Tomorrow is Earth Day, celebrated for the first time in 1970. Coming the same week that House Republicans demanded that Congress rescind the money Democrats appropriated in the Inflation Reduction Act to address climate change, Earth Day in 2023 is a poignant reminder of an earlier era, one in which Americans recognized a crisis that transcended partisanship and came together to fix it.
The EPA made law by President Nixon. I was 18 in 1970. I remember having to give kudos to a man I didn’t care for. Today’s GOP would impeach such a POTUS for putting the EPA in place. Go figure!
All the protest marches against the war in Vietnam and him!! I thought we had moved passed all that went with the 60s. Seems much worse now. It IS worse now!!
It is far worse now BUT you, we, can really individually take one small effective step to change “the bad guys” to “good guys”: a group of Harvard students are working hard to register high school seniors and college students to vote in 2,700 schools only in “competitive” congressional districts (not wasting our time and effort); please stop for a few minutes today, reflect on what WE must do in a cost effective manner, go on www.turnup.us/ and make a generous contribution. They will register them now and turn them out in 24 all nonpartisan!! Thank you but please do it today? For the future of your loved ones? Again-- www.turnup.us/
Yes the Civics Center is doing great work, and also Civic Influencers, on the ground in the recent Wisconsin election….considering Cleta Mitchell’s speech last weekend at a GOP donor retreat lamenting the ease of campus voting and how they must stop it, it’s clear this is one crucial battle line.
Thank you, Ira. www.turnup.us/ is doing amazing work, as is the Civics Center with their non-partisan, non-profit Cap, Gown & Ballot campaign. It is highly organized and efficient and I am proud to volunteer with them.
Being of the same age as both of you, a story that resurfaces from time to time that also came out in 1970 was the ad campaign of the "Crying Indian". The now famous ad that set in motion a chain of events that has never been able to be undone.
The backstory of "Keep America Beautiful" and what they were really up to is worth the full read in the link below because the ad and its real message was a fraud. It was done by the bottle, can & packaging industry that saw the problems of its waste and litter coming back to haunt them and their profits so, they hired the global PR firm Burson-Marstellar who ingeniously spun the story on us. The problem was not the packaging (litter). It was the people that threw it,.... US.
Litter doesn't throw itself out, People throw it out. The problem is us. Just one excerpt
"It was an elegantly closed circle. The titans of packaging pushed throwaways into production. The Ad Council preached the creed of consumption, assuring Americans that the road to prosperity was paved with trash. The people bought; the people threw away. Then, the same industries and advertisers turned around and called them pigs. The people shamefacedly cleaned up the trash. And the packagers, pointing to the cleaned-up landscape, just went on making more of it."
And if you haven't yet made the connection, they are still using the same spin with guns - "Guns don't kill people, People kill people".
Before this and other ad campaigns we used refillable bottles and containers. But the packaging industry knew they'd make more $ with single-use disposables so, lobbied our consumer-based economy/govt and we've never looked back.
It's a fairly long read but educational on the whole industry - Happy Earth Day!
I'm old enough to remember roadsides littered with trash thrown from passing cars, including cigarettes still burning and beer cans and bottles. Not sure who legislated it, but thankfully that cleanup campaign succeeded. Also, I participated in Earth Day annual cleanup of the Merced River Canyon, the entry to Yosemite NP. Steep and bushy, it was also frequently littered with passing cars' detritus. After a few hot hours my patch was done. As I climbed up to the road, proud of the clean section, a lady in a parked car was changing her baby's diaper. Then she drove off, leaving the dirty diaper on the roadside. Sheesh!
Alongside many of the trails I hike there is no trash. Even beside the trails along the AZ-Mexico border, some admirable hikers have picked up clothes left behind as immigrants change before hitting populated areas. Cans and bottles are scooped up from campfires. I know because I know who removes the trash and comes down with garbage sacks full of debris. But dirty diapers???
Sadly the trails and roadsides are still littered with the debris of self-absorbed people. Especially during the lockdowns of 2020, when millions "got outside" because they couldn't gather inside. Joshua Tree National Park is still trying to recover from the damage caused by the influx of ignorant visitors.
When I visited India and saw the trash and garbage on their roads and in their cities and villages, I was horrified. My guide provided a memorable perspective: people in India generally took no responsibility for public spaces. They simply did not see public spaces as belonging to them. While all the nefarious actions of corporate trash creators is true, I think back to the sixties and am convinced that we had the same perspective about public spaces. The weeping Indian commercial broke through our National blindness and the shaming was effective in increasing our sense of personal responsibility for our own trash. It wasn’t 100% effective in permanently eliminating trash or our public responsibility for other pollution. But I remember the impact that one commercial had - and it was profound.
That was the first election I voted in. McGovern was the obvious choice. There is something very eerie about my memories of Nixon. It was the same feeling. I remember saying to friends and family: "How could you vote for Nixon - he's a sleazebag. He IS a crook!" But they chose to ignore his brutality and bought his BS.
Partly, I think the demonization of the Democrats (thinking they were sub human) had begun and was becoming normalized. And partly there was the carryover effect of the party of a relatively benevolent war hero called Ike.
But upon reflection...the GQP was beginning to change from a party with at least the veneer of respect for the rule of law - into a league of haters. The party of my parents and patriotism was beginning to rot from within. Some of you may remember that the GOP liked to say it had a "big tent". Now the tent is filled with bible twisting deplorables - with preachers preaching hate for others. Filled with frightened white people who are terrified of diversity. Filled with AR-15s.
These people are my extended family, my neighbors, my community members, coworkers, and acquaintances. They have been fed lies to fester their uncomfortable fear that the world is changing and they will be powerless. I pity them, but also work for a future that they will be a welcome, accountable, constructive part of.
The rise of the Moral Majority began sometime after Nixon. That was when I started moving as far away from the republican party as possible. Start mixing religion and politics and I was done. Dangerous mix.
My bumper sticker read “Don’t blame me, I’m from Massachusetts.” (The only state to go for McGovern.) In any case I’m grateful for Nixon’s part in forming the EPA.
I may still have one of those in my basement. I know I did a year ago. My father LOVED to hate Nixon.
Nixon also tried to establish a population policy. He had a commission on population. Alas, the Catholic Church informed him that if he persisted, they would see to it that he wouldn't be re-elected.
Nixon was truly a complex and difficult personality, with good and bad. If I thought I had it in my to write a tragedy of a play, I'd write one about him.
Also, “my vote cancels your vote.” Here we are again. Common sense vs lies. Pesticides on crops getting stronger because—who knew—weeds and insects become immune. It’s a huge nasty business that makes big money for Koch and others. Start in your own yard. Leave the dandelions. Let the birds eat your ticks. Baby birds’ diet is ONLY insects. Give them a chance.
My first time voting as a 24-year-old in 1968 was for Richard Nixon. (Politically naive it was name recognition only - who was this Hubert Humphrey guy anyhow). I never voted for a Republican since and the fact that Nixon did something good sort of vindicates my ignorance of his overall corruption,
I was talking with a 17 yr old visiting our house. I asked him if he knew about Heather. He replied “my mom reads her every day”! I asked him if he’d ticked the register to vote box on his VT drivers license and he said “I think so”. It’s worth checking.
I couldn’t vote against Nixon in 1968 because I didn’t turn 21 until March 1969. Was so mad, I’ve never missed an election since. McGovern was also my first vote for President.
One good thing that Nixon did, but I never voted for him or any other R president. Now we have Rs trying to undo all this work. Last night NBC news had a story on the extreme melting of glaciers and also one on lab made meat. We have garden organically for many years, but people around us do love to spray. Once I found a hedge in front full of dead bumblebees. Also we only buy plants from reputable nurseries. When I walked in the neighborhood, I had a place I passed which I called Mr. Chemical, the smell was always so strong. The irony is that the house was finally sold and now the yard sports weeds. We use horticultural vinegar on some weeds, but one must be persistent. And we hand pull a lot. Usually the yard is full of bees...but now we need some warm temps and sun.
Getting some this week, I hope. I haven't used weed killers since my mother-in-law died from non-Hodgkins lymphoma (directly attributed to using Round-up for years). I pull a lot of weeds. I don't use chemicals in the garden. I am finally able to plant bee friendly plants since fencing our previously open back yard and rerouting the deer freeway through our urban forest.
What? You have a 12-foot-high fence, Ally? Deer are known to rather easily jump a six-foot-high one. Good yours don't, and kudos to you for not using chemicals. I use no pesticides or herbicides, and my garden is certified by the National Wildlife Federation and by Georgia Audubon as a wildlife sanctuary. There are thousands of such certified habitats in Georgia (and elsewhere) as more and more people are becoming aware of the importance of native plants, trees and wildflowers to sustain a healthy ecosystem, plus sources of water and shelter for birds and insects and other critters.
Mix up my own weed killer of vinegar, table salt and a little dish soap (to help adherence) Works quickly, but you do need to apply more frequently. But hey, I'm retired, got plenty of time on my hands
My mother died of non-Hodgkins lymphoma about 10 years after my parents put in a large vegetable garden. Dad swore by Roundup.
She was only 70.
In her honor we have avoided pesticides and herbicides in our own gardens. I’m also gradually bringing in native plants to replace ornamentals. We have lots of bees visit our suburban lot!
There's a pronged long handled tool that has a foot lever for pushing it into the ground and pulling up weeds, roots and all. I mention this because it is so efficient and easy to use, it is almost enjoyable! There's also a small blow torch for scorching weeds, but I've never used that!
Massachusetts was the only state to go for McGovern, and the local bumper sticker during Watergate was "Don't Blame Me, I'm from Massachusetts." My favorite one, though, said "Impeach With Honor", a play on Nixon's phrase for how we should get out of Vietnam. When I was a young history teacher, one of my colleagues and I smugly patted ourselves on the back saying that, by working in our field, we could "make sure Nixon gets place in history he deserves." So, "in my age of maturity," I do appreciate that Heather has included the Nixon administration's statement on the intended course and reasoning for their proposed environmental activism. One clearly good thing that Nixon deserves credit for "in his place in history."
The lesson we should learn is to realize everyone has virtues but sometimes it’s hard to find ... somehow we must learn that if we are ever to realize a measure of peace ☮️. I was only 19 but also a very young mother of a beautiful baby girl. We see the world differently when we have a child as the world’s future takes on new meaning. That daughter has a sister and between the 2 have 4 children - all bright, strong humans that in my eyes see the world through meaningful lens. World Day has so much importance. We can never give up looking for “The Good In Us” (Mary L Trump) because we are “In This Together” (Joyce Vance). Happy Earth Day 🌎
R I was on the Nixon White House Enemies List and worked for McGovern in 1972. A friend of mine in the White House chided me. I said that the choice was between a crook and a fool. At least there was a chance that the fool, with good character, would learn to serve our country.
I was living in Greenwich Ct. In 1972 I was a political outcast. By 1974 it appeared that none of my friends had voted for Nixon. How quickly one forgets. I left my McGovern sticker on my car for years.
I was 17. I remember it all vividly. I'd forgotten that Nixon had done some good in his time. (I guess being the first President to go to China since Mao came to power was a positive, too.)
Yuhh. And Katherine, I was in launching B52's out of Thailand "to kill the yellow man" (Springsteen 1984'). That did'nt woik. Now they want to destroy the "Gov'mt".
Today's Greedy Old Pricks would have had Tricky Dick ASSASSINATED. They're so scared sh-tless of change. That & the Evangelical / Trumpvangelicals believe that after the " Second Coming ", we'll have a new heaven & new Earth so we can let THIS Earth become a ball of toxic mud.
Suzanne - I really think that they believe that it's OKAY to " drill, baby, drill ! ", tear down the trees ( Put up a parking lot ! ) gunk up the oceans & generally let the Earth get trashed because, Hey ! Jesus will fix everything. & yet, according to the scriptures, we're supposed to be responsible " stewards " of the Earth.
See the comment that I just posted about the mid - 1980's " War of the Worlds " series. It went into one of the reasons why " Martians " were going to resume their original invasion attempt, because we're so IRRESPONSIBLE about taking care of the Earth.
The wealthy elite think their money is going to save them. It won't of course. McMansions in the path of tornadoes also get torn apart. And if your are rich in Ft. Lauderdale, for example, you just experienced 2 feet of rain in six hours. One of my ex-students who has money has concluded that there is no longer any safe place to live. To her credit, she is vegetarian and doesn't spend lots of money on material goods.
Actually, while several people translated bits of the bible into English, it was William Tyndale who is credited with the first translation of the bible into English although he actually only finished translating the New Testament. His reward was to be burned at the stake. John Wycliffe is credited to have "inspired" the first translation of the entire bible into English; meaning he didn't do all the work himself but had an important enough name that he didn't suffer Tyndale's fate...until after he died! He was actually dug up and burned at the stake!
It is important to remember that all these translations are translations from translations since no original complete texts exist.
ALSO - have you seen or heard of the series " War of the Worlds ", based on the movie ? One of the main themes was that the " Martians " believed that they were justified in paving the way for another invasion because of the manner that we treat the Earth. 1 episode had a human / alien hybrid ( played by John Colicos ) who voiced those same sentiments, although since he was used to being half - human, he didn't want to see Earth invaded either.
I suspect that tricky Dick's thoughtful and sensible legislative response to the massive protests surrounding Rachel Carson and the subsequent Earth Day also provided the seeds and growth of organizing the powers within and behind the capitalists (think the Kochs, the oil barons, the tobacco fortunes, the chemical & drug companies and later the gun manufacturers, etc) and all those who saw a HUGE threat to their capacity to make ever more money, no matter the cost to the environment or to individual health. Who amongst us ever thought capitalists would be responsible about the damage their operations inflicted on the water, the air and the land?!! So when Nixon actually got some legislation passed to respond to these massive outpourings of concern and anger the capitalists felt they had to go underground and increase their lobbying efforts to buy all the legislators they could.
Yo Daniel of Appleton... and over the cliff (default) we shall go... Get ready for "the Crusades". The "moat" around Mar-A-laygo won't be deep enough, it'll become a Chinese resort. Putin will trade the Black Sea for South Lake Tahoe. Orban and DeSandis will be right at home in Disny World. And "the price of gas"? What gas?
Wow, you’re so right. If these same folks actually READ the Bible they beat, wonder if they’d ban it? (I’m pro-Bible, BTW; a book full of symbolism, life lessons, and ultimately unconditional divine LOVE right here and now. “New heaven and new earth” is a change of perspective that can never to be obtained without Love) Destroying our environment for money...sounds like the Antichrist to me.
They rely on what some Evangelical pastor says. IIRC, after the church was established, laity weren't allowed to read the Bible although the stained glass windows depicted Biblical scenes as well as saints, angels, etc. I should double check this, it couldn't hurt. & I think that Auguste Rodin did some Biblical scenes. I was at a Rodin exhibit roughly 25 - 30 years ago.
Daniel, first time I seen Trumpvangelicals. I like that. I grew up in an Evangelical world but left that behind long ago because of my belief in science. I used the word Evilagelicals but many just think it is a misspelling. To use a biblical term they are evildoers.
The Reverend Harold Camping out in Nowheres Corners, Nowheritania, keeps predicting the Rapture every few years. He did it gain a few years ago. I kept looking out the window just in case & saw ZIP, zed, nada, zilcharoonie. All I saw was a crummy flying saucer ! 🛸👽 I got the alien's autograph, though - Zarg the Unfathomable. I told him that I'd put it with the others, LOL.
Just like the more BS crazy ones who kill people or are OK with killing gays, abortion doctors, others, because they think that God would be alright with it.
I was just 15 on the first Earth Day and, very much against my parent’s wishes, attended an Earth Day rally at the U of MN. The campus was a hot mess (Vietnam protests) but the rally was both peaceful and inspiring - so much so that I’ve spent the last 53 years working to protect the planet. What a gift!
Yesterday, my grand niece Sophie toured the U of NE at Lincoln campus. She is interested in their Fisheries and Wildlife program. Her goal? Protect wildlife worldwide. Great auntie is thrilled- and will support her every step of the way. But she has a much bigger job these days to help institute policies that will protect, sustain and preserve...
Nixon, for all his terrible flaws, understood that protecting air and water quality was imperative. McCarthy and the Republicans attempt to hold the world’s economy hostage unless their demands are met to raise the debt ceiling is terrorism. Time to pick up and throw out the trash this Earth Day 🌎
I was 14, on the cusp of political consciousness while leafing through the Whole Earth Catalog; going to my first anti-war protests (proudly following the lead of my older brothers, with the approval of our parents), smoking my first joint. I was unambiguous about Nixon, and it would take decades to admit that he did a good thing regarding the EPA. Can you believe it's been 53 years?
