylan sings in “A Hard Rain’s A Gonna Fall,” a song that now destroys me.)

A little googling led me to the original Guardian piece about Australian farm families battling the draught. You can see more photos of Harry and his family there, including this one, of him wearing what he calls his “monster hat”:

That one brings the slightest smile: Children are resilient, and no matter how bad it gets, there will still be moments of humor. Even if it’s gallows humor.