However, that didn’t last. What will page one of Gutenberg look like today?
Climate Change
All posts in the Climate Change category
CHILDREN MARCHED, BUT…
Published November 22, 2024 by Nan Mykel
Children March
On March 15, 2019, in many cities around the world, one million children marched under the banner of “Climate Strike.”
Why should we go to school? Why should we prepare for a future that we will not have? We want you to panic. Then what?
This movement is a rebellion against extinction. (Can you rebel against extinction?) Simultaneously, this is the beginning of a culture of transitoriness and of rage against those who have engendered us.
Zain, the protagonist of the movie Capernaum (2018), directed by the Lebanese filmmaker Nadine Labaki, is a twelve-year-old Syrian boy who lives with five siblings in a refugee camp in the metropolitan chaos of Beirut. Zain was not marching with Greta Thunberg and other youth activists on March 15, 2019; having been summoned by a judge, he demands that his parents be prosecuted for the crime of giving birth to him.
Zain is the perfect symbol of the children’s crusade that is mounting everywhere: an immense crowd of innocent victims who want to know why they have been compelled to abandon the blank immortality of eternal Nothingness, why they have been summoned, assembled in this awkward city of violence, in the sad murkiness of precarity and anguish. Why did you force me out of my space of dispassionate nonbeing into the fog and fury of exhaustion?
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In 2008 David Benatar published Better Never to Have Been. Of note is his observation/decision that suicide is not an answer to the situation. I’m not clear whether his book had any bearing on the children’s demonstrations abut climate change.
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The news in America reports that president elect Donald Trump does not believe in climate change (he plans to “drill baby, drill” his first day in office. However, the other half of the privileged two–Elon Musk–is reported to be a believer (and worrier?) about climate change. We’ll have to see how this issue gets resolved….or not.
THIS MUST BE A JOKE, ISN’T IT?
Published September 28, 2024 by Nan Mykel
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GOOD NEWS
Published June 24, 2024 by Nan MykelTAKE NOTE of 50 things President Biden has done to combat Climate Change as listed by 3chickspolitico and chris evans (@notcapnamerica)
1. Rejoined the Paris Climate Agreement
2. Hosted the Leaders Summit on Climate
3. Committed to reducing U.S. greenhouse gas emissions by 50-52% below 2005 levels by 2030
4. Pledged to achieve a 100% clean energy economy and net-zero emissions by 2050
5. Established the White House Office of Domestic Climate Policy
6. Appointed John Kerry as the first-ever U.S. Special Presidential Envoy for Climate
7. Directed federal agencies to procure carbon-free electricity and zero-emission vehicles
8. Launched the American Jobs Plan with significant investments in clean energy and infrastructure
9. Proposed the Build Back Better plan with substantial climate and environmental provisions
10. Paused new oil and gas leasing on federal lands and waters
11. Directed federal agencies to eliminate fossil fuel subsidies
12. Restored and strengthened vehicle fuel efficiency standards
13. Set a goal to deploy 30 gigawatts of offshore wind by 2030
14. Committed to conserving at least 30% of U.S. lands and waters by 2030
15. Restored protections for Bears Ears, Grand Staircase-Escalante, and Northeast Canyons and Seamounts Marine National Monuments
16. Revoked the permit for the Keystone XL pipeline
17. Halted oil and gas drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge
18. Reversed rollbacks to the National Environmental Policy Act
19. Reinstated the ban on logging and road construction in the Tongass National Forest
20. Proposed stronger standards for methane emissions from oil and gas operations
21. Initiated the process to reverse rollbacks of the Clean Water Act
22. Supported the PFAS Action Act to address “forever chemicals”
23. Proposed funding for clean energy research and development
24. Directed agencies to incorporate climate change into national security considerations
25. Reestablished the federal flood risk management standard
26. Reinstated California’s authority to set stricter vehicle emission standards
27. Committed to electrifying the federal vehicle fleet
28. Proposed plans to build a nationwide network of EV charging stations
29. Accelerated the permitting of clean energy projects on federal lands
30. Launched a government-wide environmental justice initiative
31. Established the White House Environmental Justice Advisory Council
32. Pledged to deliver 40% of clean energy investment benefits to disadvantaged communities
33. Proposed funding for energy efficiency and clean energy in low-income households
34. Launched the Justice40 initiative