After teaching in California from 1968-72, I started International flying with Pan Am. We had to spray the inside of the aircraft with DDT after flights coming and going to our destinations. Some of us started to spray the bottles into the bathrooms so we wouldn’t have to breathe it, Slowly the world started listening to Rachael Carson. Slowly the airline started to realize we were being poisoned . We never ended smoking on board.
If anyone should be memorialized even more than she has been( very few young people know her name), Rachael Carson should stand along side our greatest heroes.
What I hope for on this Earth Day is that we , we human species, actually go forward in saving our beautiful Earth. Our blather clouds our vision. We talk a good story.... and we keep producing plastic, we keep pouring chemicals into our Water, our Air, and our soil.
I was 4 years old when my Father showed me some dirt and said,”whatever you put into this earth you will drink one day”!
We are so brilliant at times..... are we brilliant enough to actually mean it! That we must care for ourselves by caring for our Earth first and foremost.
“HAPPY EARTH DAY or happy ignorance??? You choose.
I'm on a bit late today, but upon reading many comments, I thought I would hook onto the top comment in the hopes that others will find this recommendation:
Please consider reading a book "Junkyard Planet, Travels in the Billion Dollar Trash Trade" by Adam Minter.
I have to say, I found this book incredibly distressing. The author grew up in a family that ran a "junk yard" and gives a lot of information about what happens to the items we recycle, even traveling to China to see where the US recycled items end up and what happens to them. MIND BOGGLING!
Yes, I recycle, reuse and repurpose, and yes, we all need to do our part and our small efforts add up. After reading this book, I've come to believe that the onus for reducing waste is on our manufacturers. If anyone else has read this book, please feel free to comment. All others who have interest in recycling, please do search out this book!
I also would like to mention that frequent commenter, Sandy Lewis, has recently linked both an article and a short film about his organic beef farm and his concerns about the microbiome. Well worth the read/watch!!
Apologies to evelyn spiess for jumping in here on her comment thread.
I’m the same age and the Cuyahoga River caught fire when I was growing up in Cleveland. Now we see the Republican Party bowing eagerly to their corporate masters to overturn environmental regulations. Perhaps now that I live in Minnesota I need to worry about the Mississippi River?
Yep. I was in my senior year at Penn State and had so much resentment for Nixon. The man was his own worst enemy. But he knew how to get government and private enterprise to work for the common good. Reagan on the other hand?
I attended the first Earth Day as a student at Miami University and read Silent Spring and Aldo Leopold’s works. Like many whose comments I just read, I also gave kudos to a President I did not trust or care for. The lesson for me? Until recent times poor Presidents and political leaders had shining moments.
Reagan tried to shut down the EPA. He didn't but environmental protection lost a lot of momentum when the entire Republican Party (along with some Democrats) climbed into the pocket of plutocrats.
I remember that first Earth Day. I also remember 10 days later when the man who created the EPA ordered the invasion of Cambodia, followed four days later by the killings at kent State and the national campus strike against the war. A period when every day seemed like a year if you were politically active.
When I got back to Australia in 1972, after ten years in France and Italy, there were a whole lot of new words I didn't understand, like "ballpark figure", for instance, and "grassroots". I took a temporary job working for an earnest young man with a beard, doing a lot of water sampling at popular beaches; "e.coli" was easy to grasp, but I had to ask him what "conservation" meant. I don't think Silent Spring was translated into French or Italian. In 1970 I was living in habitually chaotic Italy, and what worried us was the rise of terrorism from the Red Brigades. Two years earlier, the French general strike showed that it was possible for the will of the people to prevail. Then the Russians rolled their tanks into Prague and crushed the freedom Alexander Dubcek had dared to lead. Has anything got better since then? durably better? And yet President Biden's simply worded statement is penetratingly clear.
The current political reality shows that democracy must be vigorously and diligently protected. I thought things like protection of contraception were pretty durable, but after overthrowing (yes, word choice is intentional here) Roe v Wade Thomas began to call into question other very personal rights. Then there is the Social Security/Medicare situation. The social safety net ALWAYS has to be protected from the greedy rich.
And he was one of the 2 in the 7-2 decision in keeping mifepristone on the market. (Guess who was the other.) I hate to throw around labels, like misogynist, but these two qualify. They seem like very unhappy people.
Must have been that other unreconstructed jackhat, Alito. For the life of me I do not understand why Alito didn't follow his misogyny right into the Catholic priesthood, where he could vent his hate on women and the rest of the world without let or hindrance.
MLMinET, YES, two people who are sufficiently unhappy with who they are that they go to extraordinary lengths to appear otherwise, especially the fairly simple decisions about conflicts of interest and gifts and "emoluments" from others. See Lisa Murkowski's comments on being sold a bill of goods, all of us for that matter, who were sold a bill of goods throughout the confirmation hearings for any of these "justices!" They just plain lied.
Yes, they did. And what does it say about the rot in our society that SC justice candidates think they can--and they did--lie their way through confirmation? And, in the case of Thomas, Biden and HW Bush were sufficiently intimidated by declining to nominate a black man (for cause) they caved. And here we are.
JennSH, yes we have to remain ever-vigilant but should be careful to not paste everyone with money as greedy. It is the fundamental nature of capitalism that is driven by continual growth and consumption. We must routinely counterbalance the creativity and energy (often driven by greed) with rational regulation and laws to protect those without the massive accumulations of wealth. Ironically, that is what Nixon started to accomplish despite his other despicable behavior and I think that is what drove the R's to try to control the legislative process, put their very heavy thumb on the scales of that balance between capitalism and the social & environmental welfare.
If you're European, no, that year was one hell of a mixture.
London, May '68. Night classes at the French Institute in South Kensington, an offshoot of the University of Lille in France... We had a wonderful history professor, a woman who, like HCR, knew how to connect up the present with the remote and recent past.
In Paris, the students built barricades and faced down the CRS riot police, trying to get the Communist CGT trade union federation to join them in a general strike. And we in our history classes broke off our study of medieval French history and discussed the uprising and what it meant for France, for Europe, for us.
The way it all ended, we'd come to expect. Yet those were moments that marked a generation.
*
On August 21st 1968 I'd bought tickets for myself, my Polish friend and his daughter to a concert to be given at the huge Albert Hall by the Orchestra of the USSR.
That morning, the Warsaw Pact armies invaded Czechoslovakia.
I phoned Iliasz, who'd woken up one morning in 1939 to find Red Army tanks below his window in Lwow, Poland, today Lviv, Ukraine, packed a bag, breakfasted with his parents, then left them and his country for ever, not stopping till he reached England, where he joined the Polish forces and fought through the entire Italian campaign.
I asked him:
"Do you still want to come to this concert?"
His answer couldn't have been clearer:
"Absolutely. The musicians in the orchestra will be suffering horribly for what their country has done. They'll need our moral support."
We went.
The concert closed with Tchaikovsky's 6th and final symphony, the Pathetique.
I wasn't a Tchaikovsky fan but I had and I have never heard anything like the music that evening -- one of the key moments in my life.
The orchestra rose to the occasion, their discipline was matched by an overwhelming, tangible sense of tragedy.
*
Striking to compare then and now, Stalin and Hitler's carving up Poland, Brezhnev's invasion and Putin's, my friend's reaction and the horrors we are seeing today.
I was at UCL in 1968, street protests and all, often it must be said, lead by foreign postgrads agitating away from their own college to protect their status. I remember distinctly "housing" Rudi Deutscke and the members of his "committee" from the german protests in our somewhat downtrodden collective student house in North London. They didn't ask, they just pushed through the door heading straight for the "collective" fridge serving themselves on whatever drink etc they could find....good communist stuff i presume.
I was in the streets with the others and we had just been given the majority at 18. Freedom, Freedom, Freedom! It fealt so good, especially the feeling that the youth of the world spoke the same language and shared the same values.
Unfortunately we have had over 50 years to change the world. The result is far from what it might have been, what we hoped for. But we are responsible for the current mess nonetheless.
Danny the Red is still around politics in France and Germany. A bi-cultural gadfly once, a gladfly always. Today's local supposed followers of Rachel Carson spout dictatorial inanities that would have honoured POL Pot, Stalin, Hitler or whoever of that ilk; banning rugby matches, cycle races, air transport and the christmas tree amongst other ecological "threats" in the towns they control. None have a thought for the people and how they want society and their world to run. They just figure that the people are a little stupid, or as they put it "backward" and that their thinking doesn't work. Ideology replaces personal thought and considered opinion conveniently it would seem for such.
Your last sentence says so much about today's world, not just French ideologues' inability to get their constipated little minds around an issue too big for them.
Ideology is ersatz, an imitation, it is prefabricated thought modules... It may be all too typical of humans but it is not just unnatural, it is contra naturam. Anti-nature.
Both Brezhnev and Reagan were representative mediocrities, champions of mediocrity. The Soviet leader let himself be railroaded into the Afghan war by KGB boss Andropov. He didn't want the war and hated the result.
Reagan spouted propaganda rubbish about the Soviets' "evil empire" while said bureaucratic empire was quietly imploding under the weight of complex reality.
Nixon had seemed bad enough, Reagan was an adman's dream salesman, we thought it impossible to find a leader as inadequate and manipulated as George W. Bush, who bravely made an unbelievable mess of the world then, before the consequences unfolded, proclaimed "Mission Accomplished!"
Yes, the operation was a great success, unfortunately the patient did not survive it... but his disease mutated, spread and became endemic. Well, thank you for nothing...
As it turned out, the fall of the so-called "Evil Empire" didn't put an end to the world's evils, it amalgamated them. America gifted itself a lesser product of Hell for President. And now the acme of evil idiocy has outed himself: Putin, unleashing Hell on Ukraine for its disgraceful failure to conform to His Great Idea of How It Is Supposed To Be.
One man and his demented zombie of an "idea" -- sump of all the evils of the 20th and 21st centuries gathered together in a single shitshow.
Heaven help us all, we humans and our one world, our wretched, beaten, ill-treated wonderful Mother, the ultimate Miracle -- Planet Earth!
In 1978, I joined the Communist Student Union at my university. What I found there were a group of unconsciously privileged, sallow, very earnest young men who thought meetings were a form of action. My assessment at the time was "these guys smoke too much and don't eat enough". I also realized they just spouted Marx as a way to sound more intelligent than they really were. I left after about a month.
Laziness is the original, and perhaps the most damaging, human sin. Racists lump entire swaths of humanity together, never taking the time to see the real people they oppress. Thinkers recycle ideas into smaller and smaller sound-bites. Politicians offer edicts, rather than ears. Algorithms decide what we see and hear in the ever-growing world of cyberspace. More and more, the arcs of our lives are funneled into an imitation of the stories fed to us on TV/the internet. I would mind none of this, really, if so much of the energy we need to keep each other growing and happy wasn't spent on distraction or out and out oppression. Comforting the afflicted and afflicting the comfortable take real effort and original thought. I think we're ready.
"I also realized they just spouted Marx as a way to sound more intelligent than they really were."
That can be said about every "Marxist" since Marx himself. It certainly particularly applies to the idiots who became The Weatherman Faction and the Revvolutionary Communist Youth (Marxist-Leninist) in the death stage of SDS here in the US. What a collection of clucks, and too many of them still think their only problem was not enough people listened to them.
Tom I taught ‘Economics from feudalism to the present.’ Personally I much prefer Groucho to Karl. Did you ever read the letter exchange between Groucho and T. S. Eliot?
I was there and met so many young men who could have been Bernie...they were so sure they were brilliant and had all the answers. As for those of the female persuasion; we could fix their meals and warm their beds.
Steve, fantastic summary of human types and pursuits.
We better be ready,
but it is our grandchildren I worry about. If Google ever goes down because of a grid failure or a cascading satellite accident, they won't know how to make a handsaw work, or put up produce--and if they can even find a library to learn how, there might be two un-banned books left.
We need to be passing on every skill we have. NOW.
I was at Michigan State University as an undergrad, demonstrating against the war, and marching through class room buildings trying to encourage other students to leave classes so we could "shut the university down". I passed by a class that was just letting out and asked one of the students what the class had been about. He said "the American Revolution." without irony.
Winter of 68-69 Gus, "Get Oil Out' (GOO) but, the oil just kept on bubbling up for years depositing blobs of congealed oil on the beaches but, not difficult to pick up off the beach & very good for delivering a message. I recall one (1) Isla Vista, UCSB restaurant where the Community was invited to dig up the asphalt parking lot back-to-dirt. A number of students abandoned careers & went 'back to,the country': Sierra' small towns, the Hidden Coast, Oregon, the Rockies. Others, the fighters, became engaged on a still ongoin eclogical obattlefield.
One Urban Refugee built a shack within a few feet of a small waterfall 💦. Of course, the hut was "red tagged". Dedparate ESCAPE is not a realistic stategy on a round planet. 🙏
Judith Viorst wrote many wonderful books, including that one about her son Alexander's terrible day. "Necessary Losses" is one I go back to from time to time. In her 90s now, she's still bright and sharp.
The Second Coming of DJT ain't happening, the " man " is coming unraveled mentally & physically, his base is cracking & most of the GOP wants to MOVE ON. I just hope that they don't find a smarter Trump wannabe with less ego, less narcissism & a wider appeal.
TC, I was 10 that spring. Jackson Elementary School in Medford, Oregon. That was the first year that the three upper grades (4th,5th, and 6th) had "tree planting" field trips. We got bussed out to logged areas and planted trees. We learned all about trees, and wild life, and how to care for the soil.
The pure irony in this? The tree planting was monoculture Douglas Fir for the timber harvest companies in the area. I believe that tract of land (probably about an acre, Just outside of Jacksonville, OR) was harvested in 1998.
Make mine a double TC. I got to do both so I guess you could say I was on top of things. I think for once I wasn’t out on the ranges where my luck never changes. I was a new modern worldly debutante. Wheeeeee, my time had arrived. Look out world. Imagine starting life as a footnote to Rachel Carson. I lived that book. Er I mean I loved that book.
YES! And when it seemed the government was making war ON US! ...the kids on campuses, the ones trying to get educated to help us all out of the mess we had gotten into regarding both our environment and now (Kent State) our government! I remember that classes shut down for several days and we traveled to other campuses to talk to other students and see what they were doing about it...a SCAREY time indeed!
I missed the first Earth Day in its entirety. At the time, I had just been drafted and was taking Russian at Monterey. Earth Day, Cambodia, Kent State -- everything other than study was a blur.
Most of us walk through life unaware of the events that are taking place around us. Others, like myself, are periodically isolated from the American Experience. As a consequence, there are gaps in my own knowledge of recent American history that are months and even years long -- because I never lived them. Dr. Richardson offers an antidote to this condition, and a reminder of all the things that good citizens should know.
I’m curious why Russian and not Vietnamese, (if there is a brief explanation and you wouldn’t mind sharing it). I never knew that we have a Defense Language Institute before your comment. My nephew learned Chinese while at West Point, and spent 2 years in Taiwan after graduating, so I’m curious if it is a rapid immersion program @ the DLI, intended to prep troops quickly? 🙏🙏
In the 1970s, DLI had thousands of students studying a couple of dozen languages at any given time. When I was there in 1970-71, there were over 300 Russian language students, and hundreds of students studying Vietnamese, Laotian, Cambodian and many other languages. The hard language courses were generally one year in length, and other courses were usually six months. Russian language students generally went to listening posts around the Soviet Union.
Tom As Halderman highlighted in his book, ‘Nixon didn’t give a shit about the environment.’ For him it was a non issue and he went along with a Democratic Congress and then took kudos for the EPA. 50 years later the Republicans don’t give a shit about climate change.. Just look at McCarthy’s 300+ pages on the budget where eliminating ‘climate change’ is his top priority. Remember, in the Trump administration ‘climate change was excluded from all public documents.
And I remember the rally at Tulane University (NOLA) the next day where a professor taught me to stay near the edge of a crowd in case police arrived. (They did.)
Tonight’s letter brought me back to 1969 when I was just 18 and in college. I was in DC and in 1970 I found myself marching with many others against the Vietnam War. I ended up meeting a Vietnam veteran in September of that year. We will have been together for 53 years. The very first election I got to vote in was Nixon v. McGovern. Of course, I voted for McGovern and was totally deflated when Tricky Dick won by a landslide. I couldn’t understand how people could be so ignorant. Fast forward to 1994, one of our towns was celebrating Earth Day be staging a large event. My youngest daughter was 5 1/2, so I took her. When we left, she was handed a glass vial with a sprig of a redwood tree in it. We got home and she asked me if we could plant it. “Sure!” I said, knowing full well it wouldn’t turn into anything. In 2023, that sprig turned into a 40 ft redwood tree! Happy Earth Day!
Made my day Marlene. It does not surprise me that events surrounding you come into unanticipated fruition in such a good way. While we planted 10’s of thousands of trees it was for 2.30/hr. as mercenary profit makers. Today I marvel at the forests we created simply trying to eat more than the c/rations we had ratholed for winter. What a kick to walk among the trees.
