Climate Change

All posts in the Climate Change category

Money and Power Versus Armageddon

Published December 12, 2022 by Nan Mykel

David Gelles   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:

_____________________

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:

From <https://www.google.com/search?rlz=1C1SQJL_enUS879US879&sxsrf=ALiCzsaazeE-DibgH6pte10R-:1670849329772&q=What+is+Texas+doing+about+climate+change&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwifsJjmjvT7AhU1lIkEHfqsDAUQ1QJ6BAgzEAE&biw=1600&bih=749&dprAihXT63Cw=1>

Jason Isaac, director of the Life:Powered initiative of the Texas Public Policy Foundation: “Today, I’m thankful to live a high-carbon lifestyle and wish the rest of the world could too,” he tweeted on Thanksgiving.Credit...Montinique Monroe for The New York Times
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

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

  1. Number of source verified deaths and injuries
  2. Number of INCIDENTS reported and verified
  3. Calculation based on CDC Suicide Data
  4. Actual total of all non-suicide deaths plus daily calculated suicide deaths

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

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 Mykel

I’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.

Crying and Frightened Mother Earth

Published September 30, 2022 by Nan Mykel

 

 

Along with political lies and stone-deafness to her tears. our Mother Earth has become frantic.  We speak of the oceans being our mother, but they’re our step-mother.  Nature, personified by the Mother Earth metaphor, is our real mother.  She’s so sad and frightened  (like the fecund women in abortion-prohibited states) that she doesn’t know what to do (like the old woman who lived in a shoe with so many children…).

Her first responders are brave, but so far unable to rouse the Emergency Rescue Squads needed to keep her alive. (The head of the World Bank,  recently asked whether the burning of oil, gas and coal was driving climate change, refused to answer.)

Current heartaches:  At this very minute, extremely destructive hurricane Ian is roaring north across the United States.  “Hurricane Ian is going to be a storm that we talk about for decades,” administrator of the Federal Emergency Management Agency Deanne Criswell said yesterday.  [If Mother Earth is still alive in decades.]

Earlier in the month Pakistan’s climate minister called the flooding in his country “Biblical.”   Greenpeace  shared videos in which a central Pakistani hotel crumbled in the duration of a  “TikTok.”  

U.N. Secretary-General, António Guterres visited Pakistan and called the climate crisis a “code red for humanity,”  He said that he hadn’t seen this scale of climate change  in his life (he is 76.)  The areas underwater in Pakistan are larger than Britain. 

Keep your eyes open on the current destruction by hurricane Ian.

The nine planetary boundaries:  In addition to the causes of climate change, a planetary boundary framework originated in 2009 to define required limits on human activities to prevent collapse of vital Earth operating systems. They include biodiversity loss, freshwater, air pollution, climate change, high phosphorus and nitrogen levels, ocean acidity, land use changes, ozone layer decay, and contamination by human-made chemicals.

 

Deaf to Suffering

Published September 28, 2022 by Nan Mykel

There’s so much suffering in the world–it outweighs joy by a longshot.  It seems everywhere we look there is anguish.  It is difficult to admit that the horizon has turned so dark.  I cannot find a hint of a solution.  Are we forced to pretend a return to the oldest fairytale of religion?  I wonder how the Buddhists are faring.  Don’t read the following if you’re not ready to suck it in, from the New Yorker, by Zoha Tunio in Undark:

We have tried, in various ways, to convey to the world the scale of destruction caused by recent floods in Pakistan, because, apparently, a third of the country underwater and thirty-three million lives upended doesn’t cut it. Pakistan’s climate minister has called it Biblical. We have shot and shared videos in which the landmark New Honeymoon Hotel crumbles in the duration of a TikTok. The U.N. Secretary-General, António Guterres, who is seventy-three and has called the climate crisis a “code red for humanity,” visited Pakistan and said that he hadn’t seen this scale of climate carnage in his life. Some of us have created maps showing that the areas underwater are larger than Britain. We have shown pictures of dead and starving cattle to appeal to animal-lovers. We have posted videos of puppies being heroically rescued from rushing waters.