35. Signed an executive order on tackling the climate crisis domestically and abroad
36. Established the Civilian Climate Corps
37. Initiated development of new emissions standards for cars, light trucks, and heavy-duty vehicles
38. Directed U.S. International Development Finance Corporation to prioritize climate in investments
39. Committed to ending international financing of carbon-intensive fossil fuel-based energy
40. Pledged to work with Congress to eliminate fossil fuel tax preferences
41. Directed agencies to identify new opportunities to spur innovation in clean energy technologies
42. Established an Interagency Working Group on Coal and Power Plant Communities
43. Launched the American Innovation and Manufacturing Act to phase down hydrofluorocarbons
44. Reversed Trump-era rollbacks to the Migratory Bird Treaty Act protections
45. Initiated the process to establish national limits on PFAS in drinking water
46. Proposed the U.S. Methane Emissions Reduction Action Plan
47. Launched a government-wide strategy for advancing nature-based solutions to climate change
48. Committed to creating a new multi-agency scientific integrity task force
49. Started development of new energy efficiency standards for buildings and appliances
50. Established the first-ever White House Office of Climate Policy
Posted in 2024 Elections, Breaking News, Environment, Open Thread, Politics Tagged2024 Elections, 3Chics Politico,
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On his first day in office, Biden also ordered federal agencies to reinstate or strengthen over 100 environmental regulations that Trump rolled back.
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The Supreme Court said a Texas man under a domestic violence order may be disarmed, narrowing a key 2022 ruling that vastly expanded gun rights.
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Your Weather Today is…
In 2010, the National Science Foundation and George Mason University started a program called Climate Matters. The goal of the effort was to bring data-driven climate news to local audiences, and the appetite for such material has been tremendous.
Climate Matters is now in more than 245 cities and media markets and is working with thousands of reporters and editors around the country.
Bernadette Woods Placky, who runs the program, said that, across the board, more TV meteorologists are talking about global warming in their reporting.
“Our weather has so fundamentally changed because of climate change that it is now part of the story,” she said.
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- Two beluga whales were rescued from an aquarium under bombardment in Kharkiv, Ukraine, and flown to Spain. (I love whales, but more valuable than people?)
Money and Power Versus Armageddon
Published December 12, 2022 by Nan Mykel
Gelles is writing a series of articles about groups working to promote fossil fuels and block climate action.
“No one is saying banks need to stop funding cement production, or shipping, or aviation, right? Those are necessary industries that have a credible [transition] path,” said Cushing of the Sierra Club.
But “fossil fuel producers, whose core business is pulling hydrocarbons out of the ground and burning them, don’t have a credible pathway to do that,” he added. “That’s the hard truth that a lot of financial institutions don’t want to admit out loud.”
Reprinted from E&E News with permission from POLITICO, LLC. Copyright 2021. E&E News provides essential news for energy and environment professionals. By SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN
HERE’S THE MIND BLOWER:
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Texas’ Climate Threats – States at Risk
https://statesatrisk.org › texas › Texas currently faces the worst threat from widespread summer drought among the lower 48 states. By 2050, the state is projected to see an increase in severity. Yet, gambling for their last dollar, Texas is in a state of denial:
Nan says: I still haven’t been able to retrieve the info re some state officials punishing banks that support climate change. Not enough time these days. Share if you have the source?
This happened while I wasn’t blogging:
Published December 8, 2022 by Nan Mykel
Massacres by damaged young men dominate the headlines. But the reality of gun violence in America is etched in sorrow by the ceaseless daily grind of pointless shootings — 2022 will see more than 20,000 Americans dead by gun homicide. And another 24,000+ will have used a gun to kill themselves.
Consider that as I write this, there are over 1,000 Americans alive today who will be shot dead by the time the sun rises on Christmas morning. Dear readers, I hope none of them are you. — Written by TheCriticalMind on Daily Kos.
RESPONSE from dogperson necturus Dec 06, 2022 at 02:52:03 PM
The Texas Group Waging a National Crusade Against Climate Action
The Texas Public Policy Foundation is shaping laws, running influence campaigns and taking legal action in a bid to promote fossil fuels.