It was hunger Marlene. Nothing akin to altruism. I preferred hamburger with my hamburger helper. And catsup is good on c-rats and excellent on k-rats. But the real thriller was Tabasco. This was all made possible by what we facetiously called starvation wages. This is the real story of how the west was won. That we built and preserved forests we can lay claim to, but contentment was a full stomach.
I can almost see that redwood from a seedling grown and by the wishes of your daughter and you, Hooray! Here's current news of the redwoods in California, Marlene. The following contains a generous portion of the NY Times article in today's paper. Sorry not to have the gifting option.
'When the rain is relentless and the wind is ferocious, there are plenty of imperiled things for Californians to worry about. The state’s iconic redwood forests are not among them.'
“These trees live for thousands of years, and while these winter storms may seem catastrophic to humans, they are part of the normal experience of redwoods,” Stephen Sillett, a redwood expert and professor at Cal Poly Humboldt in Arcata, Calif., wrote in an email.'
'Dan Porter, who leads forest strategy for the California chapter of the Nature Conservancy, said that rainstorms could cause problems for redwoods that are near rivers and creeks, especially those that have been altered by human activity, like logging.'
“During big events like this, the water comes up and the sediment undercuts those big banks, and some of the ancient monarchs succumb to that — they fall into the river or into the forest,” Mr. Porter said.'
'Professor Sillett of Cal Poly Humboldt said that he expected to find a few trees down when he surveys redwood forests after the storms let up.'
“Some trees have surely fallen, as happens during every rainy winter,” he said.'
'Climate change, he said, poses threats to the redwoods that are unrelated to the storms.'
'The natural range of the coastal redwoods is drying out because of warming temperatures, according to a study by Professor Sillett’s research team that was published in Forest Ecology and Management in December. That means that in a warmer future, redwoods may not be able to grow as tall or large as they have in the past.'
“Our actions now determine the quality of forests to be enjoyed by future generations,” the authors wrote.'
Fern, my friend, thanks for this! I look at the redwoods as a renewal for Mother Nature. When we have had fires (and you know we’ve had plenty) the redwoods are the first to grace us with their beauty. We had some horrific fires and climate change on Mt. Diablo in the past few years. We have been told that when these fires occur, new seedlings will be allowed to scoot through. It’s a wondrous thing that we get to protect our many critters and even better that we have enough water to do so. 💞
And shortly after this wave of environmental legislation was enacted in the early 1970s, American corporations simply took their operations overseas, where regulations were either lax or nonexistent, and where local populations could be exploited for long hours, unsafe working conditions, and low wages. Soon American consumers would have more crap than ever, and for less cost. Textbook capitalism. All part of God's plan.
True, however, today it is not one nation working for a better Mother Earth but many. Soon there will be few places for rich corporations to hide their ills. The fragile life of earth hangs in the balance of knowledge.
I was also 18 in 1970. Today I am living in Italy. The vineyards use no chemicals. They plant roses at the end of the rows because blight and insects show up first on the rose, then they prevent the spread using non chemical treatments. We recycle separately nearly everything including organic waste. Most vegetables and fruits are grown organically and you don’t pay more. Everywhere you go you you see solar panels (even streetlights) and wind turbines. It’s perfect. It’s a great commitment thus far, and highly visible. And gives one hope.
Italy’s system of differentiated waste collection requires a significant effort from households, especially apartment dwellers (i.e. most people) with small kitchens, who need six different bins for different kinds of waste, and then must carry the waste to specific dumpsters for collection. It’s impressive; they recycle 72% of all trash. Unfortunately, waste collection in old cities is particularly challenging, and dumpsters are often overflowing in places like Rome and Naples, attracting rats, seagulls, and wild boar. Rome doesn’t have a landfill, and exports its waste to other regions or countries even. That’s hardly environmentally sound. I think they’re trying to build a huge new incinerator, calling it “waste to energy,” but are facing a lot of nimby backlash.
Also impressive is their high taxation on fuel, which has led to conservation efforts like much smaller, more efficient cars and on-demand water heaters. Energy is really expensive in Italy. They’re trying.
& he supposedly cut funding for NASA even as he called Neil Armstrong to congratulate the crew of Apollo XI. A hypocrite. But I'd still trust him or GWB rather than Trump, because Bush & Nixon didn't demand unquestioning blind loyalty, pretty much to the point of WORSHIP.
For once Gus, his fear of losing that monolithic voter block turned into something good. I’ll never forgive him for stalling the peace talks until after he was elected by promising a better deal to the enemy. My first real life traitor. The ramifications came home to roost. Why I hate the ex.
If you’d like to listen to an excellent podcast “Nixon at War” that includes voice tapes of Nixon and Kissinger regarding the peace talks. It’s absolutely deplorable. You can’t deny it when it’s on tape.
I have heard them calmly discussing the genocide of those people I considered my mamasans and papasans. Their utterly ruthless blend of escaping any blame. Like disbelieving priests in a confessional. Common criminals discussing vindication.
It was a trying time for all of us Gus Koch. We wept as a nation. How could we not be a part of our own times. How could we let someone else go in our place. The line of our nation forms for good and bad and we are in it. Like now! Here we are again brothers and sisters, clearly embroiled. Thank you Gus Koch proud to serve with you.
That is so funny. I had forgotten about that rascal, Jody. All who know her love her. Even my wife. My hearing is very bad and they told me her name was Bernie. I thought they said Birdie. Now everyone calls her Birdie. When I work on her place she makes 4 fresh loaves of bread. I don’t know who gets the other 3.
Republican leaders, so financially beholden to Big Business — including the petrochemical industry — are actively working to ruin the planet and harm their descendants along the way. The future is bleak, to put it mildly, though we can still make it less horrible. There's no escaping this harsh reality, despite lies and propaganda to the contrary.
I say this knowing that I'm not doing nearly enough to help prevent the inevitable horror of it all. As I've written here before, generations to come (who knows how few) will loathe us.
Agree, Michael. Every day I meticulously scrape the labels - along with the glue - off my recyclable bottles, then take them to the town's recycle center. All the while I know it is not nearly enough.
I repurpose them by making lights out of them by sticking rice - grain LEDs in them. I'm sure that I'm not the only person. Small things have cumulative effects.
Lynell, we fill our recycle bins and put them at the street and a truck comes and takes them away, just like our garbage. I think that is why Talia is surprised, its probably how hers works too.
Our comingled recycling here in Eugene is sorted at the recycle plant at the local landfill. We have a bin that is picked up weekly, and we are able to fill it just about every week.
Citizen initiative is the only way recycling is done in Ravalli Co MT. We have cardboard recycling 1x/m & glass recycling every few months. One facility that takes cans & Al2 in Co , The rest u need to take your recycling to Missoula
For all of their treachery, I don't think they frame it in their own minds as wanting to ruin the planet, but they are focused to the point of obsession and negligence with achieving absolute power, allied with their maximized-profit (love of money) obsessed, plutocratic patrons.
As for ruining the planet, my local newspaper quoted a "Christian" school textbook that said that God is angered by environmental conservation because it betrays a lack of trust in his boundless providence. I don't know how many kids are exposed to such thinking, but I know it exists.
They're like the mutants in one of the Planet of the Apes movies who worshipped a nuclear warhead.
I tried to have a rational, logical, CIVIL discussion about taking a critical look at one's faith with my cousin. Her reaction ? " Yo're a - tryin' to destroy mah faith ! ". & yet she'll babble on with great GLEE about whatever passes for " Christianity " until Hell freezes over or the Sun burns out. Or until I finally give in & tell her to shut up before I glue her lips closed.
Indifference or even smug enjoyment of others suffering. "Greed is good" was a memorable line from the bad guy in a cautionary movie about avarice, but Republicans and Wall Sr. picked it up as a motto. I have lost track of how often it was repeated proudly in the financial press (it seemed to lose some cachet after the Subprime crash). But "greed", unlike mere ambition, is not good by definition; It causes others to suffer.
There is an irony here. The left for decades have vilified Richard Nixon and in many cases justifiably so. But he deserves credit for his pioneering environmental legislation which created the EPA. For those of us old enough to remember, TV ads from Dupont and others in the 50's promised us "better living through chemistry". The environment was on no ones radar. WJB
Nixon was one of the most capable presidents we ever had, be it for good or evil. The way he sabotaged LBJ’s peace talks with North Vietnam, can never be forgiven.
Agreed. Nixon betrayed the trust of the American people and deserved removal at the very least. And yet he was also a prescient environmentalist. For example:
"I am inaugurating a program to marshal both government and private research with the goal of producing an unconventionally powered, virtually pollution free automobile within five years."
And also very un-Reaganomically:
"These measures will require the oil companies and other energy producers to provide the public with the necessary information on their supplies. They will prevent the injustice of windfall profits for a few as a result of the sacrifices of the millions of Americans. "
One wonders what the future prospects of humanity would be had the environmental momentum of the Nixon and Carter administrations been carried forward.
Like many salient American political figures, Nixon's legacy was a bizarre and dualistic mix. What followed was an order of magnitude more dishonest and corrosive to the best of American ideals, and shockingly effective. In the year following his death 2.4 million Americans were polled to name the "greatest American" of all time, and Reagan emerged as #1. Weird, as scatter-brained Reagan was decidedly anti-democratic and enthusiastically pro-plutocratic.
Also totally anti-environmental protection; positions his party has maintained since. Moreover, the whole Republican Party coalesced around a package of plutocratic Big Lies.
My favorite Nixon quote came as we sat in our hooch cleaning our machine guns just after we cleaned an inch of curdled blood from the floor mats of the helicopter. Did you know blood is like grease when it coagulates so thickly. We were sliding around all the way back from Cambodia that night when an armed forces radio broadcast featuring Nixon came on. We thought maybe the peace had come at last. Sort of. He said we were no longer playing a combat role in the war. I looked over at Don and he looked at me. I think he muttered “fuck” and that was pretty much all that needed to be said. The year was 1971. We were very fortunate as Don went back to being a hippie in LA and I went back to being a cowboy in Montana and 4 years later the war sort of ended.
At school in England. It was 1951 or '52, when one of my best teachers, a man who'd lived and worked in Canada, came into the classroom and said to us:
"If any of you ever have any say in the matter, make sure that Richard Nixon never becomes President of the United States of America."
Our grammar school principal had us praying for the recovery of President Eisenhower, after he suffered a heart attack and now I know why. Nixon was waiting to take over, if the highly revered Eisenhower expired. Things were different back then.
And when he lost his first attempt to become President to Kennedy he was so hurt and humiliated that he came back with even more of the "tricky Dick" methods that had worked in California. His campaign for President when the republicans inexplicably nominated him again, was a major part of the switch from racist Democrats to racist republicans.
Was it really necessary to use that bag of tricks, salesmen's lies, back then?
Now, of course, corrupt politics at the exclusive service of Mammon and Moloch, together with old age and demography, have left the GOP so bankrupt of principles and policies that cheating and sabotage are the only means left to them.
At least President Biden is building a bridge from a past when some things functioned to a future with real potential, when America can strive to transcend fakery and machine politics, and even find and bring some healing and renewal to a world that so desperately needs better.
The environment had been on the RADAR for some time, Teddy Roosevelt protecting great swaths of it for example. Rachel Carson's "Silent Spring" brought it home. My mother bought the book for me when I was in middle school. I only half read it, but was on board with the message. In the interim environmental disasters were increasingly noticed by the "news"; LA smog and the burning Cuyahoga River among them.
I have a picture of a newspaper story from August 14, 1912 warning of the impact of burning coal on the environment. - Science Notes and News. "The furnaces of the world are now burning about 2,000,000,000 tons of coal a year. When this is burned, uniting with oxygen, it adds about 7,000,000,000 tons of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere yearly. This tends to make the air a more effective blanket for the earth and to raise its temperature. The effect may be considerable in a few centuries." The Rodney & Otamatea Times, Waitemata & Kaipara Gazette. Leave it to us humans to just go blithely along even though this was a known threat that long ago.
The elephant in room. This from an AT&T/Frank Capra Science show from 1958:
Dr. Frank C. Baxter: "Even now, man may be unwittingly changing the worlds climate through the waste products of his civilization. Due to our release through factories and automobiles every year of more than 6 billion tons of carbon dioxide, which helps air absorb heat from the sun, our atmosphere seems to be getting warmer."
Richard Carlson: "This is bad?"
Dr. Frank C. Baxter: "Well, it's been calculated a few degrees rise in the earths temperature would melt the polar ice caps. And if this happens, an inland sea would fill a good portion of the Mississippi valley. Tourists in glass bottom boats would be viewing the drowned towers of Miami through 150 feet of tropical water. For in weather, were not only dealing with forces of a far greater variety than even the atomic physicist encounters, but with life itself."
BIDEN IS TAKING US All (including the Climate Deniers, K. McCarthy & the Republican Gang) TO A COOLER WORLD!
FACT SHEET: President Biden to Catalyze Global Climate …
2 days ago — The Inflation Reduction Act contains new and expanded tax credits for drivers to purchase new clean vehicles, as well as the first-ever tax …
'The President will be joined by other leaders in new efforts aimed at accelerating progress in four key areas necessary for keeping a 1.5°C limit on warming within reach, specifically:
___Decarbonizing energy: Announcing steps to drive down emissions in the power and transportation sectors, including scaling up of clean energy, setting ambitious 2030 zero-emission vehicle goals, and decarbonizing international shipping.
___Ending deforestation of the Amazon and other critical forests: Working through the Forest and Climate Leaders’ Partnership to mobilize public, private, and philanthropic support.
____Tackling potent, non-CO2 climate pollutants: Launching a Methane Finance Sprint to cut methane emissions and accelerating hydrofluorocarbon (HFC) phasedown under the Kigali Amendment.
_____Advancing carbon management: Partnering with countries to accelerate carbon capture, removal, use, and storage technologies through a COP 28 Carbon Management Challenge to deal with emissions that can’t otherwise be avoided.(WhiteHouse) See link below.
Think about this earth-day factoid; if every acre(hectare) of arable land on this island planet of ours carried a cover crop in the off-season, we'd recapture the large majority of excess CO2 currently produced around the world today, improving the carbon content of ALL soils and rapidly improving their fecudity (great word, look it up...) in short order. Except for the astounding amount of seed required to do that, it's a profoundly simple approach to an amazingly complex problem. The workforce is already in place, everywhere a farmer is already present who tills the soil. We wouldn't be waiting decades to bend the arc towards negative; good things would happen this year and next!
'Except for the astounding amount of seed required to do that...' '...if every acre of arable land...' '...around the world...' There are quite an number of 'ifs' 'and' and 'buts' here. It requires that some 'down to earth' possibilities figured out, Just Sayin'
What world-wide mitigation effort against CO2 and climate change do you know that DOESN'T require massive and fundamental changes in human behavior as fast as conceivably possible? How long and how much investment will it take to convert the world's rolling stock of internal combustion engines in cars, trucks, scooters, trains and ocean-going ships to carbon neutral propulsion sources? (40-50 years at minimum...) Where will all the lithium come from? Imagine the worldwide workforce needed to pull that off? Let's convert the world's inventory of homes and buildings to passive solar and photovoltaic electricity production. What will that take? (decades, and truly massive capital investment) Let's install a 300 foot windmill in every conceivable spot that sustained breeze can generate electricity, and then enough battery farms to redistribute the power to match electricity usage habits, and enough power grid to distribute it where it needs to go worldwide. How much engineering, investment and political capital will that require? (untold trillions of dollars) The world already produces enough wheat, soybean and corn seeds to grow the crops that feed the world, year in and year out; no technological revolution required. What is primarily needed to implement something like universal no-till planting and cover crop agriculture is political will and capital investment. How much protest to you expect over green fields in the wintertime? There are cover-crops that survive under deep snow...The world knows how to finance this kind of thing. Farmers the world over already know about crop loans, crop insurance, seed management. Political will is sadly lacking, but the workforce, the equipment, the financing mechanisms, even the will to improve soils and reduce tillage amongst farmers are all present, idling, waiting for the economics to turn favorable. What's a trillion dollars or five to the world economy? peanuts...an organic, largely low tech, soil improving and cost-SAVING (put the fossil fuel based fertilizer industry out of business) alternative to ideas like machine-based carbon capture and deep earth injection into rock (ridiculous...)
The 10 foot deep topsoil of the midwestern plains before all the bison were slaughtered was the result of grasslands and constantly moving, grazing undulates; bison, antelope, deer, elk, etc. The modern-day equivalent is called MOB grazing, using cattle, sheep, goats, etc. It is a rapid response NOW solution for improving fertility, soil carbon capture and improved livestock and biomass growth and health in pasture-lands. It costs almost nothing other than a different grazing management schedule. it keeps pastures in high grass production year around. Forget feedlots and 6 months of feeding dry hay and grain. Reduce winter feeding to 30-60 days. Again, the workforce is ALREADY in place. behavior change through concerted efforts at education, a bit of capital investment for portable electric fences is needed. That's really all that's needed. It's a huge win because it makes the farmer more profitable at the same time tremendous increase in carbon capture is occurring by that workforce of millions of livestock, already in place and ready to work.