Maybe when the world seems to be ending, it needs poets. A poet in Khairpur, in southern Pakistan, one of the worst-affected areas, was asked by a journalist if he had received a tent to shelter his family. He found the idea so improbable that he asked, “Why are you making fun of me? Why would anyone give me a tent?”

More here.

I STAND CORRECTED

Published September 24, 2022 by Nan Mykel

A comment to my post Shut My Mouth from Ned Hamson is sterling:

Two thoughts:
1. Too many groups… they need to learn how to work together. Just think if there were just two or at most three mega-groups – greater impact and use of resources. With this many groups, they all compete with each other for money and split their ability to impact people and governments.
2. Even though too many groups here’s another – Jane Fonda’s efforts – https://firedrillfridays.org

Thanks, Ned!

 

Shut My Mouth!

Published September 23, 2022 by Nan Mykel

Big deal, I was going to “do some good” by publishing a weekly climate change update on my blog.  I did a little research on Google and found that large groups are covering the world climate change and their blogs are free, too.  I quit my original plan but will give you an idea of what’s elsewhere in much greater coverage than I could offer.  I may, however, post a few entries while not pretending they are comprehensive.  At the end of the following please note the essay by good friend Alexa Abercrombie Ross  

KEY CLIMATE CHANGE MEDIA OUTLETS

https://climatechangeresources.org › key-climate-chang…
 

Just as Mainstream Media outlets are joining forces to create stronger climate change resources, so are these specialized outlets. Take a look at Collateral, a series on climate, data and science, which is a collaboration between Inside Climate News and The Weather Channel. And, if you are interested in how the media understood and covered how the world warmed in 2021, take a look at this piece by Carbon Brief, one of our best sources of climate news from around the world.

Most miraculous are the outlets which are taking shape in the form of newsletters, blogs and podcasts. We call a few to your attention:

 

  • Sammy Roth’s newsletter, The Boiling Point for the Los Angeles Times, wrote a riveting piece as he drove across the American West in May 2022. “Standing on the Continental Divide, where wind energy could shape the West” was the first of his utterly fascinating series.
  • Climate Nexus writes both in-depth stories and disseminates, through its newsletter, some of the best media sources every few days. This particular story on the latest IPCC report in the spring of 2022 is typical of how deeply intelligent its thinking is. 
  •  

    350.org

    Founded by Bill McKibben, 350 uses online campaigns, grassroots organizing, and mass public actions to oppose new coal, oil and gas projects, take money out of the companies that are heating up the planet, and build 100% clean energy solutions that work for all. 350’s network extends to 188 countries.

    Above the Fold by Environmental Health News

    We are a publication of Environmental Health Sciences, a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization dedicated to driving science into public discussion and policy on environmental health issues, including climate change.

    Axios Newsletters

    News, scoops & expert analysis by award-winning Axios journalists.

    Boiling Point, a L.A. Times newsletter with Sammy Roth

    Boiling Point is a newsletter for people who care about the environment and climate across California, the American West and the globe. If you’re a hiker or a surfer, if you’re worried about losing your home in a wildfire, or if you just want new reasons to stay hopeful, this newsletter is for you.

    Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists

    The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists bridges the technology divide between research, foreign policy, and public engagement. Their award-winning Doomsday Clock also has fascinating information.

    Canary Media

    They are an independent nonprofit journalism outlet powered by RMI dedicated to chronicling the transition to a decarbonized economy and society, with a particular focus on the transformation of the energy, transportation, industrial and building sectors.

    Carbon 180

    We bring together scientists, policymakers, and businesses to fundamentally rethink carbon.

    Carbon Brief

    Carbon Brief is UK-based and covers the latest developments in climate science, climate policy and energy policy. 

    CCL Weekly Briefing (from Citizen’s Climate Lobby)

    Citizens’ Climate Lobby is a non-profit, nonpartisan, grassroots advocacy organization focused on national policies to address climate change.

    CDP

    CDP has been putting critical environmental data at the heart of business decisions since 2002. Their latest report, based upon the growing demand for climate-related information was released in 2018. Understanding that inadequate information can lead to the mispricing of assets and a misallocation of capital, more and more financial decision makers are demanding information on the business risks and opportunities associated with climate change.