Just thought you’d like to know. New York Times … i PLAN TO DO AN ENTIRE POST ON WHAT MANY STATES ARE DOING TO COUNTER CLIMATE CHANGE, unless another blogger on wordpress does it first…After I make more progress on my nascent novel
[In a separate source, Mr. Kreifels declined an interview but said in a statement that concerns other issues like climate change were “putting politics over profits, and likely reducing shareholder value.”]
(Shame shame, shame, putting anything before profits and reducing shareholder value, even while the world as we know it is progressing on its route to destruction by its own inhabitants. They say Nero fiddled while Rome burned. Today, in the United States, we are….)
I EARNED ONE POST–Not really poems
Published December 4, 2022 by Nan MykelI’ve decided to reward myself with one post after I finish a portion of my book, and since I’ve completed a new Preface and info for the back cover, I’m claiming my reward…after about a week without a computer because Microsoft changed my pin number and only gave me the choice of telling them my phone number (which I had changed and doesn’t work any more). Since I had forgotten my password, it finally told me to go to a different browser, so I called my daughter in Atlanta to utilize her browser longdistance. I’m catching a ride to my every other Tuesday poetry writing group –guess when–oh, I’ve gotten silly. As you’ll see in the following:
DAGNABIT
How can I shrink
even more
overnight?
If this continues
there’ll be nothing
to bury.
I’M JEALOUS
It can paint better
than me so
what’s left ain’t
that much.
Not fair.
Without ethics
It can have more
fun.
Has the Intelligent
Designer changed His
mind after all that
Noah’s ark stuff?
A pox on Sodom and
Gomorrah! We’ve got
Climate Change.
Unless…. Nan 12/4/22 * (Prize winner by AI)
Pulling One’s Hair Out
Published November 21, 2022 by Nan Mykel
The Paris agreement reminds us that 2030 is the critical year by which global CO2 emissions must have been reduced by 45 percent to avoid the irreversible consequences of climate change.
Earlier this year the United Nations stated that emissions need to have peaked by 2025, be reduced by 43 percent by 2030, and be at net zero by 2050.
Commitments made by countries of Mother Earth so far will reduce emissions by only 7 percent from 2019 levels by 2030. (See Loss and Damage by Tina Gerhardt, the Nation, current edition. )
Saudi Arabia and other OPEC oil producers are discussing an output increase of up to 500,000 barrels a day, the group’s delegates said: WSJ News per Dr. Rex.
After a short hiatus
Published November 17, 2022 by Nan Mykel
What does a hiatus mean? It sounds sort of formal. I’m sufficiently old=fashioned to still use a paperbound dictionary: I was right! There are several more meanings than I mean–[see also yawn]–Including things related to passage in an organ, two vowel sounds without pause, herniating through the esophageal….
Now that I’ve lost my readership crowd, I’ll tell you all about it: It all started with my printer not working. After a helper tried to fix it, I lost my internet connection. (I had already lost my phone accessibility because I couldn’t figure out how to use it.) See what I mean about planned obsolescense being evil? A couple or so years ago I had a great phone that looked like a small flip phone, and it didn’t pretend to be anything else. Then the battery went dead and a new battery was as expensive as a new phone. Not imagining that I couldn’t buy another soon, I let it “go out of style” as big tech crept in during the night. I’ll give you a tip on how to get rich: Come up with a “flip top” that will only call and/or answer. There are other oldsters all over the world I’m sure that suffer from this lack. The most-touted phone for seniors is very difficult to use. There are smart phones, cell phones, “dumb phones” (not dumb), and “wise phones”, the ads of the latter’s ads I’ve seen have all the ordering info but not the price.
Anyway, that’s not all that has been happening off-blog. My daughter visited and taught me a trick my mother never shared with me: When your cuppa coffee or tea is too hot, make it cool faster by inserting a metal eating utensil in it to draw off the heat. The only thing I can remember her teaching me (other than to be nice) was when at a traffic light and needing to turn left, pull out into the intersection a little bit so you can make it when the light begins to change.
And oh yes–my “helper” quit me because her schooling was getting too hard. So, cast on my own I am succeeding by doing one chore a day (plus cooking and/or eating goulash and taking my medicine): one of the weekdays is for showering. Organizing my papers is out of the question.
My daughter came up from Atlanta to testify before a hearing with lawmakers (and breakers) at the State House in Columbus. It was about the state wanting to close all longterm care facilities for the neediest disabled individuals. (I went with her a couple of years ago and when it came time to speak I was sitting in a stall undergoing “an intestinal upset.”) My youngest daughter needs to continue her residence at the long term facility in Gallipolis. Since I have no car anymore, my oldest daughter and I were able to visit her, an hours’ drive away.
You may have guessed that I live alone–and talk/write too much when I have an audience. So, back to the blog: I do complain, but NO LONGER about the election, I still fret about corporations buying elections, climate change and technology replacing workers. I just came across a quote of the richest man alive, maybe, who plans to start charging $7.99 a month in order that users of his newly purchased Twitter can have a blue check mark by their Twitter name, to assure their authenticity. He is quoted by Time as saying “It creates a lord and peasants system.”
The November 21-28 issue of Time magazine features almost one hundred new innovations (and mentions a hundred more). I may be old and sensitive, but as stated earlier I have misgivings about the mass move to high tech, especially when reading about a “Mini Nuclear Reactor,” the first of which could be running by 2029 in Idaho. Each such reactor could power 60,000 homes.
It seems the push to offset the climate crisis is being fought more fervently by others than the giant coal and oil producers?
A short one, I promise
Published November 11, 2022 by Nan Mykel
From Science News June 18, 2022:
Face the Fungi
Replacing 20 percent of the red meat in our diets with proteins derived from fungi and algae could cut annual deforestation by more than half by 2050. Carolyn Gramling reported in “Swapping meat for microbial protein may take a bite out of climate change.” (SN:6/18/22, p. 5)
For real patriotism McDonalds, Wendys and others need to begin featuring nutritious versions of this, cooked with savory recipes.
NANMYKEL.COM 
One very simple response which may not stop crimes nor shootings but should still be instituted at the very least is to treat guns, rifles and the like as we do automobiles. That means: a) they must be registered. b) if sold or transferred that must be recorded and new registrations effected c) Licenses must be obtained. To get a license one must be of a certain age and prove they understand the law regarding usage and they understand how to use it properly and safely. Minors under age are not to have access any more than your 9 year old is allowed to drive your car. d) Gun owners and licenses should require that insurance be obtained. Insurance is there to safeguard any accidents or mishandling and recompense those who suffer harm as a result. e) Owners who are reckless or negligent may be subject to losing their license. Just as one is subject to losing or having a driver’s license suspended for DWI’s or other incidents whereby driver’s have too violated laws of the road, etc. f) there are limitations on where a gun should be allowed just as one cannot drive their car on someone else’s private property or drive through another’s home. Thus, weapons should not be allowed in crowded public areas or arenas. (Schools, Theaters, Malls, Office buildings, or on mass transit buses, trains, planes, subways) etc.
If nothing else it puts parents and others are on notice they are responsible for those weapons and securing them from minors or others. They are responsible for harm caused by their weapons and stolen weapons are reported.
For those who claim they have a right and the government cannot take it away well I have had a motor vehicle for my entire adult life and I am no kid. The state has never moved to take it away. Perhaps that is because I try to observe the normal rules of behaviors.
Charts and Maps
GUN VIOLENCE ARCHIVE 2022
Evidence Based Research – since 2013 PUBLISHED DATE: December 06, 2022
Gun violence and crime incidents are collected/validated from 7,500 sources daily – Incident Reports and their source data are found at the gunviolencearchive.org website.
Footnotes
All numbers are subject to change or incidents recategorized as new evidence is established and verified.
METHODOLOGY & DEFINITIONS AVAILABLE AT:
https://www.gunviolencearchive.org/methodology
http://www.gunviolencearchive.org
http://www.facebook.com/gunviolencearchive
On Twitter @gundeaths
Data Sources Verified: December 04, 2022
GUN VIOLENCE ARCHIVE © 2013-2022