You have somewhat described the Savory system of rotational range management employed to end desertification in Africa. That system has many many adherents in our western states now. It has grown beyond the innovation stage and is making inroads with more conservative or slow minded producers. As we become dryer we have greater need for sod layering which helps promote moisture retention. Good on you! The entire practice curtails erosion.
Daunting, but also keep in mind 150 years ago we were transporting ourselves largely with horses and trains. Rural electrification and the interstate highway system was largely accomplished within the last 100 years. It was a big task, but with a will and the proper incentives a lot can change...and needs to change. Cover crops helped reverse the ravages of the dust bowl and seem a reasonable part of the solution.
And then there's the mission statement of Monsanto: to control all the seeds on the planet...
After acquiring seed production company Seminis, which controlled 40% of the market for vegetable and fruit seeds, Monsanto bought out Emergent Genetics, the country's third-largest cottonseed company. Currently, Monsanto controls nearly 34% of the global seed market, a truly astounding figure.Apr 25, 2022
Kim, Bayer acquired Monsanto for $63 billion in 2018.
'Who controls the world's food supply?'
'Seed laws criminalizing farmers for using diverse crops that stand a better chance of adapting to climate change are threatening food security. Seed sovereignty activists want to reclaim the right to plant.'
'For thousands of years of human agriculture, the intrinsic nature of a seed — the capacity to reproduce itself — prevented it from being easily commodified. Grown and resown by farmers, seeds were freely exchanged and shared.'
'All that changed in the 1990s when laws were introduced to protect new bioengineered crops. Today, four corporations — Bayer, Corteva, ChemChina and Limagrain — control more than 50% of the world's seeds. These staggering monopolies dominate the global food supply. '
"Seeds are ultimately what feed us and the animals we eat," Jack Kloppenburg, a rural sociologist and professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said. "Control over seeds is, in many ways, control over the food supply. The question of who produces new plant varieties is absolutely critical for the future of all of us."
Some worry that heirloom crops, such as these potatoes from Peru, could disappear, meaning less genetic diversityImage: CIP
'Not only are the channels through which seeds can be exchanged and distributed narrowing: Seeds themselves are becoming less diverse. According to the UN Food and Agriculture Organization, 75% of the world's crop varieties disappeared between 1900 and 2000. '
'A huge wealth of locally adapted crops is being replaced by standardized varieties. And experts warn that could have grave consequences for food security — especially as the planet heats up.'
'Regulating plants and outlawing tradition'
'Major producers of genetically modified and bioengineered seeds, like Bayer and Corteva, strictly limit how farmers can use the varieties they sell. Usually, buyers must sign agreements that prohibit them from saving seeds from their crops to exchange or resow the following year. '
'Most countries only allow patents — exclusive ownership rights that were not originally created with living organisms in mind — on genetically modified seeds. But other plant varieties can also be strictly controlled by another type of intellectual property legislation called Plant Variety Protection.' (Deutsche Welle (DW) is Germany's international broadcaster) See link below for 'Who controls the world's food supply?'
Maybe we should just turn off our electronics & recycle them. Or use candles rather than light bulbs. Thoreau would approve. & stop using plumbing, just go down to the crick when we need water, eh ?
I lived in Oregon not long after Mt. St. Helens explosion. It was a moonscape after that and people thought it would never recover. But astoundingly life did return. I won't forget the lesson that life finds a way. The earth will survive global warming, but humanity and many others species are in danger. It's a race we might very well lose.
There is no Planet B. Not for us. A solution must be found. Here. Somehow, we must wake up and stop heating the Earth, and at the same time find some way to encourage life on Earth to heal. Who knows what's possible?
I first watched an old growth forest that I hunted in back in East Texas become decimated and destroyed by logging in 1974. One day I had access to this beautiful, large area of trees where I once saw a horned owl fly up off of the ground and land on a branch about my height and then turn his head backward and look at me.
We looked at each other for a bit, then, he leaned forward and seemed to drop off the branch and his wings extended and in complete silence glided away.
One year later that dense forest was totally decimated by logging. All of the big trees that granted that shadow on the ground gone. Trees hung up. Beauty turned into ugly.
At the time I wondered how such a disaster could occur, but, later, in my first job after my lengthy stint in school, I bought a house in Dallas (I left long ago for a smaller town) and then watched as it was built.
It was then that I realized that forest that was destroyed in 1974 was my fault. As I watched the frame on the house go up, I realized that was someone's forest somewhere. I tried to throw off my feeling of responsibility. But, I never did.
Eventually, as I aged, I realized: It is not Republicans or Democrats who destroy our ecology.
It is us. All of us. And? It is not even our fault. We are programmed to survive and survive we do. At the expense of everything around us. When the population of humans was low, the impact was small. But.......
The more of us there are, the worse our environmental impact becomes. Why?
Because we have to live somewhere, we have to eat (hence the extinction of species) and there just are not enough caves and whales to kill for all of us now.
My conclusion Fern: The human population must decide to reduce itself to save itself. But, I do not think that will ever happen.
Now at age 63, I have seen ever larger pristine forests destroyed on larger scales. The suburbs keep growing. The frame houses keep going up.
I do try: I am in partnership with NY State to do a large scale tree planting on some land I bought in the beautiful Finger Lakes region where there are still some trees, though, not many.
A drop in the bucket of the reforestation needed that can only occur if: The human population is reduced dramatically.
“It is not Republicans or Democrats who destroy our ecology.
It is us. All of us.”
So true, Mike! ALL OF US! Kudos to you for doing something to mitigate this!
As to population reduction as a means of counteracting our destructive tendencies, I’ve often wondered if the growing number and strength of super storms and weather-related disasters that increasingly result in fatalities are our Mother Nature’s natural response to our threats to her wellbeing.
My fiancé and I are your Finger Lakes neighbor, by the way. Beautiful region!
John, my understanding is that the Finger Lakes are usually considered Western New York (hence the WNY before the other states listed inside parentheses). Central and Upstate NY are ALSO beautiful! I am always amazed by the diversity of landscapes and panoramas that the empire state offers. But I’m staying put where we live now 😉
The Census Bureau projects we will grow by 75 million over the next 40 years, 90% of that from immigration. We, the major industrialized nation with the greatest per capita greenhouse emissions, are the worst place on the planet to put more people. The average immigrant's GH emissions rise threefold after arrival, because they come mostly from low per capita emissions third world countries.
75 million is nearly equivalent to four New York States.
Also Mike in Texas now they are making building materials from earth instead of trees. Putting together engineering for such earthy dwellings promises better living conditions and better environmental quality. Having built 300 dwellings mostly stick frame, I find that pretty exciting for up and coming builders.
And we need to work extra hard to preserve this bit of heaven as the run-offs from farming and minimally-curtailed housing development continue to flow into these pristine lakes leading to increasingly frequent growth of toxic algae blooms. Water once so pristine it was tapped by nearby Syracuse for drinking water must now be shut off on those occasions to "protect the public." ☹️
We need composting toilets, even though they may create an odor. & bidets keep us from using rolls of bathroom tissues & they became big items during the WORST of Trump's pandemic.
Yes, I don’t know how easy it will be to convince people to get composting toilets, but give them access to a bidet once and they quickly become converts. Toilet-seat bidets can be as cheap as $20.00 and are suitable for warmer climates; my heated seat and water models (I have two) cost me under $300.00 and have been in place more than 10 years. Vive le bidet!
There's this guy on Youtube, " Ginger Billy ", who pretty much had an AD for a particular bidet. It was humorous, yet very informative. & maybe a tad PROPHETIC, because it was on his channel BEFORE Covid struck. WOW ! I live in a small efficiency apartment so I'm unsure about the logistics of getting one up here, etc.
As Rose said, an attachment goes under the seat and costs from 20-30 dollars. You can get a seat-replacement bidet (like the one I have) for around $300 with warm seat, warm water & blow dry!
Happy Earth Day to Heather and Buddy and everyone in this forum and on the Planet Earth! What a wonderful article. Information packed and beautifully written.
Biden is taking crucial steps to address Climate Catastrophe. Another step:
' U.S. has inventoried old-growth forests. Will protection be next?'
The report is the federal government’s first estimate of America’s oldest trees. Environmentalists hope it is a step for protecting them from logging.'
'The findings, the result of a year-long review ordered last year by President Biden, are likely to inflame tensions with the timber industry over which forests — especially those in the western United States — should remain unlogged. But they are energizing many conservation activists, including those who argue that old-growth forests are vital for storing carbon dioxide that contributes to climate change' (WAPO) Gifted link below.
Irenie, during this most urgent emergency, the wellbeing of earth and survival of it's inhabitants depend on the people having a clear understanding that it is impossible to stop time and to, therefore, act accordingly.
Whether we're ready or not, we are going to NEED to have a 2 - planet ( or more ) species, like Carl Sagan advocated. Let's just not repeat the environmental mistakes on the Moon, Mars or the asteroids, wherever. Neil deGrasse Tyson wants to go ICE FISHING on Europa !
Please mindfully help our Earth with a small gift every day. Avoid one trip in your car, have one meal without animal products, physically weed your garden instead of using chemicals, eat locally grown produce, set your thermostat higher in summer, and lower in winter, don't buy throw-away fashion or furniture, repurpose what you can, plant native species to protect native wildlife especially pollinators....
You get the idea. Reduce your climate footprint on step at a time...
Georgia, to really get a feel for being of the animal kingdom put up a wall tent. Boil your water. Go to Salvation Army get heavy quilts. Or. Dig in to a steep bank or hill and put a log front on. You’ll capture 54 degrees of earth heat no charge. You don’t need a window because you can leave the door open. My sister paid 35 a month sharing with 5 roommates in school. I didn’t have rent to pay and I was lord and master. Athletics provided a shower daily and when school was out there was always the river. You could bathe and catch breakfast in one fell swoop. This is not some cutesy tale. It worked quite well.
The over 65 year old cohort need to take some responsibility for the degraded planet we are bequeathing the generations coming along behind. Forget taking another cruise or buying into an ageist script of powerlessness. Our commitment to the healing of the earth needs to be focused and radical. In the time we have left, we need to repurpose our lives in the urgent work of organizing for the healing this planet.
I read recently the largest age group of MAGAts was us!!! The war protesters, the peace and love promoters, the flower children. HOW could this be? What happened over the intervening 50 years?
I think that many of the flower children were the college students. But that was less than a third of the population. The "squares" who didn't get draft deferrals had a lot of resentment. At least that's the impression I got from growing up in an isolated small town with few aspiring to college, and from my older sister's husband (a Libertarian Vietnam vet)...
And then, of course, there were all of the business majors and mining engineering majors who were probably never part of the antiwar protests...
Of course, since I didn't start college until 1978, I could be entirely off in my interpretation!
Have you heard of Third Act? It's an organization started by Bill McKibben that encourages seniors to become more involved in righting the wrongs prevalent in society today, most notably environmental degradation. Their mission statement:
"We are building a community of experienced Americans over the age of sixty determined to change the world for the better. Together, we use our life experience, skills and resources to build better tomorrow."
I miss the promise of a better world that filled the air in the late 60s and early 70s, following in the wake of environmental catastrophes and race riots.
I was very young, but I remember the horror and the hope.
If you haven’t read it, Silent Spring is an important book.
The EPA made law by President Nixon. I was 18 in 1970. I remember having to give kudos to a man I didn’t care for. Today’s GOP would impeach such a POTUS for putting the EPA in place. Go figure!
You and I are the same age, Evelyn, and I remember that time well. Worked on the McGovern campaign to unseat him. Go figure indeed!
Peace ... please.
All the protest marches against the war in Vietnam and him!! I thought we had moved passed all that went with the 60s. Seems much worse now. It IS worse now!!
It is far worse now BUT you, we, can really individually take one small effective step to change “the bad guys” to “good guys”: a group of Harvard students are working hard to register high school seniors and college students to vote in 2,700 schools only in “competitive” congressional districts (not wasting our time and effort); please stop for a few minutes today, reflect on what WE must do in a cost effective manner, go on www.turnup.us/ and make a generous contribution. They will register them now and turn them out in 24 all nonpartisan!! Thank you but please do it today? For the future of your loved ones? Again-- www.turnup.us/
Yes the Civics Center is doing great work, and also Civic Influencers, on the ground in the recent Wisconsin election….considering Cleta Mitchell’s speech last weekend at a GOP donor retreat lamenting the ease of campus voting and how they must stop it, it’s clear this is one crucial battle line.
Thank you, Ira. www.turnup.us/ is doing amazing work, as is the Civics Center with their non-partisan, non-profit Cap, Gown & Ballot campaign. It is highly organized and efficient and I am proud to volunteer with them.
Here's the aforementioned Civics Center URL for convenience:
https://www.thecivicscenter.org/
Just signed up for monthly donation
Such good efficient work they are doing
Thank you, Ira!
Thank you for posting and passing it on!
they will be our rescue; still idealistic, still energetic for causes; have serious skin in the game...
Thank you for the information. Donated. So proud of these young student activists. They give me hope for the future.
Being of the same age as both of you, a story that resurfaces from time to time that also came out in 1970 was the ad campaign of the "Crying Indian". The now famous ad that set in motion a chain of events that has never been able to be undone.
The backstory of "Keep America Beautiful" and what they were really up to is worth the full read in the link below because the ad and its real message was a fraud. It was done by the bottle, can & packaging industry that saw the problems of its waste and litter coming back to haunt them and their profits so, they hired the global PR firm Burson-Marstellar who ingeniously spun the story on us. The problem was not the packaging (litter). It was the people that threw it,.... US.
Litter doesn't throw itself out, People throw it out. The problem is us. Just one excerpt
"It was an elegantly closed circle. The titans of packaging pushed throwaways into production. The Ad Council preached the creed of consumption, assuring Americans that the road to prosperity was paved with trash. The people bought; the people threw away. Then, the same industries and advertisers turned around and called them pigs. The people shamefacedly cleaned up the trash. And the packagers, pointing to the cleaned-up landscape, just went on making more of it."
And if you haven't yet made the connection, they are still using the same spin with guns - "Guns don't kill people, People kill people".
Before this and other ad campaigns we used refillable bottles and containers. But the packaging industry knew they'd make more $ with single-use disposables so, lobbied our consumer-based economy/govt and we've never looked back.
It's a fairly long read but educational on the whole industry - Happy Earth Day!
https://orionmagazine.org/article/the-crying-indian/
I'm old enough to remember roadsides littered with trash thrown from passing cars, including cigarettes still burning and beer cans and bottles. Not sure who legislated it, but thankfully that cleanup campaign succeeded. Also, I participated in Earth Day annual cleanup of the Merced River Canyon, the entry to Yosemite NP. Steep and bushy, it was also frequently littered with passing cars' detritus. After a few hot hours my patch was done. As I climbed up to the road, proud of the clean section, a lady in a parked car was changing her baby's diaper. Then she drove off, leaving the dirty diaper on the roadside. Sheesh!
Alongside many of the trails I hike there is no trash. Even beside the trails along the AZ-Mexico border, some admirable hikers have picked up clothes left behind as immigrants change before hitting populated areas. Cans and bottles are scooped up from campfires. I know because I know who removes the trash and comes down with garbage sacks full of debris. But dirty diapers???
Sadly the trails and roadsides are still littered with the debris of self-absorbed people. Especially during the lockdowns of 2020, when millions "got outside" because they couldn't gather inside. Joshua Tree National Park is still trying to recover from the damage caused by the influx of ignorant visitors.
When I visited India and saw the trash and garbage on their roads and in their cities and villages, I was horrified. My guide provided a memorable perspective: people in India generally took no responsibility for public spaces. They simply did not see public spaces as belonging to them. While all the nefarious actions of corporate trash creators is true, I think back to the sixties and am convinced that we had the same perspective about public spaces. The weeping Indian commercial broke through our National blindness and the shaming was effective in increasing our sense of personal responsibility for our own trash. It wasn’t 100% effective in permanently eliminating trash or our public responsibility for other pollution. But I remember the impact that one commercial had - and it was profound.
Almost a syllogism: Guns don't kill people,
People kill people.
People with guns kill people.
Thank you for this. I wrote a comment a few minutes ago. I hope they will post it. Annie Olson. annieolson1943@yahoo.com
Oh, Damn.
That was the first election I voted in. McGovern was the obvious choice. There is something very eerie about my memories of Nixon. It was the same feeling. I remember saying to friends and family: "How could you vote for Nixon - he's a sleazebag. He IS a crook!" But they chose to ignore his brutality and bought his BS.