    Civil Notion

    Joel Stronberg, Esq., of The JBS Group is a veteran clean energy policy analyst with over 30 years’ experience, based in Washington, DC. He writes about climate politics and has a podcast, Zero Net Fifty with co-host Jennifer Delony.

    Climate Cast (newsletter from Natural Climate Solutions)

    ClimateCast is Climate Solutions’ curated, weekly collectio

    EcoRI news

    ecoRI News is dedicated to reporting on environmental and social justice issues in southern New England. Through our reporting, we create a more informed public and provide individuals with the information they need to be better stewards of their environment.

    EcoWatch

    EcoWatch provides original content from a team of reporters and features insights from prominent environmental and business leaders.

    Energy News Network

    The Energy News Network is a nonprofit dedicated to keeping stakeholders, policymakers, and citizens informed of the important changes taking place in the transition to a clean energy system.

    Environment New York

    Environment New York protects the places we love, advancing the environmental values we share, and winning real results for our environment. What’s our key to winning? People like you. Stand up for clean air, clean water and the open spaces you care about by making a donation today.

    Environmental Defense Fund

    Guided by science and economics, we tackle urgent threats with practical solutions. We address today’s most urgent environmental challenges. Working in partnership with others, we focus where we’re best positioned to help, based on our strengths.

    Environmental Voter Project

    The Environmental Voter Project aims to significantly increase voter demand for progressive environmental policy by identifying inactive environmentalists and then turning them into consistent activists and voters.

    Food & Water Watch

    Food & Water Watch mobilizes regular people to build political power to move bold & uncompromised solutions to the most pressing food, water, and climate problems of our time. We work to protect people’s health, communities, and democracy from the growing destructive power of the most powerful economic interests.

    Friends of the Earth

    Together we speak truth to power and expose those who endanger the health of people and the planet for corporate profit. We organize to build long-term political power and campaign to change the rules of our economic and political systems that create injustice and destroy nature.

    Green Buzz

    Greenbuzz is GreenBiz’s newsletter. GreenBiz provides intelligent, focused content on business, technology and sustainability for people from every industry and discipline.

    Green Tech Media

    Greentech Media delivers market analysis, business-to-business news and conferences that inform and connect players in the global clean energy market. Coverage extends across the clean energy industry with a focus on solar power and the electric utility market’s evolution.

    Greenpeace

    Greenpeace is a global, independent campaigning organization that uses peaceful protest and creative communication to expose global environmental problems and promote solutions that are essential to a green and peaceful future.

    Heated, a newsletter with Emily Atkin

    It is not your fault that the planet is burning. Your air conditioner, your hamburger, your gas-powered car—these aren’t the reasons we only have about a decade to prevent irreversible climate catastrophe.

     

     

     

     

     

    Hot Take, Podcast and newsletter by Mary Annaïse Heglar and Amy Westervelt

    Hot Take started as a podcast, from climate essayist Mary Annaïse Heglar and climate reporter Amy Westervelt. In 2020, we added a newsletter as a place to curate the great climate content we were seeing.

    Inside Climate News

    The weekly newsletter from Inside Climate News, an independent, not-for-profit, non-partisan news organization that covers clean energy, carbon energy, nuclear energy and environmental science—plus the territory in between where law, policy and public opinion are shaped. 

    PRI’S ENVIRONMENTAL NEWS MAGAZINE

    Living On Earth

    Living on Earth with Steve Curwood is the weekly environmental news and information program distributed by Public Radio International. Every week approximately 250 Public Radio stations broadcast Living on Earth’s news, features, interviews and commentary on a broad range of ecological issues. 

    Mother Nature Network

    With sites that generate more than 10 million sessions per month from more than 200 countries, Mother Nature Network is the world’s most visited online network for news and information related to the environment and responsible living.

    NASA: Global Climate Change

    Provides approachable information and resources on climate change science, its effects, and current efforts to intervene.

    NRDC

    Fighting climate change by cutting carbon pollution and expanding clean energy is the best way to build a better future for our children. NRDC is tackling the climate crisis at its source: pollution from fossil fuels. We work to reduce our dependence on these dirty sources by expanding clean energy across cities, states, and nations. We win court cases that allow the federal government to limit carbon pollution from cars and power plants. We help implement practical clean energy solutions. And we fight oil and gas projects that would pump out even more pollution.

    Oceana

    Oceana is dedicated to protecting and restoring the world’s oceans on a global scale.

    Our Daily Planet

    Our Daily Planet is the leading independent environmental news platform covering the climate crisis, conservation, and beyond. Monica & Miro started ODP because they saw a need…

    Our Energy Policy

    Energy headlines, resources, and expert dialogue.

    Sea Level Now (John Englander’s newsletter)

    John Englander is an oceanographer, consultant and leading expert on sea level rise.

    Sierra Club Insider

    Insider is Sierra Club’s twice-monthly e-newsletter on the latest environmental news, green living tips, urgent action alerts on important environmental issues, great outdoor trips, new books and movies to check out, special offers, and more.

    Skeptical Science

    The goal of Skeptical Science is to explain what peer reviewed science has to say about global warming. When you peruse the many arguments of global warming skeptics, a pattern emerges. Skeptic arguments tend to focus on narrow pieces of the puzzle while neglecting the broader picture. For example, focus on Climategate emails neglects the full weight of scientific evidence for man-made global warming. Concentrating on a few growing glaciers ignores the world wide trend of accelerating glacier shrinkage. Claims of global cooling fail to realise the planet as a whole is still accumulating heat. This website presents the broader picture by explaining the peer reviewed scientific literature.

    State of the Planet by the Earth Institute at Columbia

    News from the Earth Institute. Comprehensive coverage of climate, agriculture, ecology, energy, health, sustainability, water, and more. 

    The Climate Beat

    If you’re covering the climate story, you need to be reading The Climate Beat, a resource for journalists by journalists. On The Climate Beat, we spotlight the week’s best climate stories, announce new collaborations and events, and share insights on how best to cover the climate crisis.

    The Climate Web

    The Climate Web is the product of >20,000 hours of crowd-sourcing and curating knowledge from thousands of experts to support understanding of and responding to climate change. It is a collective climate change intelligence.

    The Crucial Years, a newsletter with Bill McKibben

    After thirty years of ignoring warnings about climate change—we have a few scant years to slash emissions, and also to prepare ourselves and our societies for coping with the fact that we’ve already done irreversible damage. If a soft landing is still possible, it will require slowing emissions way down fast, and also a runway with as few potholes as possible: and in turn that will require a mix of science, politics, economics, and movement-building. Salvation, such as it is, lies in solidarity: in working together to meet the most dangerous, and most interesting, challenge of our lifetimes.

    The Daily Climate

    The Daily Climate is a nonprofit publication focused on policy and environmental health issues. 

    The Nature Conservancy

    The Nature Conservancy’s magazine combines reporting with world-class photography, covering their work to conserve the lands and waters on which all life depends.

    The Regeneration Weekly

    The Regeneration Weekly mission is to empower readers to advocate for a more resilient food chain while celebrating the farmers, figures, and organizations fueling the regenerative movement.

    The Years Project

    The YEARS Project is a multimedia storytelling and education effort designed to inform, empower, and unite the world in the face of climate change. 

    This Spaceship Earth

    Founded by David Houle and Tim Rumage. This Spaceship Earth’s part in facing Climate Change is to get up to a billion people to start to think and act as crew members.

    Union of Concerned Scientists

    The Union of Concerned Scientists are a group of nearly 250 scientists, analysts, policy and communication experts dedicated to finding practical solutions for a healthy, safe, and sustainable future.

    WaterBear Network

    WaterBear, the first interactive streaming platform dedicated to the future of our planet. Whatever you feel passionately about in the world of climate action, biodiversity, sustainability, community, diversity and more, WaterBear provides access to award-winning and inspirational content that empowers members to dive deeper, learn more and take action.

    World Wildlife Fund

    The world’s leading conservation organization, WWF works in 100 countries and is supported by more than one million members in the United States and close to five million globally. WWF’s unique way of working combines global reach with a foundation in science, involves action at every level from local to global, and ensures the delivery of innovative solutions that meet the needs of both people and nature.