Partly, I think the demonization of the Democrats (thinking they were sub human) had begun and was becoming normalized. And partly there was the carryover effect of the party of a relatively benevolent war hero called Ike.
But upon reflection...the GQP was beginning to change from a party with at least the veneer of respect for the rule of law - into a league of haters. The party of my parents and patriotism was beginning to rot from within. Some of you may remember that the GOP liked to say it had a "big tent". Now the tent is filled with bible twisting deplorables - with preachers preaching hate for others. Filled with frightened white people who are terrified of diversity. Filled with AR-15s.
These people are my extended family, my neighbors, my community members, coworkers, and acquaintances. They have been fed lies to fester their uncomfortable fear that the world is changing and they will be powerless. I pity them, but also work for a future that they will be a welcome, accountable, constructive part of.
It since Eisenhower a Republican president I could vote for.
The rise of the Moral Majority began sometime after Nixon. That was when I started moving as far away from the republican party as possible. Start mixing religion and politics and I was done. Dangerous mix.
So true. Republicans accused JFK of serving the Pope over America. Now they want a fascist "Christian" state that lords over every aspect of life.
One of my favorite organizations to support is Americans United for Separation of Church and State.
Good one. Thanks for the suggestion.
Exactly, Bill. I agree.
I was 37 but I campaigned for McGovern too. Remember the buttons we wore in 1973. 'Don't Blame Me I voted for McGovern?
My bumper sticker read “Don’t blame me, I’m from Massachusetts.” (The only state to go for McGovern.) In any case I’m grateful for Nixon’s part in forming the EPA.
My McGovern bumper sticker on my pickup truck was scraped off by some ignorant redneck in Mississippi who probably voted for George Wallace.
I may still have one of those in my basement. I know I did a year ago. My father LOVED to hate Nixon.
Nixon also tried to establish a population policy. He had a commission on population. Alas, the Catholic Church informed him that if he persisted, they would see to it that he wouldn't be re-elected.
Nixon was truly a complex and difficult personality, with good and bad. If I thought I had it in my to write a tragedy of a play, I'd write one about him.
OMG, I remember that.
Also, “my vote cancels your vote.” Here we are again. Common sense vs lies. Pesticides on crops getting stronger because—who knew—weeds and insects become immune. It’s a huge nasty business that makes big money for Koch and others. Start in your own yard. Leave the dandelions. Let the birds eat your ticks. Baby birds’ diet is ONLY insects. Give them a chance.
Is anyone thinking about what agricultural run-off did to frogs?
I cast my first vote for McGovern as a 20-year-old in 1972. I'm still proud of that!
My first time voting as a 24-year-old in 1968 was for Richard Nixon. (Politically naive it was name recognition only - who was this Hubert Humphrey guy anyhow). I never voted for a Republican since and the fact that Nixon did something good sort of vindicates my ignorance of his overall corruption,
Gimme Jimmy! was my first vote. Still happy about that.
Goll-ee. It sounds like we are all brothers and sisters from another mother. Any college students out there? Let’s hear from you. 😍
I was talking with a 17 yr old visiting our house. I asked him if he knew about Heather. He replied “my mom reads her every day”! I asked him if he’d ticked the register to vote box on his VT drivers license and he said “I think so”. It’s worth checking.
Me too, but I registered so that I could vote Against Nixon, and he resigned a few years late on my birthday. YAY!
A birthday to remember!
Yep, I joyfully celebrate his resignation every year!
Me too! My first time to vote!
I couldn’t vote against Nixon in 1968 because I didn’t turn 21 until March 1969. Was so mad, I’ve never missed an election since. McGovern was also my first vote for President.
I turned 21 in November 1971, Jan 1 1972 was when voting age was lowered to 18. I, too, cast my first presidential vote for McGovern.
One good thing that Nixon did, but I never voted for him or any other R president. Now we have Rs trying to undo all this work. Last night NBC news had a story on the extreme melting of glaciers and also one on lab made meat. We have garden organically for many years, but people around us do love to spray. Once I found a hedge in front full of dead bumblebees. Also we only buy plants from reputable nurseries. When I walked in the neighborhood, I had a place I passed which I called Mr. Chemical, the smell was always so strong. The irony is that the house was finally sold and now the yard sports weeds. We use horticultural vinegar on some weeds, but one must be persistent. And we hand pull a lot. Usually the yard is full of bees...but now we need some warm temps and sun.
Getting some this week, I hope. I haven't used weed killers since my mother-in-law died from non-Hodgkins lymphoma (directly attributed to using Round-up for years). I pull a lot of weeds. I don't use chemicals in the garden. I am finally able to plant bee friendly plants since fencing our previously open back yard and rerouting the deer freeway through our urban forest.
What? You have a 12-foot-high fence, Ally? Deer are known to rather easily jump a six-foot-high one. Good yours don't, and kudos to you for not using chemicals. I use no pesticides or herbicides, and my garden is certified by the National Wildlife Federation and by Georgia Audubon as a wildlife sanctuary. There are thousands of such certified habitats in Georgia (and elsewhere) as more and more people are becoming aware of the importance of native plants, trees and wildflowers to sustain a healthy ecosystem, plus sources of water and shelter for birds and insects and other critters.
Nope. 6' (regulation) with rainbow spinners and prayer flags 2' above the top to discourage jumpers. It has worked for the two years we've had it.
I haven't used chemicals since the 60's but do use vinegar to kill blackberries and dandelions as I have neighbors that don't care for their property.
Mix up my own weed killer of vinegar, table salt and a little dish soap (to help adherence) Works quickly, but you do need to apply more frequently. But hey, I'm retired, got plenty of time on my hands
My mother died of non-Hodgkins lymphoma about 10 years after my parents put in a large vegetable garden. Dad swore by Roundup.
She was only 70.
In her honor we have avoided pesticides and herbicides in our own gardens. I’m also gradually bringing in native plants to replace ornamentals. We have lots of bees visit our suburban lot!
There's a pronged long handled tool that has a foot lever for pushing it into the ground and pulling up weeds, roots and all. I mention this because it is so efficient and easy to use, it is almost enjoyable! There's also a small blow torch for scorching weeds, but I've never used that!
I think we have one of these.
Massachusetts was the only state to go for McGovern, and the local bumper sticker during Watergate was "Don't Blame Me, I'm from Massachusetts." My favorite one, though, said "Impeach With Honor", a play on Nixon's phrase for how we should get out of Vietnam. When I was a young history teacher, one of my colleagues and I smugly patted ourselves on the back saying that, by working in our field, we could "make sure Nixon gets place in history he deserves." So, "in my age of maturity," I do appreciate that Heather has included the Nixon administration's statement on the intended course and reasoning for their proposed environmental activism. One clearly good thing that Nixon deserves credit for "in his place in history."
And the signs on our front lawns!
Yes!
There is a McGovern poster lining the bottom of my linen chest. Cried as I watched the convention.
The lesson we should learn is to realize everyone has virtues but sometimes it’s hard to find ... somehow we must learn that if we are ever to realize a measure of peace ☮️. I was only 19 but also a very young mother of a beautiful baby girl. We see the world differently when we have a child as the world’s future takes on new meaning. That daughter has a sister and between the 2 have 4 children - all bright, strong humans that in my eyes see the world through meaningful lens. World Day has so much importance. We can never give up looking for “The Good In Us” (Mary L Trump) because we are “In This Together” (Joyce Vance). Happy Earth Day 🌎
"'We see the world differently when we have a child as the world’s future takes on new meaning.''
You are so right - parenthood changes everything, certainly did in my life and all for the good.
R I was on the Nixon White House Enemies List and worked for McGovern in 1972. A friend of mine in the White House chided me. I said that the choice was between a crook and a fool. At least there was a chance that the fool, with good character, would learn to serve our country.
I was living in Greenwich Ct. In 1972 I was a political outcast. By 1974 it appeared that none of my friends had voted for Nixon. How quickly one forgets. I left my McGovern sticker on my car for years.
So did I! 18 in '70. Peace, Please.
I was 17. I remember it all vividly. I'd forgotten that Nixon had done some good in his time. (I guess being the first President to go to China since Mao came to power was a positive, too.)
Yuhh. And Katherine, I was in launching B52's out of Thailand "to kill the yellow man" (Springsteen 1984'). That did'nt woik. Now they want to destroy the "Gov'mt".
Today's Greedy Old Pricks would have had Tricky Dick ASSASSINATED. They're so scared sh-tless of change. That & the Evangelical / Trumpvangelicals believe that after the " Second Coming ", we'll have a new heaven & new Earth so we can let THIS Earth become a ball of toxic mud.
Daniel, I hadn’t looked at the Second Coming that way, but I’m afraid you’re right. 💔🤬
Suzanne - I really think that they believe that it's OKAY to " drill, baby, drill ! ", tear down the trees ( Put up a parking lot ! ) gunk up the oceans & generally let the Earth get trashed because, Hey ! Jesus will fix everything. & yet, according to the scriptures, we're supposed to be responsible " stewards " of the Earth.
Yes, the “have dominion over the earth and subdue it” takes precedence over being good stewards to the white christo-nazis. But not all Christians agree with that. Good perspective here https://www.geneva.edu/community/environmental-stewardship/why_care
See the comment that I just posted about the mid - 1980's " War of the Worlds " series. It went into one of the reasons why " Martians " were going to resume their original invasion attempt, because we're so IRRESPONSIBLE about taking care of the Earth.
The wealthy elite think their money is going to save them. It won't of course. McMansions in the path of tornadoes also get torn apart. And if your are rich in Ft. Lauderdale, for example, you just experienced 2 feet of rain in six hours. One of my ex-students who has money has concluded that there is no longer any safe place to live. To her credit, she is vegetarian and doesn't spend lots of money on material goods.
Just remember, Daniel... "the Scriptures" were only translated to English about 600 years ago by the Wycliffes.
Actually, while several people translated bits of the bible into English, it was William Tyndale who is credited with the first translation of the bible into English although he actually only finished translating the New Testament. His reward was to be burned at the stake. John Wycliffe is credited to have "inspired" the first translation of the entire bible into English; meaning he didn't do all the work himself but had an important enough name that he didn't suffer Tyndale's fate...until after he died! He was actually dug up and burned at the stake!
It is important to remember that all these translations are translations from translations since no original complete texts exist.
ALSO - have you seen or heard of the series " War of the Worlds ", based on the movie ? One of the main themes was that the " Martians " believed that they were justified in paving the way for another invasion because of the manner that we treat the Earth. 1 episode had a human / alien hybrid ( played by John Colicos ) who voiced those same sentiments, although since he was used to being half - human, he didn't want to see Earth invaded either.
Thank you for the first real laugh of the day!🤣🤣🤣
I suspect that tricky Dick's thoughtful and sensible legislative response to the massive protests surrounding Rachel Carson and the subsequent Earth Day also provided the seeds and growth of organizing the powers within and behind the capitalists (think the Kochs, the oil barons, the tobacco fortunes, the chemical & drug companies and later the gun manufacturers, etc) and all those who saw a HUGE threat to their capacity to make ever more money, no matter the cost to the environment or to individual health. Who amongst us ever thought capitalists would be responsible about the damage their operations inflicted on the water, the air and the land?!! So when Nixon actually got some legislation passed to respond to these massive outpourings of concern and anger the capitalists felt they had to go underground and increase their lobbying efforts to buy all the legislators they could.
Brilliant and thank you. I was musing that Republican propaganda got a big start around that time.
Yo Daniel of Appleton... and over the cliff (default) we shall go... Get ready for "the Crusades". The "moat" around Mar-A-laygo won't be deep enough, it'll become a Chinese resort. Putin will trade the Black Sea for South Lake Tahoe. Orban and DeSandis will be right at home in Disny World. And "the price of gas"? What gas?
Wow, you’re so right. If these same folks actually READ the Bible they beat, wonder if they’d ban it? (I’m pro-Bible, BTW; a book full of symbolism, life lessons, and ultimately unconditional divine LOVE right here and now. “New heaven and new earth” is a change of perspective that can never to be obtained without Love) Destroying our environment for money...sounds like the Antichrist to me.
Our survey says..... B - B - B- BINGO !
They rely on what some Evangelical pastor says. IIRC, after the church was established, laity weren't allowed to read the Bible although the stained glass windows depicted Biblical scenes as well as saints, angels, etc. I should double check this, it couldn't hurt. & I think that Auguste Rodin did some Biblical scenes. I was at a Rodin exhibit roughly 25 - 30 years ago.
Daniel, first time I seen Trumpvangelicals. I like that. I grew up in an Evangelical world but left that behind long ago because of my belief in science. I used the word Evilagelicals but many just think it is a misspelling. To use a biblical term they are evildoers.
Because they see DJT as their new messiah.
They can't be reached via logic or reason. It's pointless.
They have been waiting for the “second coming” for more than 2000 years! Keep waiting! It’s inevitability seems questionable!
The Reverend Harold Camping out in Nowheres Corners, Nowheritania, keeps predicting the Rapture every few years. He did it gain a few years ago. I kept looking out the window just in case & saw ZIP, zed, nada, zilcharoonie. All I saw was a crummy flying saucer ! 🛸👽 I got the alien's autograph, though - Zarg the Unfathomable. I told him that I'd put it with the others, LOL.
I agree! I have been asking Christian why would you want to destroy your gods greatest creation. Their answer is always he’ll just creat a new one.🤬
Just like the more BS crazy ones who kill people or are OK with killing gays, abortion doctors, others, because they think that God would be alright with it.
I was just 15 on the first Earth Day and, very much against my parent’s wishes, attended an Earth Day rally at the U of MN. The campus was a hot mess (Vietnam protests) but the rally was both peaceful and inspiring - so much so that I’ve spent the last 53 years working to protect the planet. What a gift!
Yesterday, my grand niece Sophie toured the U of NE at Lincoln campus. She is interested in their Fisheries and Wildlife program. Her goal? Protect wildlife worldwide. Great auntie is thrilled- and will support her every step of the way. But she has a much bigger job these days to help institute policies that will protect, sustain and preserve...
Nixon, for all his terrible flaws, understood that protecting air and water quality was imperative. McCarthy and the Republicans attempt to hold the world’s economy hostage unless their demands are met to raise the debt ceiling is terrorism. Time to pick up and throw out the trash this Earth Day 🌎
I have a high school classmate who is a professor at UN/Lincoln!
What do they teach, Ally? Do you inow?
According to a Google search, she’s in the business department. She’s done a lot of work in Africa, but I don’t have any specifics.
I was 14, on the cusp of political consciousness while leafing through the Whole Earth Catalog; going to my first anti-war protests (proudly following the lead of my older brothers, with the approval of our parents), smoking my first joint. I was unambiguous about Nixon, and it would take decades to admit that he did a good thing regarding the EPA. Can you believe it's been 53 years?
After teaching in California from 1968-72, I started International flying with Pan Am. We had to spray the inside of the aircraft with DDT after flights coming and going to our destinations. Some of us started to spray the bottles into the bathrooms so we wouldn’t have to breathe it, Slowly the world started listening to Rachael Carson. Slowly the airline started to realize we were being poisoned . We never ended smoking on board.
If anyone should be memorialized even more than she has been( very few young people know her name), Rachael Carson should stand along side our greatest heroes.
What I hope for on this Earth Day is that we , we human species, actually go forward in saving our beautiful Earth. Our blather clouds our vision. We talk a good story.... and we keep producing plastic, we keep pouring chemicals into our Water, our Air, and our soil.
I was 4 years old when my Father showed me some dirt and said,”whatever you put into this earth you will drink one day”!
We are so brilliant at times..... are we brilliant enough to actually mean it! That we must care for ourselves by caring for our Earth first and foremost.
“HAPPY EARTH DAY or happy ignorance??? You choose.
I'm on a bit late today, but upon reading many comments, I thought I would hook onto the top comment in the hopes that others will find this recommendation:
Please consider reading a book "Junkyard Planet, Travels in the Billion Dollar Trash Trade" by Adam Minter.
I have to say, I found this book incredibly distressing. The author grew up in a family that ran a "junk yard" and gives a lot of information about what happens to the items we recycle, even traveling to China to see where the US recycled items end up and what happens to them. MIND BOGGLING!
Yes, I recycle, reuse and repurpose, and yes, we all need to do our part and our small efforts add up. After reading this book, I've come to believe that the onus for reducing waste is on our manufacturers. If anyone else has read this book, please feel free to comment. All others who have interest in recycling, please do search out this book!
I also would like to mention that frequent commenter, Sandy Lewis, has recently linked both an article and a short film about his organic beef farm and his concerns about the microbiome. Well worth the read/watch!!
Apologies to evelyn spiess for jumping in here on her comment thread.
I was 18 also and a freshman in college. IU had a big gathering place called Dunn Meadow. I remember the first Earth Day.
I’m the same age and the Cuyahoga River caught fire when I was growing up in Cleveland. Now we see the Republican Party bowing eagerly to their corporate masters to overturn environmental regulations. Perhaps now that I live in Minnesota I need to worry about the Mississippi River?
Yep. I was in my senior year at Penn State and had so much resentment for Nixon. The man was his own worst enemy. But he knew how to get government and private enterprise to work for the common good. Reagan on the other hand?
I attended the first Earth Day as a student at Miami University and read Silent Spring and Aldo Leopold’s works. Like many whose comments I just read, I also gave kudos to a President I did not trust or care for. The lesson for me? Until recent times poor Presidents and political leaders had shining moments.
Reagan tried to shut down the EPA. He didn't but environmental protection lost a lot of momentum when the entire Republican Party (along with some Democrats) climbed into the pocket of plutocrats.
Today’s GOP is a joke.
More scary for me than funny. But I hear you!
Maybe we should be thinking The Joker as in Batman? Scary, weird and above all else, chaotic.
Who would've thought that I would be thanking the scumbag for that....
I remember that first Earth Day. I also remember 10 days later when the man who created the EPA ordered the invasion of Cambodia, followed four days later by the killings at kent State and the national campus strike against the war. A period when every day seemed like a year if you were politically active.
When I got back to Australia in 1972, after ten years in France and Italy, there were a whole lot of new words I didn't understand, like "ballpark figure", for instance, and "grassroots". I took a temporary job working for an earnest young man with a beard, doing a lot of water sampling at popular beaches; "e.coli" was easy to grasp, but I had to ask him what "conservation" meant. I don't think Silent Spring was translated into French or Italian. In 1970 I was living in habitually chaotic Italy, and what worried us was the rise of terrorism from the Red Brigades. Two years earlier, the French general strike showed that it was possible for the will of the people to prevail. Then the Russians rolled their tanks into Prague and crushed the freedom Alexander Dubcek had dared to lead. Has anything got better since then? durably better? And yet President Biden's simply worded statement is penetratingly clear.
The current political reality shows that democracy must be vigorously and diligently protected. I thought things like protection of contraception were pretty durable, but after overthrowing (yes, word choice is intentional here) Roe v Wade Thomas began to call into question other very personal rights. Then there is the Social Security/Medicare situation. The social safety net ALWAYS has to be protected from the greedy rich.
And he was one of the 2 in the 7-2 decision in keeping mifepristone on the market. (Guess who was the other.) I hate to throw around labels, like misogynist, but these two qualify. They seem like very unhappy people.
Must have been that other unreconstructed jackhat, Alito. For the life of me I do not understand why Alito didn't follow his misogyny right into the Catholic priesthood, where he could vent his hate on women and the rest of the world without let or hindrance.
He would be a bishop by now.
Embarrassed that he is from NJ
They simply are unable to help themselves. They are powerful men and few powerful men retain their ethics and humanity.
Indeed. I wonder how they would define "tyranny" , if asked without warning.
MLMinET, YES, two people who are sufficiently unhappy with who they are that they go to extraordinary lengths to appear otherwise, especially the fairly simple decisions about conflicts of interest and gifts and "emoluments" from others. See Lisa Murkowski's comments on being sold a bill of goods, all of us for that matter, who were sold a bill of goods throughout the confirmation hearings for any of these "justices!" They just plain lied.
Yes, they did. And what does it say about the rot in our society that SC justice candidates think they can--and they did--lie their way through confirmation? And, in the case of Thomas, Biden and HW Bush were sufficiently intimidated by declining to nominate a black man (for cause) they caved. And here we are.
As if Clarence was the only qualified Black jurist they could have nominated. OK, maybe the only “conservative” Black jurist.
JennSH, yes we have to remain ever-vigilant but should be careful to not paste everyone with money as greedy. It is the fundamental nature of capitalism that is driven by continual growth and consumption. We must routinely counterbalance the creativity and energy (often driven by greed) with rational regulation and laws to protect those without the massive accumulations of wealth. Ironically, that is what Nixon started to accomplish despite his other despicable behavior and I think that is what drove the R's to try to control the legislative process, put their very heavy thumb on the scales of that balance between capitalism and the social & environmental welfare.
1968. A no- good, horrible, very bad year....
If you're European, no, that year was one hell of a mixture.
London, May '68. Night classes at the French Institute in South Kensington, an offshoot of the University of Lille in France... We had a wonderful history professor, a woman who, like HCR, knew how to connect up the present with the remote and recent past.
In Paris, the students built barricades and faced down the CRS riot police, trying to get the Communist CGT trade union federation to join them in a general strike. And we in our history classes broke off our study of medieval French history and discussed the uprising and what it meant for France, for Europe, for us.
The way it all ended, we'd come to expect. Yet those were moments that marked a generation.
*
On August 21st 1968 I'd bought tickets for myself, my Polish friend and his daughter to a concert to be given at the huge Albert Hall by the Orchestra of the USSR.
That morning, the Warsaw Pact armies invaded Czechoslovakia.
I phoned Iliasz, who'd woken up one morning in 1939 to find Red Army tanks below his window in Lwow, Poland, today Lviv, Ukraine, packed a bag, breakfasted with his parents, then left them and his country for ever, not stopping till he reached England, where he joined the Polish forces and fought through the entire Italian campaign.
I asked him:
"Do you still want to come to this concert?"
His answer couldn't have been clearer:
"Absolutely. The musicians in the orchestra will be suffering horribly for what their country has done. They'll need our moral support."
We went.
The concert closed with Tchaikovsky's 6th and final symphony, the Pathetique.
I wasn't a Tchaikovsky fan but I had and I have never heard anything like the music that evening -- one of the key moments in my life.
The orchestra rose to the occasion, their discipline was matched by an overwhelming, tangible sense of tragedy.
*
Striking to compare then and now, Stalin and Hitler's carving up Poland, Brezhnev's invasion and Putin's, my friend's reaction and the horrors we are seeing today.
I was at UCL in 1968, street protests and all, often it must be said, lead by foreign postgrads agitating away from their own college to protect their status. I remember distinctly "housing" Rudi Deutscke and the members of his "committee" from the german protests in our somewhat downtrodden collective student house in North London. They didn't ask, they just pushed through the door heading straight for the "collective" fridge serving themselves on whatever drink etc they could find....good communist stuff i presume.
I was in the streets with the others and we had just been given the majority at 18. Freedom, Freedom, Freedom! It fealt so good, especially the feeling that the youth of the world spoke the same language and shared the same values.
Unfortunately we have had over 50 years to change the world. The result is far from what it might have been, what we hoped for. But we are responsible for the current mess nonetheless.
Danny the Red is still around politics in France and Germany. A bi-cultural gadfly once, a gladfly always. Today's local supposed followers of Rachel Carson spout dictatorial inanities that would have honoured POL Pot, Stalin, Hitler or whoever of that ilk; banning rugby matches, cycle races, air transport and the christmas tree amongst other ecological "threats" in the towns they control. None have a thought for the people and how they want society and their world to run. They just figure that the people are a little stupid, or as they put it "backward" and that their thinking doesn't work. Ideology replaces personal thought and considered opinion conveniently it would seem for such.
Your last sentence says so much about today's world, not just French ideologues' inability to get their constipated little minds around an issue too big for them.
Ideology is ersatz, an imitation, it is prefabricated thought modules... It may be all too typical of humans but it is not just unnatural, it is contra naturam. Anti-nature.
Both Brezhnev and Reagan were representative mediocrities, champions of mediocrity. The Soviet leader let himself be railroaded into the Afghan war by KGB boss Andropov. He didn't want the war and hated the result.
Reagan spouted propaganda rubbish about the Soviets' "evil empire" while said bureaucratic empire was quietly imploding under the weight of complex reality.
Nixon had seemed bad enough, Reagan was an adman's dream salesman, we thought it impossible to find a leader as inadequate and manipulated as George W. Bush, who bravely made an unbelievable mess of the world then, before the consequences unfolded, proclaimed "Mission Accomplished!"
Yes, the operation was a great success, unfortunately the patient did not survive it... but his disease mutated, spread and became endemic. Well, thank you for nothing...
As it turned out, the fall of the so-called "Evil Empire" didn't put an end to the world's evils, it amalgamated them. America gifted itself a lesser product of Hell for President. And now the acme of evil idiocy has outed himself: Putin, unleashing Hell on Ukraine for its disgraceful failure to conform to His Great Idea of How It Is Supposed To Be.
One man and his demented zombie of an "idea" -- sump of all the evils of the 20th and 21st centuries gathered together in a single shitshow.
Heaven help us all, we humans and our one world, our wretched, beaten, ill-treated wonderful Mother, the ultimate Miracle -- Planet Earth!
Too true, Peter, too true. First wrecking the education system helps, of course!
In 1978, I joined the Communist Student Union at my university. What I found there were a group of unconsciously privileged, sallow, very earnest young men who thought meetings were a form of action. My assessment at the time was "these guys smoke too much and don't eat enough". I also realized they just spouted Marx as a way to sound more intelligent than they really were. I left after about a month.
Laziness is the original, and perhaps the most damaging, human sin. Racists lump entire swaths of humanity together, never taking the time to see the real people they oppress. Thinkers recycle ideas into smaller and smaller sound-bites. Politicians offer edicts, rather than ears. Algorithms decide what we see and hear in the ever-growing world of cyberspace. More and more, the arcs of our lives are funneled into an imitation of the stories fed to us on TV/the internet. I would mind none of this, really, if so much of the energy we need to keep each other growing and happy wasn't spent on distraction or out and out oppression. Comforting the afflicted and afflicting the comfortable take real effort and original thought. I think we're ready.
Jeeze Steve. Laziness prolongs life. If you get too busy, time flies.
Time flies regardless.
Pat, I think I learned the benefits of laziness too late in life. But I'm still here....
"I also realized they just spouted Marx as a way to sound more intelligent than they really were."
That can be said about every "Marxist" since Marx himself. It certainly particularly applies to the idiots who became The Weatherman Faction and the Revvolutionary Communist Youth (Marxist-Leninist) in the death stage of SDS here in the US. What a collection of clucks, and too many of them still think their only problem was not enough people listened to them.
Tom I taught ‘Economics from feudalism to the present.’ Personally I much prefer Groucho to Karl. Did you ever read the letter exchange between Groucho and T. S. Eliot?
Would I be burned at the stake if I say Bernie?
I was there and met so many young men who could have been Bernie...they were so sure they were brilliant and had all the answers. As for those of the female persuasion; we could fix their meals and warm their beds.
You did well to draw the distinction, TC.
There are a few worthy followers like Gramsci but most don't come up to Marx's knees. And many have used the name as a flag of convenience.
Steve, fantastic summary of human types and pursuits.
We better be ready,
but it is our grandchildren I worry about. If Google ever goes down because of a grid failure or a cascading satellite accident, they won't know how to make a handsaw work, or put up produce--and if they can even find a library to learn how, there might be two un-banned books left.
We need to be passing on every skill we have. NOW.
AR-15's can't fix things or grow food....
maybe if they're beaten into plowshares?
I was at Michigan State University as an undergrad, demonstrating against the war, and marching through class room buildings trying to encourage other students to leave classes so we could "shut the university down". I passed by a class that was just letting out and asked one of the students what the class had been about. He said "the American Revolution." without irony.
It's not given to everyone unfortunately to see beyond the end of their nose and appreciate the wider context and the deeper meaning of events.
Excellent story, Peter. Thanks much!
Winter of 68-69 Gus, "Get Oil Out' (GOO) but, the oil just kept on bubbling up for years depositing blobs of congealed oil on the beaches but, not difficult to pick up off the beach & very good for delivering a message. I recall one (1) Isla Vista, UCSB restaurant where the Community was invited to dig up the asphalt parking lot back-to-dirt. A number of students abandoned careers & went 'back to,the country': Sierra' small towns, the Hidden Coast, Oregon, the Rockies. Others, the fighters, became engaged on a still ongoin eclogical obattlefield.
One Urban Refugee built a shack within a few feet of a small waterfall 💦. Of course, the hut was "red tagged". Dedparate ESCAPE is not a realistic stategy on a round planet. 🙏
Judith Viorst wrote many wonderful books, including that one about her son Alexander's terrible day. "Necessary Losses" is one I go back to from time to time. In her 90s now, she's still bright and sharp.
Indeed, Gus.. 'you' know it my friend. Pax
Every day when Trump was in office seemed like a generation. Or a CENTURY.
Indeed it did.
The Second Coming of DJT ain't happening, the " man " is coming unraveled mentally & physically, his base is cracking & most of the GOP wants to MOVE ON. I just hope that they don't find a smarter Trump wannabe with less ego, less narcissism & a wider appeal.
Right! From joy to hell in record short time.
TC, I was 10 that spring. Jackson Elementary School in Medford, Oregon. That was the first year that the three upper grades (4th,5th, and 6th) had "tree planting" field trips. We got bussed out to logged areas and planted trees. We learned all about trees, and wild life, and how to care for the soil.
The pure irony in this? The tree planting was monoculture Douglas Fir for the timber harvest companies in the area. I believe that tract of land (probably about an acre, Just outside of Jacksonville, OR) was harvested in 1998.
Of course it was.
Make mine a double TC. I got to do both so I guess you could say I was on top of things. I think for once I wasn’t out on the ranges where my luck never changes. I was a new modern worldly debutante. Wheeeeee, my time had arrived. Look out world. Imagine starting life as a footnote to Rachel Carson. I lived that book. Er I mean I loved that book.
YES! And when it seemed the government was making war ON US! ...the kids on campuses, the ones trying to get educated to help us all out of the mess we had gotten into regarding both our environment and now (Kent State) our government! I remember that classes shut down for several days and we traveled to other campuses to talk to other students and see what they were doing about it...a SCAREY time indeed!
I missed the first Earth Day in its entirety. At the time, I had just been drafted and was taking Russian at Monterey. Earth Day, Cambodia, Kent State -- everything other than study was a blur.
Most of us walk through life unaware of the events that are taking place around us. Others, like myself, are periodically isolated from the American Experience. As a consequence, there are gaps in my own knowledge of recent American history that are months and even years long -- because I never lived them. Dr. Richardson offers an antidote to this condition, and a reminder of all the things that good citizens should know.
I’m curious why Russian and not Vietnamese, (if there is a brief explanation and you wouldn’t mind sharing it). I never knew that we have a Defense Language Institute before your comment. My nephew learned Chinese while at West Point, and spent 2 years in Taiwan after graduating, so I’m curious if it is a rapid immersion program @ the DLI, intended to prep troops quickly? 🙏🙏
So many good things to know!
In the 1970s, DLI had thousands of students studying a couple of dozen languages at any given time. When I was there in 1970-71, there were over 300 Russian language students, and hundreds of students studying Vietnamese, Laotian, Cambodian and many other languages. The hard language courses were generally one year in length, and other courses were usually six months. Russian language students generally went to listening posts around the Soviet Union.
Thank you so much!!! And thank you for sharing your varied perspective on the first Earth Day.
Tom As Halderman highlighted in his book, ‘Nixon didn’t give a shit about the environment.’ For him it was a non issue and he went along with a Democratic Congress and then took kudos for the EPA. 50 years later the Republicans don’t give a shit about climate change.. Just look at McCarthy’s 300+ pages on the budget where eliminating ‘climate change’ is his top priority. Remember, in the Trump administration ‘climate change was excluded from all public documents.
And I remember the rally at Tulane University (NOLA) the next day where a professor taught me to stay near the edge of a crowd in case police arrived. (They did.)
Tonight’s letter brought me back to 1969 when I was just 18 and in college. I was in DC and in 1970 I found myself marching with many others against the Vietnam War. I ended up meeting a Vietnam veteran in September of that year. We will have been together for 53 years. The very first election I got to vote in was Nixon v. McGovern. Of course, I voted for McGovern and was totally deflated when Tricky Dick won by a landslide. I couldn’t understand how people could be so ignorant. Fast forward to 1994, one of our towns was celebrating Earth Day be staging a large event. My youngest daughter was 5 1/2, so I took her. When we left, she was handed a glass vial with a sprig of a redwood tree in it. We got home and she asked me if we could plant it. “Sure!” I said, knowing full well it wouldn’t turn into anything. In 2023, that sprig turned into a 40 ft redwood tree! Happy Earth Day!
Made my day Marlene. It does not surprise me that events surrounding you come into unanticipated fruition in such a good way. While we planted 10’s of thousands of trees it was for 2.30/hr. as mercenary profit makers. Today I marvel at the forests we created simply trying to eat more than the c/rations we had ratholed for winter. What a kick to walk among the trees.
It must just warm your heart, Pat, that you played such an important role in those forests.
It was hunger Marlene. Nothing akin to altruism. I preferred hamburger with my hamburger helper. And catsup is good on c-rats and excellent on k-rats. But the real thriller was Tabasco. This was all made possible by what we facetiously called starvation wages. This is the real story of how the west was won. That we built and preserved forests we can lay claim to, but contentment was a full stomach.
I can almost see that redwood from a seedling grown and by the wishes of your daughter and you, Hooray! Here's current news of the redwoods in California, Marlene. The following contains a generous portion of the NY Times article in today's paper. Sorry not to have the gifting option.
'When the rain is relentless and the wind is ferocious, there are plenty of imperiled things for Californians to worry about. The state’s iconic redwood forests are not among them.'
“These trees live for thousands of years, and while these winter storms may seem catastrophic to humans, they are part of the normal experience of redwoods,” Stephen Sillett, a redwood expert and professor at Cal Poly Humboldt in Arcata, Calif., wrote in an email.'
'Dan Porter, who leads forest strategy for the California chapter of the Nature Conservancy, said that rainstorms could cause problems for redwoods that are near rivers and creeks, especially those that have been altered by human activity, like logging.'
“During big events like this, the water comes up and the sediment undercuts those big banks, and some of the ancient monarchs succumb to that — they fall into the river or into the forest,” Mr. Porter said.'
'Professor Sillett of Cal Poly Humboldt said that he expected to find a few trees down when he surveys redwood forests after the storms let up.'
“Some trees have surely fallen, as happens during every rainy winter,” he said.'
'Climate change, he said, poses threats to the redwoods that are unrelated to the storms.'
'The natural range of the coastal redwoods is drying out because of warming temperatures, according to a study by Professor Sillett’s research team that was published in Forest Ecology and Management in December. That means that in a warmer future, redwoods may not be able to grow as tall or large as they have in the past.'
“Our actions now determine the quality of forests to be enjoyed by future generations,” the authors wrote.'
Fern, my friend, thanks for this! I look at the redwoods as a renewal for Mother Nature. When we have had fires (and you know we’ve had plenty) the redwoods are the first to grace us with their beauty. We had some horrific fires and climate change on Mt. Diablo in the past few years. We have been told that when these fires occur, new seedlings will be allowed to scoot through. It’s a wondrous thing that we get to protect our many critters and even better that we have enough water to do so. 💞
❤️🌳🥁🤸🏼♀️🐇🐺🐰🎶🎺🎷🎹🎵🎸🤸🏼🦊🐦🌳❤️
Great story!
Sweet!
Brilliant.
And shortly after this wave of environmental legislation was enacted in the early 1970s, American corporations simply took their operations overseas, where regulations were either lax or nonexistent, and where local populations could be exploited for long hours, unsafe working conditions, and low wages. Soon American consumers would have more crap than ever, and for less cost. Textbook capitalism. All part of God's plan.
True, however, today it is not one nation working for a better Mother Earth but many. Soon there will be few places for rich corporations to hide their ills. The fragile life of earth hangs in the balance of knowledge.
I was also 18 in 1970. Today I am living in Italy. The vineyards use no chemicals. They plant roses at the end of the rows because blight and insects show up first on the rose, then they prevent the spread using non chemical treatments. We recycle separately nearly everything including organic waste. Most vegetables and fruits are grown organically and you don’t pay more. Everywhere you go you you see solar panels (even streetlights) and wind turbines. It’s perfect. It’s a great commitment thus far, and highly visible. And gives one hope.
I meant to say “it’s not perfect.”
Italy’s system of differentiated waste collection requires a significant effort from households, especially apartment dwellers (i.e. most people) with small kitchens, who need six different bins for different kinds of waste, and then must carry the waste to specific dumpsters for collection. It’s impressive; they recycle 72% of all trash. Unfortunately, waste collection in old cities is particularly challenging, and dumpsters are often overflowing in places like Rome and Naples, attracting rats, seagulls, and wild boar. Rome doesn’t have a landfill, and exports its waste to other regions or countries even. That’s hardly environmentally sound. I think they’re trying to build a huge new incinerator, calling it “waste to energy,” but are facing a lot of nimby backlash.
Also impressive is their high taxation on fuel, which has led to conservation efforts like much smaller, more efficient cars and on-demand water heaters. Energy is really expensive in Italy. They’re trying.
Stacey, are you a dual citizen?
The EPA is the only thing Nixon did that I agreed with!
& he supposedly cut funding for NASA even as he called Neil Armstrong to congratulate the crew of Apollo XI. A hypocrite. But I'd still trust him or GWB rather than Trump, because Bush & Nixon didn't demand unquestioning blind loyalty, pretty much to the point of WORSHIP.
Me too, Herb.
For once Gus, his fear of losing that monolithic voter block turned into something good. I’ll never forgive him for stalling the peace talks until after he was elected by promising a better deal to the enemy. My first real life traitor. The ramifications came home to roost. Why I hate the ex.
If you’d like to listen to an excellent podcast “Nixon at War” that includes voice tapes of Nixon and Kissinger regarding the peace talks. It’s absolutely deplorable. You can’t deny it when it’s on tape.
I have heard them calmly discussing the genocide of those people I considered my mamasans and papasans. Their utterly ruthless blend of escaping any blame. Like disbelieving priests in a confessional. Common criminals discussing vindication.
Pat, I can't estimate how many of our brothers (and sisters?) died because of tricky's treachery. I get enraged. We were just tools.
And they gave him a great funeral, and even his own plane.
We who live, remember....
Thanks for your Service.
It was a trying time for all of us Gus Koch. We wept as a nation. How could we not be a part of our own times. How could we let someone else go in our place. The line of our nation forms for good and bad and we are in it. Like now! Here we are again brothers and sisters, clearly embroiled. Thank you Gus Koch proud to serve with you.
Same-same to you, Pat.
Proud indeed.
Don't let 'Jody' near that girl friend if yours--she sounds like a very remarkable person!
That is so funny. I had forgotten about that rascal, Jody. All who know her love her. Even my wife. My hearing is very bad and they told me her name was Bernie. I thought they said Birdie. Now everyone calls her Birdie. When I work on her place she makes 4 fresh loaves of bread. I don’t know who gets the other 3.
Republican leaders, so financially beholden to Big Business — including the petrochemical industry — are actively working to ruin the planet and harm their descendants along the way. The future is bleak, to put it mildly, though we can still make it less horrible. There's no escaping this harsh reality, despite lies and propaganda to the contrary.
I say this knowing that I'm not doing nearly enough to help prevent the inevitable horror of it all. As I've written here before, generations to come (who knows how few) will loathe us.
Agree, Michael. Every day I meticulously scrape the labels - along with the glue - off my recyclable bottles, then take them to the town's recycle center. All the while I know it is not nearly enough.
I repurpose them by making lights out of them by sticking rice - grain LEDs in them. I'm sure that I'm not the only person. Small things have cumulative effects.
Me thinks I may have more than my fair share of glass bottles.
My liver may HATE ME, but I'm trying to do my own tiny bit ! I open a Scotch bottle or a bottle of gin & my liver screams " MURDERER ! ".
I wondered who was doing all that screaming. Good to know, Daniel!
Daniel and Lynell: very funny dialogue. Thanks for the laugh! 🤣
You don't have recycle bins at home?
Yes, I do, Talia. But once they are filled, the bin gets taken to the center where the bottles are transported to be recycled. Am I missing something?
Lynell, we fill our recycle bins and put them at the street and a truck comes and takes them away, just like our garbage. I think that is why Talia is surprised, its probably how hers works too.
My step mom from the Albany NY area saw the truck folks dump everything together-NO recycling separation actually done.
Our comingled recycling here in Eugene is sorted at the recycle plant at the local landfill. We have a bin that is picked up weekly, and we are able to fill it just about every week.
Citizen initiative is the only way recycling is done in Ravalli Co MT. We have cardboard recycling 1x/m & glass recycling every few months. One facility that takes cans & Al2 in Co , The rest u need to take your recycling to Missoula
Mystery solved; thank you, Nancy! We live in a semi-rural area without curbside pickup.
For all of their treachery, I don't think they frame it in their own minds as wanting to ruin the planet, but they are focused to the point of obsession and negligence with achieving absolute power, allied with their maximized-profit (love of money) obsessed, plutocratic patrons.
GREED & lack of vision. Plain & simple.
As for ruining the planet, my local newspaper quoted a "Christian" school textbook that said that God is angered by environmental conservation because it betrays a lack of trust in his boundless providence. I don't know how many kids are exposed to such thinking, but I know it exists.
That would explain the nauseating repetition of “thoughts and prayers” for the never ending slaughter of innocent children 😡
They're like the mutants in one of the Planet of the Apes movies who worshipped a nuclear warhead.
I tried to have a rational, logical, CIVIL discussion about taking a critical look at one's faith with my cousin. Her reaction ? " Yo're a - tryin' to destroy mah faith ! ". & yet she'll babble on with great GLEE about whatever passes for " Christianity " until Hell freezes over or the Sun burns out. Or until I finally give in & tell her to shut up before I glue her lips closed.
Indifference or even smug enjoyment of others suffering. "Greed is good" was a memorable line from the bad guy in a cautionary movie about avarice, but Republicans and Wall Sr. picked it up as a motto. I have lost track of how often it was repeated proudly in the financial press (it seemed to lose some cachet after the Subprime crash). But "greed", unlike mere ambition, is not good by definition; It causes others to suffer.
They can't see the forest for the GREENBACKS. Very blindered.
There is an irony here. The left for decades have vilified Richard Nixon and in many cases justifiably so. But he deserves credit for his pioneering environmental legislation which created the EPA. For those of us old enough to remember, TV ads from Dupont and others in the 50's promised us "better living through chemistry". The environment was on no ones radar. WJB
Nixon was one of the most capable presidents we ever had, be it for good or evil. The way he sabotaged LBJ’s peace talks with North Vietnam, can never be forgiven.
Agreed. Nixon betrayed the trust of the American people and deserved removal at the very least. And yet he was also a prescient environmentalist. For example:
"I am inaugurating a program to marshal both government and private research with the goal of producing an unconventionally powered, virtually pollution free automobile within five years."
And also very un-Reaganomically:
"These measures will require the oil companies and other energy producers to provide the public with the necessary information on their supplies. They will prevent the injustice of windfall profits for a few as a result of the sacrifices of the millions of Americans. "
One wonders what the future prospects of humanity would be had the environmental momentum of the Nixon and Carter administrations been carried forward.
Like many salient American political figures, Nixon's legacy was a bizarre and dualistic mix. What followed was an order of magnitude more dishonest and corrosive to the best of American ideals, and shockingly effective. In the year following his death 2.4 million Americans were polled to name the "greatest American" of all time, and Reagan emerged as #1. Weird, as scatter-brained Reagan was decidedly anti-democratic and enthusiastically pro-plutocratic.
Also totally anti-environmental protection; positions his party has maintained since. Moreover, the whole Republican Party coalesced around a package of plutocratic Big Lies.
My favorite Nixon quote came as we sat in our hooch cleaning our machine guns just after we cleaned an inch of curdled blood from the floor mats of the helicopter. Did you know blood is like grease when it coagulates so thickly. We were sliding around all the way back from Cambodia that night when an armed forces radio broadcast featuring Nixon came on. We thought maybe the peace had come at last. Sort of. He said we were no longer playing a combat role in the war. I looked over at Don and he looked at me. I think he muttered “fuck” and that was pretty much all that needed to be said. The year was 1971. We were very fortunate as Don went back to being a hippie in LA and I went back to being a cowboy in Montana and 4 years later the war sort of ended.
Were it not for Nixon , LBJ might have succeeded in his peace talks in 1968, instead the war dragged on for all those years.
With the end of the Berlin Wall Reagan’s popularity catapulted.
Capable, but...
At school in England. It was 1951 or '52, when one of my best teachers, a man who'd lived and worked in Canada, came into the classroom and said to us:
"If any of you ever have any say in the matter, make sure that Richard Nixon never becomes President of the United States of America."
Our grammar school principal had us praying for the recovery of President Eisenhower, after he suffered a heart attack and now I know why. Nixon was waiting to take over, if the highly revered Eisenhower expired. Things were different back then.
And when he lost his first attempt to become President to Kennedy he was so hurt and humiliated that he came back with even more of the "tricky Dick" methods that had worked in California. His campaign for President when the republicans inexplicably nominated him again, was a major part of the switch from racist Democrats to racist republicans.
How sad.
Was it really necessary to use that bag of tricks, salesmen's lies, back then?
Now, of course, corrupt politics at the exclusive service of Mammon and Moloch, together with old age and demography, have left the GOP so bankrupt of principles and policies that cheating and sabotage are the only means left to them.
At least President Biden is building a bridge from a past when some things functioned to a future with real potential, when America can strive to transcend fakery and machine politics, and even find and bring some healing and renewal to a world that so desperately needs better.
The environment had been on the RADAR for some time, Teddy Roosevelt protecting great swaths of it for example. Rachel Carson's "Silent Spring" brought it home. My mother bought the book for me when I was in middle school. I only half read it, but was on board with the message. In the interim environmental disasters were increasingly noticed by the "news"; LA smog and the burning Cuyahoga River among them.
"Now the Lord can make you tumble
The Lord can make you turn
The Lord can make you overflow
But the Lord can't make you burn
Burn on, big river, burn on
Burn on, big river, burn on" - Randy Newman
I have a picture of a newspaper story from August 14, 1912 warning of the impact of burning coal on the environment. - Science Notes and News. "The furnaces of the world are now burning about 2,000,000,000 tons of coal a year. When this is burned, uniting with oxygen, it adds about 7,000,000,000 tons of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere yearly. This tends to make the air a more effective blanket for the earth and to raise its temperature. The effect may be considerable in a few centuries." The Rodney & Otamatea Times, Waitemata & Kaipara Gazette. Leave it to us humans to just go blithely along even though this was a known threat that long ago.
The elephant in room. This from an AT&T/Frank Capra Science show from 1958:
Dr. Frank C. Baxter: "Even now, man may be unwittingly changing the worlds climate through the waste products of his civilization. Due to our release through factories and automobiles every year of more than 6 billion tons of carbon dioxide, which helps air absorb heat from the sun, our atmosphere seems to be getting warmer."
Richard Carlson: "This is bad?"
Dr. Frank C. Baxter: "Well, it's been calculated a few degrees rise in the earths temperature would melt the polar ice caps. And if this happens, an inland sea would fill a good portion of the Mississippi valley. Tourists in glass bottom boats would be viewing the drowned towers of Miami through 150 feet of tropical water. For in weather, were not only dealing with forces of a far greater variety than even the atomic physicist encounters, but with life itself."
Also the Endangered Species Act, the Clean Air Act, and the Clean Water Act.
I still use that expression, but cynically: better living through chemistry
For Earth Day and Every Day:
BIDEN IS TAKING US All (including the Climate Deniers, K. McCarthy & the Republican Gang) TO A COOLER WORLD!
FACT SHEET: President Biden to Catalyze Global Climate …
2 days ago — The Inflation Reduction Act contains new and expanded tax credits for drivers to purchase new clean vehicles, as well as the first-ever tax …
'The President will be joined by other leaders in new efforts aimed at accelerating progress in four key areas necessary for keeping a 1.5°C limit on warming within reach, specifically:
___Decarbonizing energy: Announcing steps to drive down emissions in the power and transportation sectors, including scaling up of clean energy, setting ambitious 2030 zero-emission vehicle goals, and decarbonizing international shipping.
___Ending deforestation of the Amazon and other critical forests: Working through the Forest and Climate Leaders’ Partnership to mobilize public, private, and philanthropic support.
____Tackling potent, non-CO2 climate pollutants: Launching a Methane Finance Sprint to cut methane emissions and accelerating hydrofluorocarbon (HFC) phasedown under the Kigali Amendment.
_____Advancing carbon management: Partnering with countries to accelerate carbon capture, removal, use, and storage technologies through a COP 28 Carbon Management Challenge to deal with emissions that can’t otherwise be avoided.(WhiteHouse) See link below.
https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2023/04/20/fact-sheet-president-biden-to-catalyze-global-climate-action-through-the-major-economies-forum-on-energy-and-climate/
Think about this earth-day factoid; if every acre(hectare) of arable land on this island planet of ours carried a cover crop in the off-season, we'd recapture the large majority of excess CO2 currently produced around the world today, improving the carbon content of ALL soils and rapidly improving their fecudity (great word, look it up...) in short order. Except for the astounding amount of seed required to do that, it's a profoundly simple approach to an amazingly complex problem. The workforce is already in place, everywhere a farmer is already present who tills the soil. We wouldn't be waiting decades to bend the arc towards negative; good things would happen this year and next!
'Except for the astounding amount of seed required to do that...' '...if every acre of arable land...' '...around the world...' There are quite an number of 'ifs' 'and' and 'buts' here. It requires that some 'down to earth' possibilities figured out, Just Sayin'
What world-wide mitigation effort against CO2 and climate change do you know that DOESN'T require massive and fundamental changes in human behavior as fast as conceivably possible? How long and how much investment will it take to convert the world's rolling stock of internal combustion engines in cars, trucks, scooters, trains and ocean-going ships to carbon neutral propulsion sources? (40-50 years at minimum...) Where will all the lithium come from? Imagine the worldwide workforce needed to pull that off? Let's convert the world's inventory of homes and buildings to passive solar and photovoltaic electricity production. What will that take? (decades, and truly massive capital investment) Let's install a 300 foot windmill in every conceivable spot that sustained breeze can generate electricity, and then enough battery farms to redistribute the power to match electricity usage habits, and enough power grid to distribute it where it needs to go worldwide. How much engineering, investment and political capital will that require? (untold trillions of dollars) The world already produces enough wheat, soybean and corn seeds to grow the crops that feed the world, year in and year out; no technological revolution required. What is primarily needed to implement something like universal no-till planting and cover crop agriculture is political will and capital investment. How much protest to you expect over green fields in the wintertime? There are cover-crops that survive under deep snow...The world knows how to finance this kind of thing. Farmers the world over already know about crop loans, crop insurance, seed management. Political will is sadly lacking, but the workforce, the equipment, the financing mechanisms, even the will to improve soils and reduce tillage amongst farmers are all present, idling, waiting for the economics to turn favorable. What's a trillion dollars or five to the world economy? peanuts...an organic, largely low tech, soil improving and cost-SAVING (put the fossil fuel based fertilizer industry out of business) alternative to ideas like machine-based carbon capture and deep earth injection into rock (ridiculous...)
The 10 foot deep topsoil of the midwestern plains before all the bison were slaughtered was the result of grasslands and constantly moving, grazing undulates; bison, antelope, deer, elk, etc. The modern-day equivalent is called MOB grazing, using cattle, sheep, goats, etc. It is a rapid response NOW solution for improving fertility, soil carbon capture and improved livestock and biomass growth and health in pasture-lands. It costs almost nothing other than a different grazing management schedule. it keeps pastures in high grass production year around. Forget feedlots and 6 months of feeding dry hay and grain. Reduce winter feeding to 30-60 days. Again, the workforce is ALREADY in place. behavior change through concerted efforts at education, a bit of capital investment for portable electric fences is needed. That's really all that's needed. It's a huge win because it makes the farmer more profitable at the same time tremendous increase in carbon capture is occurring by that workforce of millions of livestock, already in place and ready to work.
You have somewhat described the Savory system of rotational range management employed to end desertification in Africa. That system has many many adherents in our western states now. It has grown beyond the innovation stage and is making inroads with more conservative or slow minded producers. As we become dryer we have greater need for sod layering which helps promote moisture retention. Good on you! The entire practice curtails erosion.
Ironic, isn’t it. Mimic nature to save it…
Have you seen this movie?
https://freshwater-reporter.com/kiss-the-ground-a-film-about-saving-the-planets-topsoil/
Your post reminded me of a show we watched on reintroducing grazing animals to the Siberian arctic.
https://www.rferl.org/amp/siberia-permafrost-thaw-climate-change/31550919.html
Daunting, but also keep in mind 150 years ago we were transporting ourselves largely with horses and trains. Rural electrification and the interstate highway system was largely accomplished within the last 100 years. It was a big task, but with a will and the proper incentives a lot can change...and needs to change. Cover crops helped reverse the ravages of the dust bowl and seem a reasonable part of the solution.
And then there's the mission statement of Monsanto: to control all the seeds on the planet...
After acquiring seed production company Seminis, which controlled 40% of the market for vegetable and fruit seeds, Monsanto bought out Emergent Genetics, the country's third-largest cottonseed company. Currently, Monsanto controls nearly 34% of the global seed market, a truly astounding figure.Apr 25, 2022
http://www.cpreview.org/blog/2022/4/seeds-of-greed-americas-growing-agricultural-monopolies#:~:text=After%20acquiring%20seed%20production%20company,market%2C%20a%20truly%20astounding%20figure.
Kim, Bayer acquired Monsanto for $63 billion in 2018.
'Who controls the world's food supply?'
'Seed laws criminalizing farmers for using diverse crops that stand a better chance of adapting to climate change are threatening food security. Seed sovereignty activists want to reclaim the right to plant.'
'For thousands of years of human agriculture, the intrinsic nature of a seed — the capacity to reproduce itself — prevented it from being easily commodified. Grown and resown by farmers, seeds were freely exchanged and shared.'
'All that changed in the 1990s when laws were introduced to protect new bioengineered crops. Today, four corporations — Bayer, Corteva, ChemChina and Limagrain — control more than 50% of the world's seeds. These staggering monopolies dominate the global food supply. '
"Seeds are ultimately what feed us and the animals we eat," Jack Kloppenburg, a rural sociologist and professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said. "Control over seeds is, in many ways, control over the food supply. The question of who produces new plant varieties is absolutely critical for the future of all of us."
Some worry that heirloom crops, such as these potatoes from Peru, could disappear, meaning less genetic diversityImage: CIP
'Not only are the channels through which seeds can be exchanged and distributed narrowing: Seeds themselves are becoming less diverse. According to the UN Food and Agriculture Organization, 75% of the world's crop varieties disappeared between 1900 and 2000. '
'A huge wealth of locally adapted crops is being replaced by standardized varieties. And experts warn that could have grave consequences for food security — especially as the planet heats up.'
'Regulating plants and outlawing tradition'
'Major producers of genetically modified and bioengineered seeds, like Bayer and Corteva, strictly limit how farmers can use the varieties they sell. Usually, buyers must sign agreements that prohibit them from saving seeds from their crops to exchange or resow the following year. '
'Most countries only allow patents — exclusive ownership rights that were not originally created with living organisms in mind — on genetically modified seeds. But other plant varieties can also be strictly controlled by another type of intellectual property legislation called Plant Variety Protection.' (Deutsche Welle (DW) is Germany's international broadcaster) See link below for 'Who controls the world's food supply?'
https://www.dw.com/en/agriculture-seeds-seed-laws-agribusinesses-climate-change-food-security-seed-sovereignty-bayer/a-57118595
Maybe we should just turn off our electronics & recycle them. Or use candles rather than light bulbs. Thoreau would approve. & stop using plumbing, just go down to the crick when we need water, eh ?
" Earth First ! Make Mars our B--ch ! ".
Fecundity ~ the ability to produce an abundance of offspring or new growth; fertility. Thx Just Sayin!
Isn't it fecundity?
BUT... if this is NOT done, current asset-stripping-agriculture is set to exhaust soils before the asset strippers move on to other things...
I lived in Oregon not long after Mt. St. Helens explosion. It was a moonscape after that and people thought it would never recover. But astoundingly life did return. I won't forget the lesson that life finds a way. The earth will survive global warming, but humanity and many others species are in danger. It's a race we might very well lose.
There is no Planet B. Not for us. A solution must be found. Here. Somehow, we must wake up and stop heating the Earth, and at the same time find some way to encourage life on Earth to heal. Who knows what's possible?
But... volcanic soils can be marvelous...
Hi Fern, excellent post.
I first watched an old growth forest that I hunted in back in East Texas become decimated and destroyed by logging in 1974. One day I had access to this beautiful, large area of trees where I once saw a horned owl fly up off of the ground and land on a branch about my height and then turn his head backward and look at me.
We looked at each other for a bit, then, he leaned forward and seemed to drop off the branch and his wings extended and in complete silence glided away.
One year later that dense forest was totally decimated by logging. All of the big trees that granted that shadow on the ground gone. Trees hung up. Beauty turned into ugly.
At the time I wondered how such a disaster could occur, but, later, in my first job after my lengthy stint in school, I bought a house in Dallas (I left long ago for a smaller town) and then watched as it was built.
It was then that I realized that forest that was destroyed in 1974 was my fault. As I watched the frame on the house go up, I realized that was someone's forest somewhere. I tried to throw off my feeling of responsibility. But, I never did.
Eventually, as I aged, I realized: It is not Republicans or Democrats who destroy our ecology.
It is us. All of us. And? It is not even our fault. We are programmed to survive and survive we do. At the expense of everything around us. When the population of humans was low, the impact was small. But.......
The more of us there are, the worse our environmental impact becomes. Why?
Because we have to live somewhere, we have to eat (hence the extinction of species) and there just are not enough caves and whales to kill for all of us now.
My conclusion Fern: The human population must decide to reduce itself to save itself. But, I do not think that will ever happen.
Now at age 63, I have seen ever larger pristine forests destroyed on larger scales. The suburbs keep growing. The frame houses keep going up.
I do try: I am in partnership with NY State to do a large scale tree planting on some land I bought in the beautiful Finger Lakes region where there are still some trees, though, not many.
A drop in the bucket of the reforestation needed that can only occur if: The human population is reduced dramatically.
“It is not Republicans or Democrats who destroy our ecology.
It is us. All of us.”
So true, Mike! ALL OF US! Kudos to you for doing something to mitigate this!
As to population reduction as a means of counteracting our destructive tendencies, I’ve often wondered if the growing number and strength of super storms and weather-related disasters that increasingly result in fatalities are our Mother Nature’s natural response to our threats to her wellbeing.
My fiancé and I are your Finger Lakes neighbor, by the way. Beautiful region!
Rose. Congratulations on your engagement and thank you.
Thank you, Mike! Engagements are cause for celebration, for sure—especially when you’re a senior citizen 😊
So, Rose, when will you add CNY to your OH/OR/MA/FL/CO ?
John, my understanding is that the Finger Lakes are usually considered Western New York (hence the WNY before the other states listed inside parentheses). Central and Upstate NY are ALSO beautiful! I am always amazed by the diversity of landscapes and panoramas that the empire state offers. But I’m staying put where we live now 😉
I am staying here too Rose. Absolutely.
The Census Bureau projects we will grow by 75 million over the next 40 years, 90% of that from immigration. We, the major industrialized nation with the greatest per capita greenhouse emissions, are the worst place on the planet to put more people. The average immigrant's GH emissions rise threefold after arrival, because they come mostly from low per capita emissions third world countries.
75 million is nearly equivalent to four New York States.
Also Mike in Texas now they are making building materials from earth instead of trees. Putting together engineering for such earthy dwellings promises better living conditions and better environmental quality. Having built 300 dwellings mostly stick frame, I find that pretty exciting for up and coming builders.
Let’s see if it helps. I hope so.
GREAT region, our Finger Lakes Mike S!
And we need to work extra hard to preserve this bit of heaven as the run-offs from farming and minimally-curtailed housing development continue to flow into these pristine lakes leading to increasingly frequent growth of toxic algae blooms. Water once so pristine it was tapped by nearby Syracuse for drinking water must now be shut off on those occasions to "protect the public." ☹️
John. Runoff the the lakes definitely a problem. All of them have the toxic algae blooms now in summer.
How about all that steady work to save and extend what is now the Big Thicket National Preserve?
Thank you, Fern. Especially for the link.
We need composting toilets, even though they may create an odor. & bidets keep us from using rolls of bathroom tissues & they became big items during the WORST of Trump's pandemic.
Yes, I don’t know how easy it will be to convince people to get composting toilets, but give them access to a bidet once and they quickly become converts. Toilet-seat bidets can be as cheap as $20.00 and are suitable for warmer climates; my heated seat and water models (I have two) cost me under $300.00 and have been in place more than 10 years. Vive le bidet!
There's this guy on Youtube, " Ginger Billy ", who pretty much had an AD for a particular bidet. It was humorous, yet very informative. & maybe a tad PROPHETIC, because it was on his channel BEFORE Covid struck. WOW ! I live in a small efficiency apartment so I'm unsure about the logistics of getting one up here, etc.
Daniel, all you need is a bidet attachment! They are light weight and easy to install. Check this article: https://www.bhg.com/bathroom/remodeling/planning/best-bidet-attachments/
Cheers!
Hand held ones work too
As Rose said, an attachment goes under the seat and costs from 20-30 dollars. You can get a seat-replacement bidet (like the one I have) for around $300 with warm seat, warm water & blow dry!
Also very cheap hand held ones
Where's that water coming from. Bidet my butt.. use a nice maple leaf, why don't you.
Beautiful Letter today, Heather. Sobering.
Poetic. I am finding that poetry is often articulate philosophy in a more "organic", emotionally accessible form.
Morning, Lynell. Sobering, yet motivating letter.
Motivating, yes! You have got to the heart of the matter, thank you, and morning, Ally.
What an amazing photo. Wow. Just wow.
Happy Earth Day to Heather and Buddy and everyone in this forum and on the Planet Earth! What a wonderful article. Information packed and beautifully written.
As always! :)
And recently, loads of DDT dumped years ago were found on the ocean floor off CA shores!
Biden is taking crucial steps to address Climate Catastrophe. Another step:
' U.S. has inventoried old-growth forests. Will protection be next?'
The report is the federal government’s first estimate of America’s oldest trees. Environmentalists hope it is a step for protecting them from logging.'
'The findings, the result of a year-long review ordered last year by President Biden, are likely to inflame tensions with the timber industry over which forests — especially those in the western United States — should remain unlogged. But they are energizing many conservation activists, including those who argue that old-growth forests are vital for storing carbon dioxide that contributes to climate change' (WAPO) Gifted link below.
https://wapo.st/3UZXifd
Fern, I so appreciate your quotes and research on this critical topic. We don’t have much time left. We, as in our grandchildren, our future.
Irenie, during this most urgent emergency, the wellbeing of earth and survival of it's inhabitants depend on the people having a clear understanding that it is impossible to stop time and to, therefore, act accordingly.
Yes, Fern, and we, all of us, knowing that time is critical, must never be silent. Must pay attention. Must act.
Whether we're ready or not, we are going to NEED to have a 2 - planet ( or more ) species, like Carl Sagan advocated. Let's just not repeat the environmental mistakes on the Moon, Mars or the asteroids, wherever. Neil deGrasse Tyson wants to go ICE FISHING on Europa !
Please mindfully help our Earth with a small gift every day. Avoid one trip in your car, have one meal without animal products, physically weed your garden instead of using chemicals, eat locally grown produce, set your thermostat higher in summer, and lower in winter, don't buy throw-away fashion or furniture, repurpose what you can, plant native species to protect native wildlife especially pollinators....
You get the idea. Reduce your climate footprint on step at a time...
No A/C (no need) and even in the cold, cold north my thermostat is set to 60°. Sweaters exist. It snowed several inches on Monday...
Same old ideas WORK, recommitt…
Georgia, to really get a feel for being of the animal kingdom put up a wall tent. Boil your water. Go to Salvation Army get heavy quilts. Or. Dig in to a steep bank or hill and put a log front on. You’ll capture 54 degrees of earth heat no charge. You don’t need a window because you can leave the door open. My sister paid 35 a month sharing with 5 roommates in school. I didn’t have rent to pay and I was lord and master. Athletics provided a shower daily and when school was out there was always the river. You could bathe and catch breakfast in one fell swoop. This is not some cutesy tale. It worked quite well.
Don Robertson West Vancouver B C Canada
The over 65 year old cohort need to take some responsibility for the degraded planet we are bequeathing the generations coming along behind. Forget taking another cruise or buying into an ageist script of powerlessness. Our commitment to the healing of the earth needs to be focused and radical. In the time we have left, we need to repurpose our lives in the urgent work of organizing for the healing this planet.
What has become of the flower children? Where has our zeal gone? Is green only the color of money? Is water but a commodity? What happened?
I read recently the largest age group of MAGAts was us!!! The war protesters, the peace and love promoters, the flower children. HOW could this be? What happened over the intervening 50 years?
I think that many of the flower children were the college students. But that was less than a third of the population. The "squares" who didn't get draft deferrals had a lot of resentment. At least that's the impression I got from growing up in an isolated small town with few aspiring to college, and from my older sister's husband (a Libertarian Vietnam vet)...
And then, of course, there were all of the business majors and mining engineering majors who were probably never part of the antiwar protests...
Of course, since I didn't start college until 1978, I could be entirely off in my interpretation!
That makes sense. Thanks for offering it.
I think your understanding is very good.
I hope enough of us older folks come around to help the younger folks move the country forward.
Propaganda works, even on what’s left of the “greatest generation,” and the “hippies.” I know them, or thought I did…
Have you heard of Third Act? It's an organization started by Bill McKibben that encourages seniors to become more involved in righting the wrongs prevalent in society today, most notably environmental degradation. Their mission statement:
"We are building a community of experienced Americans over the age of sixty determined to change the world for the better. Together, we use our life experience, skills and resources to build better tomorrow."
Find it here: https://thirdact.org/
I miss the promise of a better world that filled the air in the late 60s and early 70s, following in the wake of environmental catastrophes and race riots.
I was very young, but I remember the horror and the hope.
If you haven’t read it, Silent Spring is an important book.
Rachel Carson‘s book was required reading when I entered college in 1964! In Virginia :-)
I'm sure it's on the banned book lists now :-(
It was a different time for sure.