     

     

     

     

     
     
    “What you do makes a difference, and you have to decide what kind of difference you want to make.”— Dr Jane Goodall, Scientist & Activist 

     

     

    State of the Planet by the Earth Institute at Columbia

    News from the Earth Institute. Comprehensive coverage of climate, agriculture, ecology, energy, health, sustainability, water, and more. 

    The Climate Beat

    If you’re covering the climate story, you need to be reading The Climate Beat, a resource for journalists by journalists. On The Climate Beat, we spotlight the week’s best climate stories, announce new collaborations and events, and share insights on how best to cover the climate crisis.

    The Climate Web

    The Climate Web is the product of >20,000 hours of crowd-sourcing and curating knowledge from thousands of experts to support understanding of and responding to climate change. It is a collective climate change intelligence.

    The Crucial Years, a newsletter with Bill McKibben

    After thirty years of ignoring warnings about climate change—we have a few scant years to slash emissions, and also to prepare ourselves and our societies for coping with the fact that we’ve already done irreversible damage. If a soft landing is still possible, it will require slowing emissions way down fast, and also a runway with as few potholes as possible: and in turn that will require a mix of science, politics, economics, and movement-building. Salvation, such as it is, lies in solidarity: in working together to meet the most dangerous, and most interesting, challenge of our lifetimes.

    The Daily Climate

    The Daily Climate is a nonprofit publication focused on policy and environmental health issues. 

    The Nature Conservancy

    The Nature Conservancy’s magazine combines reporting with world-class photography, covering their work to conserve the lands and waters on which all life depends.

    The Regeneration Weekly

    The Regeneration Weekly mission is to empower readers to advocate for a more resilient food chain while celebrating the farmers, figures, and organizations fueling the regenerative movement.

    The Years Project

    The YEARS Project is a multimedia storytelling and education effort designed to inform, empower, and unite the world in the face of climate change. 

    This Spaceship Earth

    Founded by David Houle and Tim Rumage. This Spaceship Earth’s part in facing Climate Change is to get up to a billion people to start to think and act as crew members.

    Union of Concerned Scientists

    The Union of Concerned Scientists are a group of nearly 250 scientists, analysts, policy and communication experts dedicated to finding practical solutions for a healthy, safe, and sustainable future.

     
     
    ___________________________________________
    The following is from good friend  Alexa Abecrombie Ross who shares her essay with us:

    The Tragedy of Plastic 

          Versatile, wonderful and far-reaching is the ubiquitous chemical that threatens all life in our world from microscopic krill to the largest seagoing mammals.

    In my youth a Moroccan asked me about birth control. When I answered that I carried inside me a piece of plastic to prevent conception, he declared, “Plastique? Kabecca!” (Terrible.) The remnants of free plastic bags were already contaminating the countryside. 

    When I purchased spice, it was folded into a small scrap of construction paper. Today and every day I fiddle with plastic. I pick tiny pieces of plastic out of my compost pile, so numerous I wonder if my sweetener packets hold a layer of the stuff behind the paper. I wash and rinse sleek clear boxes that once contained pastry with a tiny shelf life, in contrast to their plastic envelopes which, being constructed of very large and stable molecules, will last many more decades than you or I ever could.

    This wondrous invention has taken over our lives and incredibly, now threatens us.

    I remember my first encounter with a styrofoam cup, light and white and unique. I could sink my teeth in it and admire the crescent imprint of my dentition. That thrill is long gone. I’ll take my own cup, plate, fork, spoon, thank you, but no thanks. 

    I saw a commercial many years ago of Lauren Bacall, in a backstage dressing room, languidly extolling the flavor of Folgers’ coffee. If I ever become a star like her, I thought, I will not accept coffee in a styrofoam cup!

    I have swum in the turquoise clear waters of Southeast Asia with plastic debris floating all around me. I have seen the flotsam and jetsam of broken plastic sandals washed ashore, cheap, ubiquitous useless detritus, a constant and ever increasing deluge of abomination.

    The big producers – the chemical companies, the oil companies, the food packagers – Unilever, Pepsi, Coke, Nestle – have found a solution to the impending end of the internal combustion engine. With that market drying up slowly to avert climate catastrophe, they are betting on the endless market for petroleum’s thousands of variations of the stuff once called Bakelite, to contain our stuff. From toys to cars to buildings, plastic is there.

    I lovingly recall my doll house with real tiny lights, peopled by the colorful hard plastic figures, the mother in a dress and heels and a 40’s hairdo. Following generations have enjoyed a universe of plastic – Fisher-Price playgrounds, consoles, sippy cups and flatware and reminisce a childhood where plastic is normalized. Dolls with movable plastic limbs, plastic eyes and eyelashes, miniaturized playthings – fake food, Legos, checker pieces, balls and bats.

    An aunt once told me garbage was unknown in her youth. You burned it or fed it to the pigs. Today there are billions of pigs and thousands of incinerators poisoning the air and water, burning up the remnants of plants and animals of millennia past.

    Great minds have devised myriad uses for this blank slate of possibility. You cannot shop without bringing home plastic. Plastic-free July is an impossibility. Try purchasing bread, fruit, or vegetables not contained in plastic, and thoughtfully shrouded in more plastic by the cashier. Plastic bottles litter every roadside. Plastic caps and bags and fragments fill the stomachs of birds, fish, turtles, whales and krill. The glory, safety and plenty of modern life is repaying us in trash.

    I recycle religiously. I collect recyclables on my way to the grocery where it awaits in such gleaming abundance. Every day I pick and sort and clean and rinse and it’s hopeless.

    Only a few types of plastic recycle readily. It’s a confidence game inflicted by the producers on the public. It is a useless and time-consuming virtue that will never catch up to the constant output of the indefatigable machines of the market. I am the patsy – we all are.

    It’s even worse in the third world where poverty means people purchase goods in tiny amounts known as sachets. Several layers of plastic encase the soap powder, the potato chips, the shampoo, the soy sauce. Recycling is impossible, waste management unknown. The shores, the streams, the valleys are drowned in trash. 

    We have conquered our environment, turning abundance into desertification. Our houses, our clothes, our vehicles, our healthcare apparatus, all have been degraded to eventual trash.

    I will close this lamentation with information distributed by the women sponsoring the public screening of The Story of Plastic. Less than a tenth of our plastic is recycled, itself a polluting process, resulting in an inferior substance. Racing to the bottom! 

    Yes, our nation is number one, the world leader in the generation of plastic waste. In Ohio we pay four billion dollars a year to pick up roadside trash. 

    What can we do? CALL your senators and representatives and ask them to co-sponsor and support the Break Free from Plastic Pollution Act – S. 984 and H.B 2238. Then get under the covers and cry your heart out.

     

     
     

 

butimbeautiful

You - philosophical, thoughtful, witty. Me - still thinks fart jokes are funny. We should DEFINITELY get together!

Senioren um die Welt

Mock Paper Scissors

The Internet's Band of Incorrigible Spitballers® and Cult Failure Since 2006

Pacific Paratrooper

This WordPress.com site is Pacific War era information

Edge of Humanity Magazine

An Independent Non-Discriminatory Platform With No Religious, Political, Financial, or Social Affiliations

K E Garland

Inspirational kwotes, stories and images

Nguyễn Thị Phương Trâm

Art and Literature Beyond Borders

Thar She Blows!

Darcy Hitchcock

Envision a sustainable future

Barbara Crane Navarro

Rainforest Art Project - Pas de Cartier !

Kate Lunsford

Reflective Writing

Bob Shepherd

Author

Rosamond Press

A Newspaper for the Arts

Ned Hamson's Second Line View of the News

Second Look Behind the Headlines - News you can use...

Aging Capriciously

Divergent Thoughts on Life, Love and Death

Some View on the World

With previous posting of "Our World" on Blogger

Filosofa's Word

Cogito Ergo Sum

Trent's World (the Blog)

Random Ramblings and Reviews from Trent P. McDonald

Catxman's Cradle

Catxman dances, Catxman spins around, leaps ....... // I sing a song, a song of hope, a song of looove -- a song of burning roses. / Synthesizer notes. // (c) 2021-22

Rilaly

%d bloggers like this: