During her confirmation hearings in 2021, Interior Department secretary Deb Haaland promised “to responsibly manage our natural resources to protect them for future generations—so that we can continue to work, live, hunt, fish, and pray among them.” Noting her Indigenous heritage, Haaland tweeted, “A voice like mine has never been a Cabinet secretary or at the head of the Department of Interior….
Whether we see the beauty or not, the whole of nature, the whole of existence, is interconnected. Each of us lives in relation to every other. This is not mystic mutterings, but the actuality if we look. And this is a sound basis for a politics of inclusion and hope. thank you
You are right Richard. It doesn't require mystic visions, a fancy education, scientific acumen, religious beliefs, or political leanings to recognize that it is humanity that will destroy or save our world. It just requires an open mind and humility to recognize that the fate of our one and only planet earth is in our hands.
In fact it requires the casting aside of the elements of the Abrahamic religions that posit humanity's separation from and lordship over nature. In that sense many of the so-called primitive religions have it right and should be learned from rather than exterminated. We also need to recognize how big business has manipulated public values to prioritize monetary gain as the sole purpose of human existence. And they do so with the active partnership of many religious leaders.
The two points you mention are the basis of trillions of bad decisions and horrific mistakes by the dominant people of the planet.
If I were a novelist or script writer, I would pen a story about European "explorers" of the New World who met indigenous people and saw them differently. What if the Europeans had been impressed rather than frightened by Native Americans? What if the earliest invaders were to have embraced the ancient wisdoms they encountered? What if they had decided to learn rather than plunder? What if they had discovered that the real treasure in the Western Hemisphere was the highly developed cultures that had evolved over thousands of years?
What if we hadn't started our lives in this chunk of the planet as greedy, ignorant and arrogant. What if we had become students?
One of the most wonderful and symbolic acts by President Biden was the nomination of Deb Haaland for Interior Secretary. Another reason to vote Blue - from the top of the ticket to the bottom.
Good thoughts to ponder, Bill. "What if" indeed. What if we'd learned instead of taught? What if we'd listened instead of shouted. What if we'd talked instead of fought?
Ally, yes, what if. We have a set of orders issued to one of my husband's relatives here in Oregon during a war against Native Americans in southern Oregon. The commanding officer ordered his men to pursue them by any means, including eating horses and Native Americans if necessary. if they didn't, they would be mentioned unfavorably. I used this set of orders in my writing class as an original document for students to analyze and they had their eyes opened.
The little local museums invented and operated by local lovers of history are often treasures. The Bandon Historical Society Museum is where I learned of the massacre of local people by gold miners in the 1850s.
Our first ecologist, Henry David Thoreau, wrote some of these thoughts 170 years ago. Unfortunately, instead of protecting the interconnectedness of all life, the Gold Rush preoccupied the 19th century American mind set and continues into the 21st.
May I mention human greed, human aggression, human arrogance as among but not only our innate natures. We are a vicious, domineering species. We have over populated the earth, we are over consuming it's resources, we are killing it's creatures. Indigenous people everywhere and throughout history have succumbed to the numbers and technology of outside invaders. But Gaia will get even as we run out of fresh water, run out of wild fish (have you bought fish lately), experience the increasingly weather extremes of rain, drought, heat, and wind. Have you noticed that popular music is increasingly angry, our current artists increasingly incomprehensible? Artists are more sensitive to our current situation. Well maybe benign robots and A.I. devices will replace us.
George, yes Gaia will have her say and she is already quite loud. But so many ascribe what happens to God (not the same here as Gaia) and give thanks they survived and then go on to do the same foolish things. My sister's family is doing their best to help with overpopulation as I now have at least a dozen great greats. I had a long conversation via messenger last night with my nephew's wife. They have money woes of course and are caught in red tape when trying to get help. They have a house which counts as part of their income even though it is not ready money. They are too busy trying to survive to understand what we are up against.
George, human flaws are many. I wish, at the Garden of Eden, God would have noticed that his two prototypes were not very good. He could have started over. Later, God was so disgusted he flooded the earth to get rid of the bad actors. The problem with Noah and his family is that they had the original lousy operating system. The only solution is to change the OS. We now have a tool for modifying DNA called CRISP-R. We ought to use it.
Patrick, the problem is that genetics and behaviour are not well connected. Religion does not seem to work well either. An education system that stresses decency might help.
People may have been frightened by Native Americans at times and some died as the result of encounters with indigenous peoples, but Europeans often viewed them as part of the fauna to be eliminated, that the continent was basically empty, and that it could be used as a giant workhouse to send problem people to. And then of course, like every other part of the world outside of Europe, it was full of goods to be plundered and exploited. Indigenous people had highly developed societies, but since they didn't look like the European model, they had no government. And then they also needed Christianity which often brought death and destruction. When they didn't make good slaves, Europeans started importing Africans. Here we have a country that was built largely on genocide, land theft, and slavery. I am so pleased that Biden chose a Native American to lead Interior. A nice change from the exploiters and believers in the Second Coming. Also I do see instances where land is being returned to Native Americans and they are included as stakeholders in decisions....at least some of the time.
Interior Department secretary Deb Haaland is another reason why it is imperative that President Joe Biden be re-elected. He will use the next 4 years to solidify the healing turn around that is working.
The fact that European diseases came with European invaders and killed 90% of the indigenous population so that Europeans saw only a remnant of the highly developed societies that had been, reinforced the european prejudice that the indigenous people were sub human.
The Iroquois lost so many people that they started warring with other nations to gain more population. The Spanish found obviously sophisticated civilizations, but were overwhelmed by their greed for gold and silver. As for North America, while many died, I doubt very much that Europeans were looking very hard. They had to somehow justify their rapaciousness. All they could see was land, fur, and always they were looking for gold. And then the Native Americans were not Christians, so let's bring some missionaries.
Have you read "The Years of Rice and Salt," by Kim Stanley Robinson? It has a similar theme of an alternate world history. The Native Americans fared much better in it.
Read The Dawn of Everything, by Graeber and Wengrow. One of the things they cover in some depth is what they call "the indigenous critique." When Columbus arrived in the Western Hemisphere looking for slaves and gold and a route to China, there was a large, well-developed indigenous society all over the North American continent. Europe immediately sent over Jesuits to convert the natives, but what actually happened was much more interesting.
European culture was very top-down. Every nation had a king and a hierarchy, and valued obedience.
American culture was very horizontal and valued individual liberty.
One of the consequences of this differences was that Americans were horrifically good debaters, because there was essentially no way to get an American to do anything without arguing him/her into wanting to do it. In most cases, the Americans concluded that the Jesuits were insane, and absolutely had to be lying about conditions in Europe. So some of the Americans went to Europe, and were the "toast of the town" everywhere they went. They debated with the intelligentsia in Europe. The Europeans didn't do well in their arguments, and the Americans returned with the conviction that the Europeans were, indeed, insane. At the same time, the earlier Jesuit diaries, in which the priests had recorded the nature of American society as well as the indigenous critique, became what we would call "best sellers" throughout the European intelligentsia.
What's particularly interesting is the "coincidence" that this rise of American ideas in Europe, which started in the 1600's and spread into the early 1700's, just happened to precede two major upheavals, one being the French Revolution, which essentially destroyed the "regime ancien" of King, Church, and Country, while in the American Colonies, there was this complete revolt against the British system, and US British "democracy" was born. All of the authoritarian regimes of Europe were badly shaken, and every one of them has been transformed.
Graeber and Argument suggest that American Native intellectual influence on Europe was much stronger than in the other direction. All the Europeans managed to do to the Americans was kill them, and it took a whole lot of fighting dirty, like using smallpox as a weapon of mass destruction. The Native Americans effectively wiped out the regime ancien, and created the EU.
What if we could find the cause and a remedy for the mental disease that makes men think it's a good thing to invade and plunder? Who the F do they think they are? Calling them Pigs is an affront to the animal!
I agree with this point, Stephen, the Abrahamic religions are part of the problem, claiming that Man has dominion over all. I now feel a sense of guilt at what we have done and are doing to our fellow creatures who inhabit this planet. It appears that in this regard we are clueless, just as the MAGA folks are clueless about Trump's danger to democracy and how the oligarchs use disinformation to manipulate their voting against their own best interests. These are not, on the whole, happy times.
I’m thinking as this day opens of what is deeply sacred to all living things: air, earth, light, water.
Turtles, dolphins, eagles, lady bugs etc….we must protect them.
The earth is sacred in all its diversity as you both implied.
Also, HCR’s detailed rundown of how today came to be is a beautiful synopsis. Nixon of all people surprised me ….. I must have been sleep walking through much of this rundown! Shame on me. Now I’m happily among The Woke thanks to Heather and her highly intelligent followers.
Nixon's positive work on the environment surprised me too and, like you, some shame at how hard it is for me to credit Nixon with anything good. I hope I'm not so binary on current events. Oh wait. I am! Lol. Yet another area of improvement to add my already long list.
But as a farm girl, I'm not so
quick to dismiss the mystical when it comes to our natural world.
You are so right! I share the sense of guilt almost daily of what we have done to our planet and life on it. If we could collectively turn that guilt into action, "What a wonderful life that would be!"
Lynne, having grown up in Texas where we shot and killed every creature with reckless abandon, it took me a while to realize how wrong we were to take other lives so wantonly. In many cases we can't even treat each other humanely, to say nothing about other creatures. We have racism and misogyny here, Putin invading Ukraine and killing innocent men, women and children. I fear for posterity if somewhere, somehow soon we don't start exercising our critical thinking faculties and put the lie to the climate deniers, the racists, the misogynists, etc.
I couldn't agree more. My husband I lived in Dallas for 12 years and I understand the cultural heritage you grew up with. There are many awakenings that can push us forward to awareness. Perhaps my first was seeing the aftermath of war in Stuttgart, Germany, when I was 4-6 years old: total destruction, men as amputees looking for food, families trying to find mother, father, sister, brother, and the economy in shambles. The situation in Ukraine and Gaza...and before that Syria (where I also have lived), wound deeply. Man's inhumanity to man is astounding...and our arrogance at destroying the environment and pushing species to extension...killing, killing, killing, is so obviously wrong. It does, however, feel like the younger generation is more sensitized to it all and that awareness is growing. That is the hope.
Richard, perhaps I am giving the oligarchs and Republicans too much credit, but they have created a society so overwhelmed with stress overload that prefrontal cortex-based critical thinking is secondary to amygdala-based fear and anger. It certainly works in their favor. It’s not that schools don’t teach critical thinking (though they don’t and never really did), it’s that people struggling to survive are less able to think critically. Thus the oligarchs and their lapdogs are free to do whatever the hell brings them the most power and wealth.
Ah, it's good to have a handy scapegoat, but "Abrahamic religions" isn't going to work. It is human beings that develop religions for their own needs and human beings that twist the teachings of those religions for their own changing purposes. Dominion is an English word that has been used to translate ancient concepts that were originally closer to the word husband as in "animal husbandry". Scriptures that were handed down for centuries as oral stories of a nomadic/ pastoral population before being written down in languages that are no longer in common use, and then translated from translations into English are not the problem. The problem is human beings in a completely different form of society trying to use those scriptures to rationalize their own desires.
Mary Ellen, you write regarding the influence or non-influence of Abrahamic religions: "The problem is human beings in a completely different form of society trying to use those scriptures to rationalize their own desires." That's not to say that the scriptures didn't help to shape certain attitudes. I was brought up early on as a Presbyterian and the notion that God gave Man dominion over all the plants and animals was definitely a concept that I learned in Sunday School. Of course, when I grew to manhood I left behind my childish thinking.
Well, my point is that what people say the scriptures say is fungible. My opinion is that the change from an agrarian society to an industrial society is the cause of a new interpretation of scriptures that were handed down and eventually written for/by an agrarian society. English versions of the Hebrew and Christian scriptures are, like the Aramaic and Hebrew and Latin versions translations of translations and all translations include the opinions of the translators.
Those scriptures continue to be translated and today we have Earth Day complete with theology that supports it from most US denominations including the one you grew up in.
Your Sunday School teachings as you remember them are probably not a very fair representation of the teachings of the Presbyterian Church today. The Presbyterian Church today is teaching that "we are called to stewardship of the earth".
Rachel Carson's Silent Spring was an inflection point in more than one area.
That is an interesting tidbit, that TFG never had a dog. Could it be that they couldn't find a dog that would love TFG? Is that possible, given that dogs are pure love? I admire dogs for their very clever scheme to get humans to take care of their every need: housing, food, medical, etc. The scheme was simple: shower the humans with love and they'll do for you whatever you want. Brilliant. Genius. Why didn't we think of that?
I actually jumped to the conclusion of no pets - but just cannot imagine it. Then there are those great pictures of his "boys" with their guns & dead animals. I think most people who do care about animals have empathy towards them. And Empathy & Trumps just do not mesh!!
Amen, brother!! You took the words right out of my mouth!! "God gave man dominion over the earth"!! Which we greedily interpreted to mean, "Take what you want; despoil, decimate, destroy."
For centuries there was always a new frontier to conquer, so we left our trashed homelands to go in search of new lands to despoil, new people to enslave or destroy. Pogo was right: "We have met the enemy, and he is us."
You hit it on the head and opened the core problem. However, we can change, through awareness or be forced to one way or another...hopefully before it's too late.
Stephen, I was just thinking about this as i started to read the comments. I recently read Genesis KJV as I was about to read a book about it. I did squirm at the verses about dominion over all the earth. I also recently read Braiding Sweetgrass by a biologist who also a member of a Native American nation. She reminded readers of indigenous wisdom and what we need to do. Yes, I thought, but the forces standing in the way of this have lots more power and money. And Wyoming is calling efforts "colonialism" which is just too rich. I live in Oregon and I am always amazed at how much destruction the US and white settlers managed to do in a relatively short time. We have real water problems with pollution in eastern Oregon and too many water rights. Also although I have known a few people who have made real efforts to do the right thing, most of us just forget that when we want to travel a long distance or do something else that doesn't help. Right now I am seeing pictures of a coast to coast trip and back again in a big RV taken by friends who incidentally pride themselves on their progressive Christianity. Our next door neighbor has lots to say about climate change, but also has a large RV. He does have solar panels on the roof for some things, but then there is the gas mileage. I confess too that we have not be free of doing things like this, but have never owned a RV. On overseas trips, I noted an article this week that Amsterdam wants to limit the number of tourists that come. The only good thing about COVID is that with things shut down, things got better in terms of traffic and pollution.
Hmmm...Since I live in an RV, and have since 2014, I would like a chance to defend living in a house that has wheels.
Yes, our truck burns more diesel when we are traveling, but we also have a pretty small "footprint" on the land. We go south for the winter and spend our summers volunteering for Oregon State Parks. We live in less than 400 square feet quite comfortably. We are not acquiring "things", we are acquiring memories.
I would say there are exceptions to the people who drag around their very large RVs and get very little mileage. I commend you for having a small footprint and acquiring memories instead of things. I could even go for more people in small spaces on wheels if they were all like you. Personally, I would go crazy living with anyone in that small a space, but I could probably manage a smaller house. We have almost a half acre and we have gardened it as organically as possible for many, many years. We inherited our dining room furniture. We grow some of our own food, we support local farmers and ranchers who do it right without loads of chemicals. We try to support local businesses and restaurants. I confess to a lot of travel at one time on airplanes. We do drive a Prius Prime and rarely drive outside the city and we have solar panels on our roof.
Yes, Stephen, big business is a big part of the problem. In the 12 western states Heather mentions, particularly Wyoming, the relevant big businesses are the fossil fuel industry and cattle grazing. There it is easy to manipulate public values when so many are employed in those industries. We need ways to support different employment opportunities in those states.
One of the biggest differences between the east and west sides of the Rocky Mountains is the percentage of land that is owned by the federal government. In the 12 western states together, the Federal Government owns at least 50% of the land. Wyoming is a little over 48% federally owned. Nevada is 80% federally owned and Oregon is about 53% federally owned. This means that one of the bigger employers in those states is the Federal Government. Secretary Haaland's reintroduction of preservation as part of multiple use may be a source of those different employment opportunities.
Big business certainly created and promoted “Money is the sole purpose of human existence” by freezing wages, cutting benefits, busting unions, and destroying the social safety net. For people working several part-time jobs just to survive, big business has successfully forced them to prioritize jobs over nature, clean air and water, and environmental protections.
I think you'll find that Rachel Carson's Silent Spring changed theology as well as other forms of thought about the relationship between human beings and the earth. On Sunday most "mainline churches" heard a sermon about stewardship rather than the 1950s version of dominion.
Rolyac & Richard, while it may not take a scientific education to recognize the doom to which we are heading, it does take recognizing the psychology leading such a loarge proportion of oue population to fight the changes we must make if we are to slow and eventually reverse the terrible effects of our industrial activities here on earth. It will not be just those who became rich and powerful through their exploitation of earth's resources but all the masses of people who are employed and make their livings from the products of these rich, powerful and persuasive leaders who will fight tooth and nail to prevent the changes in our behavior which are so essential to the planet's survival as we know it, a planet whose very weather patterns are daily becoming less recognizable to us.
John, many have been fighting tooth and nail against regulations all along - that is nothing new. Having spent my career working to protect the climate, I have seen many examples, even of good smart people, not willing to make changes in order to protect and preserve for future generations. (Read Naomi Oreskes’ ‘Merchants of Doubt’, which covers the historical efforts of oil companies to reframe the known effects of carbon emissions on the atmosphere. Oil companies are still lying about how dangerous it is and worse yet, making all out efforts to increase oil production. )
The work to protect this small blue orb and its inhabitants remains the same. Help elect sane candidates, support sane federal, state and local policies, help get out the vote, and reduce our own use of precious resources. And we will protect this precious democracy at the same time.
Time for my morning dog walk in the restored prairie across the street. Trumpeter Swans, all manner of duck and song birds, hawks, eagles, deer and the occasional coyote sightings make everything better. Soon, the wildflowers will be blooming too!
Sheila B THANK you for your persistent efforts on behalf of our beleaguered planet! And may your morning walk serve to renew your firm attachment to and residence on our shared earth! Swans, ducks, song birds, hawks, eagles, even deer and especially the occasional coyote remain our best reasons and reinforcers of the crucial importance of what you do.
The wildflowers will be the frosting on that cake!
After-the-fact , too late for many, lives lost buried by infamous cover-upmanship- their lengthy lethal omissions for callous greed as plastic enters our blood stream the harbinger of tossed principles by practiced pollution.
Recycling here is dumping over the hillside in obscured ‘hollers’, thrown or flicked out a vehicle window, burned in caustic pits yet deny the downwind responsibility, too poor in mental awareness to care or is that…bother?
The ripple affect has now become a tsunami , eradicating species , raising denials from even our own ‘representatives’…as the Erin Brockovich tare and tears fall to costs deferred by profit margins or lobby tactics.
The <<sighs>> are from Mother Nature’s tally …and she will win.
You make an excellent point about people who make their living from companies who exploit earth's resources. Have you seen the "I am an energy voter" ads? They are well produced ads sponsored by Koch Industries, as in Charles Koch. The smiling people seen in the ads are Koch employees, going about their daily work. These people are doing their jobs, paying their bills, putting food on their table, etc. exploiting resources for Charles Koch's companies. They don't recognize themselves as contributing to the damage of the planet. Earth's resources, no matter what resources they are, are finite. They might look infinite at first glance, but they WILL run out. Many animals have been driven to extinction or almost to extinction because they were useful to humans in some way, example- whale oil.
Kochland is a frightening book of the two faced Koch industries.....How they employ a 110% rule for "compliance" while working to change the regulations so they can do as they wish.
Your insight into the need to attend to the psychology of change is right on. Yet, as my seventh grade gym teacher used to say, “It’s a dumb bird who shits in his own nest.” It doesn’t really take much more sophistication than that to see the need to join the environmental movement. What does that say about all those resisting sustainability?
And perhaps a different perspective is that it’s a dumb bird to produce too many egg hatches for the nest to hold. Because we are such a fractured populace, environmental issues will only be met half way if at all. Economics rules and our industries own Congress unique in the world, with so much influence. Continued population expansion will continue to cut short environmental goals. We are but one step away from electing a person who will turn every progressive clock back to the 19th century.
I remember attending the first Earth Day at the State Capital of CT. It’s amazing that the fully corrupted Nixon who prolonged the Vietnam war through obstruction of the Paris Peace Talks could be the person who created the EPA. The loss of additional life plus destruction of nature in Vietnam verses EPA. I can’t reconcile this. I am unable to get pass this mental road block.
We now have a candidate whose only mission is winning for his own glory and selfish desires to accumulate more wealth. But aren’t most like this? This populist character is in the extreme as demented as can be. he speaks to a disquieted populace. Now our gas stoves are bad for the environment. Biden must choose battles and not make everything a choice. I want my gas stove. So TFG makes gas stoves an issue. My God. What next. Back to pollution, while it’s very necessary to regulate (sure another bad lexicon for our populist candidate) we have long forgotten one aspect to natural balance: population expansion and it will never end because man is essentially a greedy species. We want it all. We want the now polluted oceans of polluted fish filled with micro plastics. We want expanded economic development and economists always tell us that an expanded population assures economic development. Man is in constant pursuit of his tail. And the tale is not a wonderful story to tell.
Nixon also tried to do something that would have made a big difference today. Nixon established a commission on population, as he understood that environmental harm is proportional to the numbers of people in a population, and the average consumption per person. There were slightly more than 200,000,000 Americans at the time of the first Earth Day, and now there are 336,000,000--an increase of well more than 50 percent.
Unfortunately, the Catholic Church let Nixon know in no uncertain terms that if he persisted in this vein the Church would ensure that he would not be re-elected.
And equally unfortunately, the US began opening the floodgates to mass immigration, which was the source of 40 million from 1990-2020, and which has added close to 10 million in just the four years of the Biden Administration.
Don't get me wrong--despite the fact tht Biden has not been good on immigration, I think he is the best president of my lifetime, which began the first summer of the Eisenhower Administration, but the Census Bureau projects our population will grow ~20 million per decade over the next four decades. Among much else, on average people who move to the US produce three times as much greenhouse gas as they did in their home countries. The US has the highest per capita consumption of the major industrialized nations--we're the worst place on the planet to put more people.
Thanks to our exploding population, insects, mammals, birds, reptiles, and amphibians have been in steep declines over the last 50 years. Overpopulation is killing nature.
While I think it is possible to rub one too many crystals, we are all earthlings (I hope),and as such part of a system. A very large and complicated system.
I remember being in Mt Rainier hiking from Ipsut creek in the early 60's . Around '63 or so. My dad and I were looking at the Carbon glacier. He said "when I was your age that glacier was down here, and when you're my age it'll be out of sight around a corner that corner in the canyon." It is.
The ice caves in the Paradise glacier have been gone for some time now, and as kid they were huge and went very far into the ice. Beautiful.
When I see my life in respect to glacial time it's a trip.
A great tour guide for my trip of being interconnected in geological time is Vanessa Machado de Oliveira. In her book, she has a chapter on metabolic literacy. She says, "To experience the world and ourselves in it as metabolism gives us one way of recalibrating our existence--away from separability and toward entanglement". Since her book appeared in 2021, people around the globe have been gathering and using its content as a prompt for practicing this awareness. The book: "Hospicing Modernity: Facing Humanity's Wrongs and the Implications for Social Activism."
"We have this big solar resource, we should use it." - Jimmy Carter, 1977
" A generation from now, this solar heater can either be a curiosity, a museum piece, an example of a road not taken or it can be just a small part of one of the greatest and most exciting adventures ever undertaken by the American people.""
- Jimmy Carter, 1979 at dedication of the installation of solar panels on the White House
"The Department of Energy has a multibillion-dollar budget, in excess of $10 billion . . . It hasn't produced a quart of oil or a lump of coal or anything else in the line of energy."
- Ronald Reagan,
"By 1986, the Reagan administration had gutted the research and development budgets for renewable energy at the then-fledgling U.S. Department of Energy (DoE) and eliminated tax breaks for the deployment of wind turbines and solar technologies—recommitting the nation to reliance on cheap but polluting fossil fuels, often from foreign suppliers. . . In 1986 the Reagan administration quietly dismantled the White House solar panel installation."
"I will end his war on American energy . . . Drill Baby Drill."
- Donald Trump
"A key plank of our Build Back Better Recovery Plan is building a modern, resilient climate infrastructure, and clean energy future that will create millions of good-paying union jobs — not 7, 8, 10, 12 dollars an hour, but prevailing wage and benefits. If executed strategically, our response to climate change can create more than 10 million well-paying jobs in the United States” - Joe Biden
"The Biden Administration’s climate fanaticism will need a whole-of-government unwinding. . . The fourth pillar of Project 2025 is our 180-day Transition Playbook and includes a comprehensive, concrete transition plan for each federal agency. Only through the implementation of specific action plans at each agency will the next conservative presidential Administration be successful. "
- Heritage Foundation, Project 2025 a plan for the next Trump administration
"The prized target for Trump’s Republican allies, should the former president defeat Joe Biden in November’s election, will be the Inflation Reduction Act, the landmark $370 billion bill laden with support for clean energy projects and electric vehicles. . . the legislation
was signed by Biden in 2022 with no Republican votes."
"Against a backdrop of record-breaking heat and floods this year, the $22m endeavor, Project 2025, was convened by the notorious rightwing, climate-denying thinktank the Heritage Foundation, which has ties to fossil fuel billionaire Charles Koch."
"Since 2021, Leonard Leo’s network has funneled over $50.7 million to the groups advising Project 2025, including donations from key Leo-linked groups such as The 85 Fund, the Concord Fund, and DonorsTrust."
Over 40% of funding for Project 2025 comes from groups affiliated with and funded through Koch bagman Leonard Leo. (Yet HCR has never mentioned Leo.)
When I was a kid, there was a TV commercial for a brand of margarine. It featured a woman dressed in a flowing gown, in a forest setting, surrounded by ‘critters’. She was given some of the margarine to taste, and announced it was ‘my sweet, creamery butter’, when she was corrected that it was this brand of margarine.
She raised her hand and brought down thunder and lightning, and shouted, “It’s not NICE to fool Mother Nature!!
Lin, you have provided us an excellent "highlights" summary of the climate policy battle yet I think it will be enormously important for us to focus major efforts on the persuasion of our neighbors and family and friends and co-workers of the urgent and essential conversion to a whole-earth way of thinking, and more important a whole-earth way of working and buying or more often not-buying what the Leonard Leo's and Charles Koch's are selling. Those of us who can, MUST make our buying decisions based on whole-earth consideration so that the prattlings of the fossil fuel magnates fall on deaf ears. Think of NOT "cashing in" on all the CO2-emitting vehicles which fill the pages of "bargains" in the auto-dealers' endless promotional material. As convenient as it has become we must stop relying on deals-delivered-directly-to-our-doors via the Amazons of the world, a dramatically more fuel-wasteful, street-clogging way of shopping than going to the stores which sell them... SO MUCH TO DO!
L Leo is refusing to comply with a subpoena issued by the Senate judiciary committee looking into right wing dark money that may be influencing the Supreme Court. I hope this story is going to take off like wildfire and an investigation begins!!!
The DC AG is investigating Leo regarding his not for profit and for profit organization. Leo refuses to cooperate and has instigated a campaign against the DC AG - being carried out by Leo's cronies in high places, including James Comer and Jim Jordan.
(Listen - Leo is a guy who got local police to arrest a neighbor kid for yelling at him from a passing car. And when police leadership refused to arrest a senior citizen for chalking 'google Leonard Leo', Leo got a town official to divert staff to follow her around washing away the chalk.)
Re: DC AG investigation
"The report highlights the circular payment scheme between Leo’s nonprofit and for-profit organizations, which sparked the DC Attorney General’s investigation into Leo’s activities and his cozy financial ties to Supreme Court justices. Leo’s central role in the corruption crisis at the high court spurred Senate Judiciary subpoenas of Supreme Court “billionaire matchmaker” Leo and billionaire benefactor Harlan Crow. "
What happens when an AG dares to investigate Leonard Leo’s network. Brian Schwalb’s probe followed a complaint that nonprofit groups associated with the judicial activist violated their tax status.
Representatives James Comer and Jim Jordan recently launched an investigation into AG Schwalb’s reported investigation, accusing him of having political motivations, and citing concerns about donor privacy. CREW sent a letter to Comer and Jordan urging them not to interfere in the investigation, and laying out the precedent for investigators not cooperating with such congressional efforts. As the letter says, “Congressional interference in an ongoing investigation is not legitimate oversight; it is itself a weaponization of Congress’s oversight power that threatens to undermine our justice system and the American people’s faith in it.”
Lin, thank you for your detailed update! I appreciate that you are following and reporting on the L Leo evil doings. I will read the articles you referenced!
Yes, she has mentioned Leo (article about Clarence's abuses, April 6, 2023): "Crow has worked hard to move the judiciary and the legal system to the right, and at one of the properties where Thomas vacations, there is a painting of him in conversation with a number of figures, including Leonard Leo, the leader of the Federalist Society who has orchestrated the court’s hard-right turn. Leo is now overseeing Marble Freedom Trust, established to disburse funds from a $1.6 billion bequest to manipulate elections in favor of Republicans."
Richard, you are so right. And mine are also not mystic mutterings, but we are all connected to the past and to the future as much as to each other: we are all carbon-based life forms. We recycle carbon constantly by the mere act of breathing. Every inspiring breath contains atoms that were once metabolically part of a living thing, and every exhalation will again be part of something. If that were the only carbon we recycle we'd have no worries about human-induced climate change. Our actions today very much touch the future, and I feel guilt about that.
Thank you, Richard. Today, Earth Day, is my only observed religious holiday. The Earth, the vast greatness of the out-of-doors, is my cathedral. Enjoy the day, everyone!
So right, Richard. It'll be sometime before we've managed to make civilization self-sustainable in terms of our interaction with the larger world, but going in that direction is purely in our self-interest.
The Earth and some of its life will survive. We may not, if we can't overcome our greed. We can't do that without inclusion and kindness.
I believe in one God, and no more; and I hope for happiness beyond this life. I believe in the equality of man; and I believe that religious duties consist in doing justice, loving mercy, and in endeavoring to make our fellow-creatures happy. ~ Thomas Paine
Now at 85, having retired 3 years ago after nearly 60 years working to preserve the health of our oceans, I am delighted to read this profound summary of our nation's progress in doing so as well. Earth Day has always been a most special day for me - worked on Santa Barbara spill cleanup in 1969.
Great work, Alan. With whom did you work? I started at USGS Marine Geology in 1989. Besides geophysics, our work also focused on geologic hazards. The bottom core sedimentary record showed very clearly the fluctuations in our climate that increased or decreased the generation of micro organisms at the bottom of our food chain, as well as ice cores in the Arctic that correlated a significant acceleration of the changes in our climate, as well as concentration of radioactivity matching nuclear testing. Interesting stuff. I was an engineering tech that designed and built the equipment to carry out the studies and operate it at sea and in the ice.
I never would have retired, but the Taliban took over control of our Congress in 1994 and, since their book said nothing about science, they elimnated massive amounts of Federal science funding across the board. Many millions of NSF funding was left hanging when the Reduction in Force took effect in 1995. There was no one left to carry out the studies across all Federal agencies. The saddest moment in my career.
Yes, amazing the concerted, organized, determined agents of -- what? -- pure and driven hatred against science, humanities, nature?
I hate to sound academic, particularly in view of your personal brush with the monsters, but the Powell memo planned all this back in August, 1971. It set out to gut higher ed, to replace K-12 with mechanized, computer-gradable orgies of standardized testing, to turn state legislatures over to ALEC-cloned Republican vigilantes, and also turn the former Supreme Court over to the billionaire predators.
At least, Ransom, you had some good years with some good people before the living dead arrived with their sickles.
No worries from me, I am an academic. I spent a career teaching math at El Camino. College in Torrance Ca.
I watched as the caliber of input declined over the years. When I retired in 2019 they had dispensed with all of our remedial courses in the name of "not hurting the students feelings". I watched as they watered down the curriculum and brought in computers.
The math hasn't changed but what they expect from the students is far less. Nothing but pushing buttons. No thinking of the deeper concepts.
The old Methuselah's that taught me used chalk, period. It was a big day when they had colored chalk. They'd draw some wiggles on the board and look at us and say "Now visualize it moving this way."
Now i've got Mathematica on my computer. Real time rotations and animations of surfaces in 3D plotted for you.
I learned to see the behavior from the equations. It's fun to be able to see them in color and manipulate them.
I worry that today's students are missing out on visualization and imagination skills. The computer does it for them.
Time will tell what their lack of such skills will be. Maybe I'm just old fashioned. My favorite math book was written by Hardy, in 1906. I still take it around with me. He was such a great author. I've got a reprints of ten years of the Math Tripos exams 1910-1920. Three day exams covering everything.
I'm pleased to say that I have solved many of these old problems, at least one from each year. I still play around with them.
Oh to be in the room with Hardy and Littlewood , Russell and Ramanujan. What minds. No computers just hardcore analysis.
Pithy, eloquent you are, Bob, on the reduction of imagination in "higher" ed today.
Equally on-target you are for the pre-Powell memo days when great figures loomed large.
One of the keys the billionaires used to number, commodify, package all life, was when the ALEC part of post-Powell memo got all the Republican legislatures and many Dem ones, too, to reduce public aid to higher ed. First casualty, tenure. Easier just to hire tens of thousands of "contingent" labor -- no benefits, cheap pay, no longevity.
Second casualty, student debt, as the vulture banks swept in.
Third, all the neutering as cowardice ruled the getting of the few tenure slots remaining.
Add in the zombie HR which took over. The trigger warnings necessary to avoid offending any darlings. And the group-think in retreat by all to group identity safety silos.
The billionaires won who funded Heritage, Hoover, ALEC, the Federalist Society, Claremont, and all the rest of the far-right bequeathing us Citizens United, social media hate algorithms, MAGA, and the Clarence court.
Agents of GREED, my friend. The ruling principle of our times.
Especially ironic that many of these greed-mongers pretend to be Christians; their Jesus would smite them all and turn over their money-lending tables.
Let's fight back. Want some inspiration? Check out Rivera Sun's Dandelion Insurrection, a three-part piece of speculative fiction that is easy to read and hard to forget.
Also inspirational (frightening?) is Peter Brannon's The Ends of the World about previous mass extinctions. The world had taken this route before, although it has been set off by meteors and volcanos rather than creatures inhabiting it. "The good thing about science, is that it is true whether you believe it or not." Tyson
Seems interesting for its non-violent means, and for what appears to be good awareness of others in history who have effected needed change.
Today, I just received Max Wyman's "The Compassionate Imagination: How the arts are central to a functioning democracy." Another reader on Heather's site recommended it. Sometimes it takes awhile to receive, but so good to delve into such things. And better if there's apt way to apply to things Heather or her many good, thoughtful commenters may say.
Thank you and thank you for the Max Wyman recommendation. I will order it when I get home. Fascists lack imagination, among other things, and democracy thrives on it.
My online scouting shows the author (a Canadian) may be a bit more polite than I'd like regarding what our billionaire predators have done to our humanities. Will find out.
Love what you say of imagination -- who thrives on it, who lacks it.
By the way, since last exchange, have found copy here in Japan ("Dandelion Insurrection"). Arrives in three days. I'll keep your commenting tab and let you know if I can aptly apply any of the Rivera Sun to any of Heather's.
I was one of about twenty "environment, science, and technology" focused foreign service officers (State Department diplomats) who dedicated years of training to work bilaterally and multilateral in support of protecting the global environment and enhancing scientific cooperation. When Clinton came to the White House, his people ironically decided that such a dedicated coterie was not needed. For most of us, that pretty much ended our careers. It was a sad day indeed, Ransom!
Clinton was a Wall Street Corporatist. He supported and helped pass more Republican legislation than any Repuplican could ever have done, with a Dem majority Congress. If we manage to keep the POTUS and the Senate, and regain the House, those careeres will become important again. We must contribute $$ to effective organizations that back the candidates that have the realistic chances, as well as the GOTV youth organizations. It's now or never.
Ransom, I suspect that contributing money is a less potent force than how we spend our money and what we refuse to spend our money on while persuading those we can to spend their money "earth-wisely" and most important, to NOT spend our money in earth-destructive ways.
If Biden had not won, it would have happened again. Vashon? I ran the little ship that did the sub-bottom imags of all the landlides (still hazardous) on the long Southeast side of Vashon Is. as well as all of Puget sound. You on that beautiful island?
My uncle ran the cal lab at Keyport in the early 80's and I worked as a calibrater there after the Marines and before grad school at UCSB.. Sort of a full circle moment for me.
My dad was involved in designing the first 3D range in Dabob late '50's early 60's. He worked at APL out of UW. Sometimes I would get to go with him. I used to fish off the pier there as a kid. In those days they had to keep an electronic tech onsite for the vacuum tube computer.
Had to correct for the drift of the tube as they warmed up. Used the heat from the computer to heat the building.
Yes, we have been here going on 37 years! Just now I am looking at the diminishing snowpack on the Olympics. I think they are using LiDAR scanning tech to map the contours of Colvos passage (maybe all of Puget Sound?). What agency was in charge of the imaging? So interesting that you were part of that!
The work continues despite the Taliban because fundamentalists lack the imagination and creativity to do anything other than STOP or destroy. That is a negative force. Something deep inside all of us requires imagination and inquiry. I believe that to be as hardwired in us as negativity and mass destruction. And I believe that energy is growing. Just look no further than the moss that grows on cyclotrons after rain.
Newt, Tom Delay and that crew of self-righteous vipers really did a number on so much that was worthwhile. The Taliban is a good name for them, a precursor to our Russian mafia in Congress.
I'm with you Ransom. I've seen the vanishing of the glaciers on Mt Rainier since I was a kid. It's sobering.
I was at UCSB studying in the math department '83-'90. Knew a couple Geo grad students. Were you in Isla Vista in those halcyon days?
My uncle, Charles Woelke was head of the Shellfish lab in Quilcene Wa. He brought oysters from Japan after the war and seeded the bay. Grew up eating all the oysters we could handle. They're all gone now. But as a kid we used to get the water boiling before going out to pull the shrimp and crab pots. That's fresh seafood.
He told me in the '70's that the salmon run was going away. Sad.
Memories of that fresh seafood…As kids in Rhode Island in the 60’s ,we would walk down to a deserted beach ,search for the squirt holes and dig up steamer clams to throw in the pot.
Here in Florida we’re using oysters with,as you probably know, their amazing filtration rate of 50/gallons/day to clean up our man-made mess in the lagoon.
Growing up in South Florida after WWII, the waters around were still clear, the fish and crawfish (Florida lobster) were bountiful, and life was good. As kids are wont to do, I thought it would last forever, Paradise.
One of the family stories I’m most proud of is of him and my grandfather going across the island to get some crawfish (Florida lobster) for supper. Dad said they were stacked like cordwood under the rock ledges, and he began to stuff his croker sack with them. Grandfather told him to put them back, saying, “We only take what we need for today, son.”
Yes, it is! We are so used to thanking military service men and women (rightfully so), I realize now that we should extend an equal measure of thanks to those protecting the Earth.
I’m early and you are early posting!! Thank you for a great summary of Earth Day. We need to remember why we celebrate and preserve the natural world for our children, or as the Native American might say in planning for seven generations into the future!
We have to switch so many of our priorities. Imagine the beauty of dew diamonds after rain. Imagine the fog lifting over a still lake in the morning. Imagine those gifts being given to our children, our grandchildren, and all living beings. That is growth. That is the eternal treasure we must store up for seven generations. That is love beyond all imagining.
Earth Day April 22, 1970. 13 days later, on May 4, 1970 the shootings at Kent State. Depressing events in real time. I was 19 and you could feel the generational divide become a chasm.
SAH & TC, remember also the large proportion of the national guard troops called out at Kent State were also kids, frightened kids with leaders who had forgotten the fundamental dictum of never firing on one's own citizens!
Thank you for this refresher letter about the origin of Earth Day! I had forgotten the history behind Earth Day, especially Nixon’s role. I will honor Earth Day tomorrow by planting a few seeds in my backyard. For the past two years, my husband and I have done away with using disposable plates, cups, and plastic spoons/forks in order to protect our earth. And we now use cloth napkins instead of paper ones. I will thank our earth for her beautiful lands, waters, rocks, and everything else she provides!
Things are so bad now that Nixon, the guy who started it all with the "Southern Strategy" looks good. But he was a worthless motherfucking scumbag who doubled the Vietnam War and under whose "leadership" the majority of casualties in that war - US and Southeast Asian - more than doubled from the first four years under LBJ. He was the first one to try to overthrow the constitution, and no matter the small acts of good like the EPA, he has to be remembered as the Fount of all the Evil - everyone of the GOP Big Gargoyles today started out as little gargoyles under Nixon. His enemies list and COINTELPRO tried to fuck up my life. The best political action I ever took was when I went and pissed on his grave. Him and that worthless war criminal Henry Kissinger who Establishment Washington turned out for his funeral. (I think mostly they wanted to be sure it was him.)
Nixon did not lead the country to an environmental movement. The country demanded movement on the environment, Nixon 'led from behind', it was advantageous politically. BUT in these partisan (crazy MAGA delusional) times, people grasp at any showing of bipartisanship and thus point to former GOP compliance with larger trends. The GOP gave up progressive causes with Lincoln, briefly were briefly dragged back to them by Teddy Roosevelt.
I don't think Nixon lead an environmental movement, but he more than paid lip service to it in ways that contrast sharply with Reagan's contempt for environmental stewardship. that does not outweigh his crimes and his McCarthyesque "red baiting", but there was that facet to him. It seems to me that Reagan sabotaged democracy and the common good at an even deeper level. The GOP of the Nixon (and Eisenhower) eras still contrasts with the openly criminal party of today.
So true J L however, Reagan proved to simply be the voice actor of the military-industrial-corporate class which sought unfettered capitalism as the "solution" to all America's supposed ills, solutions which accelerated the movement of money and power upward to the increasingly rich and powerful, part of a recurring see-saw contest between capitalism and government of the people, by the people and for the people, otherwise known as democracy but usually portrayed as "socialism" and social justice.
My impression of Reagan is that he was a self-important fool who told himself he was on the side of the angels, while I think that Trump knows he he is a fraud and is proud of it. Both are and were malignant narcissists with a certain charisma for those who respect authoritarianism.
"That is the issue that will continue in this country when these poor tongues of Judge Douglas and myself shall be silent. It is the eternal struggle between these two principles -- right and wrong -- throughout the world. They are the two principles that have stood face to face from the beginning of time, and will ever continue to struggle. The one is the common right of humanity and the other the divine right of kings." - Lincoln
The press, that could not stop loving such a made-for-TV phenomenon called him "The Great Delegateor" (as well as "The Great Communicator" ) because he passed so much of the work of being president onto others. Some in the press noticed that he was pretty out of it, but somehow it was all dismissed as part of his charm. I do think he was the pitchman for the by then well organized "Powell Memo" revolution. The "government" he ridiculed was government by and for the people, and his promised saviors were the neo-feudal ultra-wealthy.
AND they pulled it off. Much of the influence of our lives that was once reserved for the public sector is now in the hand in profit-focused quasi-monopolies, what the public had fought against since the "Gilded Age". Lately resistance has increased, but the enemy is entrenched. That said, solidarity, unity among diversity, is the antidote.
TC, did you really piss on Tricky Dicky's grave? Where is his grave anyway? Is it still possible to piss on it? Not sure when I'll make it to California again....
I did. There wasn't a fence around it then, and I waited around till there wasn't anyone nearby then"did the deed" quickly. I wasn't the only one. That's why there's a fence around it now. It's at the Nixon Library.
I beg to differ Steve. And I'm not just thinking about Don Snoreleone. Steve Miller, Roger Stone, Paul Manafort--TFFG seeks out those with Machiavellian tendencies.
It's a long list and I would include many corporate leaders (but I won't).
Another example just to stir everyone up . . . Herb Kaumbach, Nixon's bag man, was with my father and tended to him when my father had a massive stroke. May have saved my father's life. Admittedly, I can't see Steve Miller doing the same.
Not so. Having spent 21 yrs contracted to FLA your statement is proven false by the human and animal victims and survivors. Stop dismissing the trauma of survivors and violence against victims.
When I moved to Wisconsin in 1968, Gaylord Nelson and Bill Proxmire were my US Senators. Having moved from Republican Nebraska, I was thrilled to find I was now in a blue state with two enlightened and hardworking progressive legislators. Ah, those were the days.
I grew up with two Republican US Senators in Oregon: Mark Hatfield and Bob Packwood. Both were good senators and worked for all of Oregon. Hatfield was a US Navy WWII veteran and was the Governor for 8 years before going into the senate. He is responsible for all 300+ miles of Oregon's beaches being public access, and for our bottle bill regarding deposits on beverage containers. They worked well together, with Packwood's ultimate demise being from charges of sexual misconduct. I suspect both would be Democrats today.
It's about time that Climate change, Earth Day, EPA, etc get back into the headlines and the onslaught of tfg news disappears, together with him, from the front pages.
Thank you so much, Heather! And Happy Earth Day to all the life forms here on Earth! 🎉🎉🎉🌎🌍🌏 And in honor of our Native American Interior Secretary, here’s Oren Lyons speaking on Native Americans’ relationship to Mother Earth. He’s in his 90s now, but this is from 2011. I first heard him about 30 years ago at a sustainability conference organized by John Denver. So much wisdom in the many videos of him on YouTube 🙏🏻😊
Adjacent to our organic community vegetable garden is a large field carefully maintained to promote milkweed. The Monarchs visit me as I gently till the Earth. Grateful I am.
I was very found of milkweed as a kid. It does not grow where I live now. I don't think there a monarchs here either. Fewer numbers and kids of butterflies on the West Coast than when I lived in the "Midwest", so far as I have seen, Butterflies are one of the standout joys of summer.
When I was in elementary school in Medford Oregon in the mid 1960's, one of the foundational activities we would participate in was the collection of milkweed and monarch caterpillars. They'd live in mayonnaise jars with nail holes in the lids, munching on milkweed until they made their cocoons. When they came out, we'd interrupt class, and take the butterflies out to free them.
55 years later, the milkweed that I have in my yard is far, far different than the milkweed that grew wild in the alley behind my parents' house. I have yet to see monarchs, but I hope....
In NE PA during WW2 we rural kids were issued gunny sacks for collecting milkweed pods which were used to fill life vests. I live in Sonoma county CA where we see very few monarchs so I'm hoping to attract them along with the smaller ones, the moths even...
Yes! Planted lettuce and more peas last week. The garlic is looking strong. And the first spears of asparagus are emerging. Nothing like getting on your hands and knees and pulling weeds!
And I stepped out on patio at 10:00 p.m. because we heard an owl . It’s been a few years since we’ve heard one, because of development, but now all the trees planted in the 26 years in this house have many wild creatures returning. The owls absolutely delight me. I’m hoping he’s back tonight.
Good point Gary. My daughter recently sold her house in Jacksonville, FL because the cost of homeowner's insurance and property taxes had doubled to over $1000 a month.
Recently Allstate requested a 52% increase in their rates in FL to cover the losses from the previous storms and insured they will have enough reserves to cover their insureds for the next multi-billion dollar event.
DeSantis has no clue on how to solve this problem as the mortgage companies require homeowner's insurance and the state owned HIC is losing money hand over fist.
One more storm and FL will come begging us, the people to bail them out for allowing homes and businesses to be built on the shore that aren't builtt on stilts. (Not that it will matter in the long run).
The few companies that are left insuring property in FL require new policy owners to have a roof that is 15 years old or less. My daughter's roof was 17 years old and had weathered two Force 3 hurricanes with no damage. Before she could sell her house, she had to spend $12,500 to replace the roof.
After the hurricanes in Jacksonville, unscrupulous contractors came in and took up-front money and never showed up to do the work or the work was inferior in many cases. Of course, the insurance companies retaliated with severe restrictions on the contractors. Who loses? The homeowners and the businesses.
Florida will come begging soon to be bailed out as soon as the next hurricane.
I think we should tell them to pound sand unless they address climate change issues which, of course, they deny.
Deb Haaland is looking at quite a few places in Northern California to designate as protected lands for animal species and the preservation of our waters. This is necessary for our environment to sustain the weather patterns we are experiencing and will, in the future. It is exciting to have a very capable Native American woman at the helm of these projects. https://www.doi.gov/pressreleases/secretary-haaland-announces-95-million-through-presidents-investing-america-agenda
Hi Marlene, thanks for sharing the link. "Chronic Water Shortages due to increased population." Yes, historically consistent supply is expected to meet an ever increasing demand? With regards to No Cal, and the Klamath, are you familiar with the Yurok, '70's Salmon war, one of the largest fish kills in US History as a result of water diversion due to Agriculture Necessity? She spoke in Albuquerque, a high desert, with regards to water rights. Marlene, I hope you're right about Deb and her integrity. Washington has devolved into Me but was founded on We. Cheers, and keep being positive and optimistic .
I watched footage of the removal of the Iron Gate dam on the Klamath River. I have friends in Southern Oregon who worked tirelessly to make that happen, and are now stewards for the replanting of native plants.
No Scott, I wasn’t aware with the Yurok but that was in the 70’s and the knowledge gained in the years afterwards, plus the power of social media, has been studied and enhanced, hopefully. Keeping my fingers crossed that we gain rather than regret.
Thank you Professor for the reminder of our role in protecting our environment. “Public outrage ran so high that President Nixon went to Santa Barbara in March to see the cleanup efforts, telling the American public that “the Santa Barbara incident has frankly touched the conscience of the American people.” I was a preteen in Santa Barbara in the 1950s and sixties and loved the ocean and beaches. However while the air seemed clean, there were areas of oil on the beaches. Even swimming out on rafts we found ourselves dribbled with oil. In my poem, “Cleaning Feet with Gasoline” I describe how there was more than one spill, and how my father helped us clean up after a swim. “On weekend excursions this burly-chested Neptune rose out of the ocean, shaking off the salty brine. We children lined up to wait our turns, as he gently removed tar from our feet with gasoline.” Since those years, the California coast and beaches have been cleaned up and are pristine. And the air pollution dramatically reduced. There are laws and restrictions on land use and protection, also making the value and cost of property high. We cannot rely on private companies and entities to protect the land. Laws and regulations work for all of us. We rely on our government to create and enforce laws that protect people and property. Earth Day is every day.
My partner worked on a fishing boat and on the night of the oil spill, at Stearns Wharf, while unloading the catch, the oil rig service boats were being loaded with bags of crushed walnut shells. There was a panicked rush, and the crew said a huge spill was going on, and they hoped to stop the fissure with those shells.
Irenie, I grew up in Carpenteria…..moved north to Humboldt County for college just months before the big spill….many of my high school friends were hired to work on beach cleanup…I probably would have been among them were I not hundreds of miles away. I have great memories of swimming & body surfing in the ocean there—something not done in far northern CA!!!!!!
Indeed, she was, Steve. I have long stated that Rachel Carson was a most underrated American hero. She was the rare, Renaissance type academic who combined scholarly scientific wisdom with wonderful, near poetic writing, and a sensitive, non-polemic nature.
Fine essay, as always, Ma'am. ¡Hooray, President Biden! There will always be push-back. Full speed ahead. I remember that first Earth Day fifty-four years ago. My sixth grade class skipped Art as the Art teacher instructed us to go to the local business intersection to pick up litter. ✌️
Nine years later, I read 'Silent Spring' for an Environmental Econ. class. As l had been the product of a pro-business conservative family, fellow Pittsburgher Ms Carson's work 'shocked, chagrinned, and appalled me", as an informal banking mentor used to say. 😯
Rarely does such a compelling reaction repeat itself in later life. But this one did when I read 'The Overstory' by Richard Powers in 2023. As a novel with quirky characters rather than straight science, 'The Overstory' is not many people's cup-of-joe. ¿For me? ¡My cup runneth over! 🙂
My springs are noticeably more silent (at least from birdsong) in the last decade or so. Seemingly far fewer birds and many in the past standby species not seen here (at my home) for years.
Well that is very sad news, J.L. I am not one for the outdoors, but we have a moral obligation towards those birds, it seems to me. Rather a guilty, if not violent, complacency on my part. 😢 I am not trained in the physical sciences to make any kind of empirical judgement about climate change. So, I take others' words for it, others far smarter than I. 📛 What strikes me as a liberal arts guy is that something is ethically off and just plain stupid if we just keep dumping stuff, willy nilly, into the air, water, etc. 😱 Nice to hear from you.
Nice to hear from you. I am trained in the biological and physical sciences and grew up surrounded by "nature", but that's not the important thing. In the story a child saw that the emperor was naked. Teenage Greta Thunberg towered over mealy-mouthed politicians. I believe that the key to wisdom is more of less accurately sensing what is most important. It a slippery thing to define, but I think it requires a resonance between empirical realities and human sentience. It's perhaps the beauty that is truth and the truth that is beauty. We can be clever and educated and still be utter fools. We can also be naive yet observant. In fact what we know, or think we do, can give us an advantageous place to stand and observe from, but if we are not very careful, can also block our view.
Very aptly and wisely stated, J.L. I spent a full day (a lot of time for me) before the 2016 election, reviewing the everyday telling of the science you understand and which you kindly share in these threads.
😯
The material, anchored in one particular article, was overwhelmingly persuasive of the science, at least to a layman like me. The ethical concern tipped that conclusion into a conviction.
Young (wo)men like Miss Thunberg hearten me. They reign as 'snowflakes' in the best sense of the word: each equipped with a resilient and unique purity seeking to maintain a world still capable of producing snow from the atmosphere rather than some machine in Dubai.
😇
My, oh my, G-D knows what a mess my generation has left behind. 😢
To me science is a commitment to a kind of integrity, at least as it's root. Presumably on the basis of casual inspection Aristotle decided that the more something weighs the faster it falls. You would easily get that impression from dropping a feather vs a shot-put, but there is where it pays to look deeper, which Galileo did, measuring the influence of gravity with a system of ramps. By doing so he uncovered one of the greatest underpinnings (and attendant mysteries of modem physics. The details are mostly of interest to physicists and engineers, but the process is a procedural form of critical thinking.
And we humans seem very keen to lead each other astray. We are inured to it, but how much advertising, even from fine non-profit groups, is designed to leave some sort of false impression? Nixon's dishonesty was considered a scandal, but Republicans appear to lie, and lie big, every single day. Why have they not been banished to the fringe". Those who tell the truth, especially to the expose abuses of power, as Alexander Vindmann did, as Brooksley Born did, should be hailed as heroes, over and above the public vindication they have received from time to time. Also, significant, proven liars be stigmatized.
Lies hurt, even kill. And yes, ethics is a essential part of civilized conversation.
Aristotle can hardly be faulted. It seems to me that science is the accumulation of knowledge. That requires a humility in 'looking weak, wrong, or bad' in changing one's opinion or conclusion. That is what seems to be lacking all too often these days. Hopefully, after this past w/e, and the Trumper tantrums at the Court House will consign these people increasingly to the fringe.
Ours may be a culture of narcissism, as Christopher Lash argued forty-five years ago, but people do have limits. The link above clicks through to an interesting essay, as a chapter in a forthcoming book, by Dr Bandy Lee, who led the twenty-seven psychiatrists and intellectual leaders . In 2017, these professionals gathered and questioned Trump's fitness for the presidency.
Shame on me for not knowing of Brooksley Born for I was a banker in the 1990s. As a risk manager, I became deeply suspicious of credit derivatives after 2000. There were tell-tale signs of intellectual and systemic corruption. I warned my employer repeatedly that things were going blow up. All that came later, after I had exited banking (without the door tapping my hiney on the way out).
That nuclear destination in the financial markets proved far graver than I could ever have imagined because of the dissemination of crummy assets throughout the markets through collateralized debt obligations. That happened just as I got the final boot from an investment bank.
About 10 years ago, I was on a motorcycle trip in Northern California (up around Mt. Shasta) and we ran into a butterfly migration. It was awful how many of those beautiful insects ended up on my bike, my helmet, and me.
We had the same experience. I slowed to about 45 mph because it seemed like I hit fewer of them... I'm sure there were at least 75 on my bike, my windscreen, and my face shield. It was awful.
That’s stink bugs for me! I hate them. I never say the word stink bug without preceding it with an expletive starting with F. I flush them. They’re destructive to crops around here.
I grew up between age 5 and 16 in Ohio, mostly around Akron and Cuyahoga Falls, and recall that aspect of summer. Also recall lots of butterflies, and fireflies as well, but I have not been back in a while. Brief visits have revealed many changes.
What a melancholy song, but I can’t say it’s not true. I’m from a similar area - northeast Ohio, but Cleveland, not Akron. Today’s newsletter had me recalling going to the beach at the Mentor Headlands, but not being allowed to touch the water. It was smelly, with that foam of pollution. That, at least, is much improved today.
I’m in Columbus now. We have fireflies, but not the swarms I remember from the 60s.
What made that novel so unsettling was, for me, getting wrapped around the axle by the characters only to be knocked off balance by some fact or observation of what de-foresting is doing to all of us.
“The Overstory” by Richard Powers, winner of Pulitzer Prize for fiction. Fabulous writing felt so real I kept thinking the characters must actually be real. Talk about deserving Pulitzer.
Is the Black Rain in Donora referring to the smog that killed many people? Many PGH stories about people like Gertrude Stein, Danny Marino, Czechoslovakia, et al. Of course, we cast a wide net to claim people as being from Pittsburgh. 😉 Many PGH stories about waking up to two stripes under the nostrils, whacking curtains with a broom to start the day, taking a shirt to change into at lunch-time for executives, etc. 👀 For all of that, I loved PGH as a steel town and was lucky to work in an integrated steel mill during my summers in college. Thank you, Daniel, for the walk down memory lane. 🙂
How soon we forget. "The yellow fog arrived five days before Halloween in 1948, swaddling the Pennsylvania city of Donora and the nearby village of Webster in a nearly impenetrable haze. Citizens attending the Donora Halloween parade squinted into the streets at the ghostlike figures rendered nearly invisible by the smoke. The Donora Dragons played their habitual Friday night football game, but, their vision obscured by the fog, ran the ball rather than throwing it. And when terrified residents began calling doctors and hospitals to report difficulty breathing, Dr. William Rongaus carried a lantern and led the ambulance by foot through the unnavigable streets."
Will be reading 'The Smithsonian' article later today. I remember reading about it in grade school and being astonished by the tragedy of Donora. Thank you for sending the article along.
Thank you for the vid. on Florida. I worked in Baghdad by the Dust (i.e., Iraq). Talk about climate change. Many people died due to the lack of affordable oil for air conditioning on nights over a hundred degrees, at least in the early hours of the night. Brutal.
This could not be more critical and so clearly expressed. I would also recommend the Encyclical letter “Laudato Si - on care of our common home “ from Pope Francis. Of course there is a Catholic perspective but it also clearly articulates how nature must be accorded the equal agency as man/womankind. There is so much more but it demonstrates that although Trump seems to dominate the media, this is more important. We are in a time like no other with both political and environmental instability. Thank you Heather!
Whether we see the beauty or not, the whole of nature, the whole of existence, is interconnected. Each of us lives in relation to every other. This is not mystic mutterings, but the actuality if we look. And this is a sound basis for a politics of inclusion and hope. thank you
You are right Richard. It doesn't require mystic visions, a fancy education, scientific acumen, religious beliefs, or political leanings to recognize that it is humanity that will destroy or save our world. It just requires an open mind and humility to recognize that the fate of our one and only planet earth is in our hands.
In fact it requires the casting aside of the elements of the Abrahamic religions that posit humanity's separation from and lordship over nature. In that sense many of the so-called primitive religions have it right and should be learned from rather than exterminated. We also need to recognize how big business has manipulated public values to prioritize monetary gain as the sole purpose of human existence. And they do so with the active partnership of many religious leaders.
Stephen, excellent observations.
The two points you mention are the basis of trillions of bad decisions and horrific mistakes by the dominant people of the planet.
If I were a novelist or script writer, I would pen a story about European "explorers" of the New World who met indigenous people and saw them differently. What if the Europeans had been impressed rather than frightened by Native Americans? What if the earliest invaders were to have embraced the ancient wisdoms they encountered? What if they had decided to learn rather than plunder? What if they had discovered that the real treasure in the Western Hemisphere was the highly developed cultures that had evolved over thousands of years?
What if we hadn't started our lives in this chunk of the planet as greedy, ignorant and arrogant. What if we had become students?
One of the most wonderful and symbolic acts by President Biden was the nomination of Deb Haaland for Interior Secretary. Another reason to vote Blue - from the top of the ticket to the bottom.
I love the creativity and dream you envisioned! The path not taken, but maybe we can hope for a path re-discovered.
Good thoughts to ponder, Bill. "What if" indeed. What if we'd learned instead of taught? What if we'd listened instead of shouted. What if we'd talked instead of fought?
Ally, yes, what if. We have a set of orders issued to one of my husband's relatives here in Oregon during a war against Native Americans in southern Oregon. The commanding officer ordered his men to pursue them by any means, including eating horses and Native Americans if necessary. if they didn't, they would be mentioned unfavorably. I used this set of orders in my writing class as an original document for students to analyze and they had their eyes opened.
The Modoc Wars. An awful time in our history.
WOW.
The little local museums invented and operated by local lovers of history are often treasures. The Bandon Historical Society Museum is where I learned of the massacre of local people by gold miners in the 1850s.
That’s a real eye-opener order!
Our first ecologist, Henry David Thoreau, wrote some of these thoughts 170 years ago. Unfortunately, instead of protecting the interconnectedness of all life, the Gold Rush preoccupied the 19th century American mind set and continues into the 21st.
May I mention human greed, human aggression, human arrogance as among but not only our innate natures. We are a vicious, domineering species. We have over populated the earth, we are over consuming it's resources, we are killing it's creatures. Indigenous people everywhere and throughout history have succumbed to the numbers and technology of outside invaders. But Gaia will get even as we run out of fresh water, run out of wild fish (have you bought fish lately), experience the increasingly weather extremes of rain, drought, heat, and wind. Have you noticed that popular music is increasingly angry, our current artists increasingly incomprehensible? Artists are more sensitive to our current situation. Well maybe benign robots and A.I. devices will replace us.
George, yes Gaia will have her say and she is already quite loud. But so many ascribe what happens to God (not the same here as Gaia) and give thanks they survived and then go on to do the same foolish things. My sister's family is doing their best to help with overpopulation as I now have at least a dozen great greats. I had a long conversation via messenger last night with my nephew's wife. They have money woes of course and are caught in red tape when trying to get help. They have a house which counts as part of their income even though it is not ready money. They are too busy trying to survive to understand what we are up against.
George, human flaws are many. I wish, at the Garden of Eden, God would have noticed that his two prototypes were not very good. He could have started over. Later, God was so disgusted he flooded the earth to get rid of the bad actors. The problem with Noah and his family is that they had the original lousy operating system. The only solution is to change the OS. We now have a tool for modifying DNA called CRISP-R. We ought to use it.
Patrick, the problem is that genetics and behaviour are not well connected. Religion does not seem to work well either. An education system that stresses decency might help.
People may have been frightened by Native Americans at times and some died as the result of encounters with indigenous peoples, but Europeans often viewed them as part of the fauna to be eliminated, that the continent was basically empty, and that it could be used as a giant workhouse to send problem people to. And then of course, like every other part of the world outside of Europe, it was full of goods to be plundered and exploited. Indigenous people had highly developed societies, but since they didn't look like the European model, they had no government. And then they also needed Christianity which often brought death and destruction. When they didn't make good slaves, Europeans started importing Africans. Here we have a country that was built largely on genocide, land theft, and slavery. I am so pleased that Biden chose a Native American to lead Interior. A nice change from the exploiters and believers in the Second Coming. Also I do see instances where land is being returned to Native Americans and they are included as stakeholders in decisions....at least some of the time.
Interior Department secretary Deb Haaland is another reason why it is imperative that President Joe Biden be re-elected. He will use the next 4 years to solidify the healing turn around that is working.
The fact that European diseases came with European invaders and killed 90% of the indigenous population so that Europeans saw only a remnant of the highly developed societies that had been, reinforced the european prejudice that the indigenous people were sub human.
The Iroquois lost so many people that they started warring with other nations to gain more population. The Spanish found obviously sophisticated civilizations, but were overwhelmed by their greed for gold and silver. As for North America, while many died, I doubt very much that Europeans were looking very hard. They had to somehow justify their rapaciousness. All they could see was land, fur, and always they were looking for gold. And then the Native Americans were not Christians, so let's bring some missionaries.
Have you read "The Years of Rice and Salt," by Kim Stanley Robinson? It has a similar theme of an alternate world history. The Native Americans fared much better in it.
Sara, thanks for the book recommendation. Noted.
Read The Dawn of Everything, by Graeber and Wengrow. One of the things they cover in some depth is what they call "the indigenous critique." When Columbus arrived in the Western Hemisphere looking for slaves and gold and a route to China, there was a large, well-developed indigenous society all over the North American continent. Europe immediately sent over Jesuits to convert the natives, but what actually happened was much more interesting.
European culture was very top-down. Every nation had a king and a hierarchy, and valued obedience.
American culture was very horizontal and valued individual liberty.
One of the consequences of this differences was that Americans were horrifically good debaters, because there was essentially no way to get an American to do anything without arguing him/her into wanting to do it. In most cases, the Americans concluded that the Jesuits were insane, and absolutely had to be lying about conditions in Europe. So some of the Americans went to Europe, and were the "toast of the town" everywhere they went. They debated with the intelligentsia in Europe. The Europeans didn't do well in their arguments, and the Americans returned with the conviction that the Europeans were, indeed, insane. At the same time, the earlier Jesuit diaries, in which the priests had recorded the nature of American society as well as the indigenous critique, became what we would call "best sellers" throughout the European intelligentsia.
What's particularly interesting is the "coincidence" that this rise of American ideas in Europe, which started in the 1600's and spread into the early 1700's, just happened to precede two major upheavals, one being the French Revolution, which essentially destroyed the "regime ancien" of King, Church, and Country, while in the American Colonies, there was this complete revolt against the British system, and US British "democracy" was born. All of the authoritarian regimes of Europe were badly shaken, and every one of them has been transformed.
Graeber and Argument suggest that American Native intellectual influence on Europe was much stronger than in the other direction. All the Europeans managed to do to the Americans was kill them, and it took a whole lot of fighting dirty, like using smallpox as a weapon of mass destruction. The Native Americans effectively wiped out the regime ancien, and created the EU.
What if we could find the cause and a remedy for the mental disease that makes men think it's a good thing to invade and plunder? Who the F do they think they are? Calling them Pigs is an affront to the animal!
I hope you become a writer. That book would find a loving home with me!
I agree with this point, Stephen, the Abrahamic religions are part of the problem, claiming that Man has dominion over all. I now feel a sense of guilt at what we have done and are doing to our fellow creatures who inhabit this planet. It appears that in this regard we are clueless, just as the MAGA folks are clueless about Trump's danger to democracy and how the oligarchs use disinformation to manipulate their voting against their own best interests. These are not, on the whole, happy times.
Yes Stephen and Richard,
God in our image is a grandiose fantasy.
I’m thinking as this day opens of what is deeply sacred to all living things: air, earth, light, water.
Turtles, dolphins, eagles, lady bugs etc….we must protect them.
The earth is sacred in all its diversity as you both implied.
Also, HCR’s detailed rundown of how today came to be is a beautiful synopsis. Nixon of all people surprised me ….. I must have been sleep walking through much of this rundown! Shame on me. Now I’m happily among The Woke thanks to Heather and her highly intelligent followers.
Wow, Samm, your phrase "God in our image" is startlingly accurate. 🎯🔥
Nixon's positive work on the environment surprised me too and, like you, some shame at how hard it is for me to credit Nixon with anything good. I hope I'm not so binary on current events. Oh wait. I am! Lol. Yet another area of improvement to add my already long list.
But as a farm girl, I'm not so
quick to dismiss the mystical when it comes to our natural world.
More proof to how mired in the cesspool of waste Sleepy DON has taken the former GOP.
You are so right! I share the sense of guilt almost daily of what we have done to our planet and life on it. If we could collectively turn that guilt into action, "What a wonderful life that would be!"
Lynne, having grown up in Texas where we shot and killed every creature with reckless abandon, it took me a while to realize how wrong we were to take other lives so wantonly. In many cases we can't even treat each other humanely, to say nothing about other creatures. We have racism and misogyny here, Putin invading Ukraine and killing innocent men, women and children. I fear for posterity if somewhere, somehow soon we don't start exercising our critical thinking faculties and put the lie to the climate deniers, the racists, the misogynists, etc.
I couldn't agree more. My husband I lived in Dallas for 12 years and I understand the cultural heritage you grew up with. There are many awakenings that can push us forward to awareness. Perhaps my first was seeing the aftermath of war in Stuttgart, Germany, when I was 4-6 years old: total destruction, men as amputees looking for food, families trying to find mother, father, sister, brother, and the economy in shambles. The situation in Ukraine and Gaza...and before that Syria (where I also have lived), wound deeply. Man's inhumanity to man is astounding...and our arrogance at destroying the environment and pushing species to extension...killing, killing, killing, is so obviously wrong. It does, however, feel like the younger generation is more sensitized to it all and that awareness is growing. That is the hope.
Richard, perhaps I am giving the oligarchs and Republicans too much credit, but they have created a society so overwhelmed with stress overload that prefrontal cortex-based critical thinking is secondary to amygdala-based fear and anger. It certainly works in their favor. It’s not that schools don’t teach critical thinking (though they don’t and never really did), it’s that people struggling to survive are less able to think critically. Thus the oligarchs and their lapdogs are free to do whatever the hell brings them the most power and wealth.
Ah, it's good to have a handy scapegoat, but "Abrahamic religions" isn't going to work. It is human beings that develop religions for their own needs and human beings that twist the teachings of those religions for their own changing purposes. Dominion is an English word that has been used to translate ancient concepts that were originally closer to the word husband as in "animal husbandry". Scriptures that were handed down for centuries as oral stories of a nomadic/ pastoral population before being written down in languages that are no longer in common use, and then translated from translations into English are not the problem. The problem is human beings in a completely different form of society trying to use those scriptures to rationalize their own desires.
Mary Ellen, you write regarding the influence or non-influence of Abrahamic religions: "The problem is human beings in a completely different form of society trying to use those scriptures to rationalize their own desires." That's not to say that the scriptures didn't help to shape certain attitudes. I was brought up early on as a Presbyterian and the notion that God gave Man dominion over all the plants and animals was definitely a concept that I learned in Sunday School. Of course, when I grew to manhood I left behind my childish thinking.
Well, my point is that what people say the scriptures say is fungible. My opinion is that the change from an agrarian society to an industrial society is the cause of a new interpretation of scriptures that were handed down and eventually written for/by an agrarian society. English versions of the Hebrew and Christian scriptures are, like the Aramaic and Hebrew and Latin versions translations of translations and all translations include the opinions of the translators.
Those scriptures continue to be translated and today we have Earth Day complete with theology that supports it from most US denominations including the one you grew up in.
Your Sunday School teachings as you remember them are probably not a very fair representation of the teachings of the Presbyterian Church today. The Presbyterian Church today is teaching that "we are called to stewardship of the earth".
Rachel Carson's Silent Spring was an inflection point in more than one area.
Ever notice the dumpster's "attitude" towards other species appears to be the same as towards anyone who he considers less important - or beneath him?
No concept of nature or wildlife or any other being than "himself". And honestly I think that includes his children - certainly his wives (plural).
No pets ever in that "family". Which really is a good thing - for the animals.
That is an interesting tidbit, that TFG never had a dog. Could it be that they couldn't find a dog that would love TFG? Is that possible, given that dogs are pure love? I admire dogs for their very clever scheme to get humans to take care of their every need: housing, food, medical, etc. The scheme was simple: shower the humans with love and they'll do for you whatever you want. Brilliant. Genius. Why didn't we think of that?
I actually jumped to the conclusion of no pets - but just cannot imagine it. Then there are those great pictures of his "boys" with their guns & dead animals. I think most people who do care about animals have empathy towards them. And Empathy & Trumps just do not mesh!!
Amen, brother!! You took the words right out of my mouth!! "God gave man dominion over the earth"!! Which we greedily interpreted to mean, "Take what you want; despoil, decimate, destroy."
For centuries there was always a new frontier to conquer, so we left our trashed homelands to go in search of new lands to despoil, new people to enslave or destroy. Pogo was right: "We have met the enemy, and he is us."
Well, there is another Christain take on this:
https://sjvkirkland.org/what-is-the-meaning-of-dominion/#:~:text=In%20the%20first%20of%20the,control%20over%20the%20entire%20earth.
You hit it on the head and opened the core problem. However, we can change, through awareness or be forced to one way or another...hopefully before it's too late.
Stephen, I was just thinking about this as i started to read the comments. I recently read Genesis KJV as I was about to read a book about it. I did squirm at the verses about dominion over all the earth. I also recently read Braiding Sweetgrass by a biologist who also a member of a Native American nation. She reminded readers of indigenous wisdom and what we need to do. Yes, I thought, but the forces standing in the way of this have lots more power and money. And Wyoming is calling efforts "colonialism" which is just too rich. I live in Oregon and I am always amazed at how much destruction the US and white settlers managed to do in a relatively short time. We have real water problems with pollution in eastern Oregon and too many water rights. Also although I have known a few people who have made real efforts to do the right thing, most of us just forget that when we want to travel a long distance or do something else that doesn't help. Right now I am seeing pictures of a coast to coast trip and back again in a big RV taken by friends who incidentally pride themselves on their progressive Christianity. Our next door neighbor has lots to say about climate change, but also has a large RV. He does have solar panels on the roof for some things, but then there is the gas mileage. I confess too that we have not be free of doing things like this, but have never owned a RV. On overseas trips, I noted an article this week that Amsterdam wants to limit the number of tourists that come. The only good thing about COVID is that with things shut down, things got better in terms of traffic and pollution.
When the indigenous nations made decisisons, they considered the effects 6 generations into the future.
Gosh, what a concept. Most people only think as far as maybe the next few days.
Hmmm...Since I live in an RV, and have since 2014, I would like a chance to defend living in a house that has wheels.
Yes, our truck burns more diesel when we are traveling, but we also have a pretty small "footprint" on the land. We go south for the winter and spend our summers volunteering for Oregon State Parks. We live in less than 400 square feet quite comfortably. We are not acquiring "things", we are acquiring memories.
I would say there are exceptions to the people who drag around their very large RVs and get very little mileage. I commend you for having a small footprint and acquiring memories instead of things. I could even go for more people in small spaces on wheels if they were all like you. Personally, I would go crazy living with anyone in that small a space, but I could probably manage a smaller house. We have almost a half acre and we have gardened it as organically as possible for many, many years. We inherited our dining room furniture. We grow some of our own food, we support local farmers and ranchers who do it right without loads of chemicals. We try to support local businesses and restaurants. I confess to a lot of travel at one time on airplanes. We do drive a Prius Prime and rarely drive outside the city and we have solar panels on our roof.
Yes, Stephen, big business is a big part of the problem. In the 12 western states Heather mentions, particularly Wyoming, the relevant big businesses are the fossil fuel industry and cattle grazing. There it is easy to manipulate public values when so many are employed in those industries. We need ways to support different employment opportunities in those states.
One of the biggest differences between the east and west sides of the Rocky Mountains is the percentage of land that is owned by the federal government. In the 12 western states together, the Federal Government owns at least 50% of the land. Wyoming is a little over 48% federally owned. Nevada is 80% federally owned and Oregon is about 53% federally owned. This means that one of the bigger employers in those states is the Federal Government. Secretary Haaland's reintroduction of preservation as part of multiple use may be a source of those different employment opportunities.
Big business certainly created and promoted “Money is the sole purpose of human existence” by freezing wages, cutting benefits, busting unions, and destroying the social safety net. For people working several part-time jobs just to survive, big business has successfully forced them to prioritize jobs over nature, clean air and water, and environmental protections.
I think you'll find that Rachel Carson's Silent Spring changed theology as well as other forms of thought about the relationship between human beings and the earth. On Sunday most "mainline churches" heard a sermon about stewardship rather than the 1950s version of dominion.
So true, thank for posting my thoughts.
Excellent assessment, Stephen.
Rolyac & Richard, while it may not take a scientific education to recognize the doom to which we are heading, it does take recognizing the psychology leading such a loarge proportion of oue population to fight the changes we must make if we are to slow and eventually reverse the terrible effects of our industrial activities here on earth. It will not be just those who became rich and powerful through their exploitation of earth's resources but all the masses of people who are employed and make their livings from the products of these rich, powerful and persuasive leaders who will fight tooth and nail to prevent the changes in our behavior which are so essential to the planet's survival as we know it, a planet whose very weather patterns are daily becoming less recognizable to us.
John, many have been fighting tooth and nail against regulations all along - that is nothing new. Having spent my career working to protect the climate, I have seen many examples, even of good smart people, not willing to make changes in order to protect and preserve for future generations. (Read Naomi Oreskes’ ‘Merchants of Doubt’, which covers the historical efforts of oil companies to reframe the known effects of carbon emissions on the atmosphere. Oil companies are still lying about how dangerous it is and worse yet, making all out efforts to increase oil production. )
The work to protect this small blue orb and its inhabitants remains the same. Help elect sane candidates, support sane federal, state and local policies, help get out the vote, and reduce our own use of precious resources. And we will protect this precious democracy at the same time.
Time for my morning dog walk in the restored prairie across the street. Trumpeter Swans, all manner of duck and song birds, hawks, eagles, deer and the occasional coyote sightings make everything better. Soon, the wildflowers will be blooming too!
Then, back to being an activist.
Sheila B THANK you for your persistent efforts on behalf of our beleaguered planet! And may your morning walk serve to renew your firm attachment to and residence on our shared earth! Swans, ducks, song birds, hawks, eagles, even deer and especially the occasional coyote remain our best reasons and reinforcers of the crucial importance of what you do.
The wildflowers will be the frosting on that cake!
After-the-fact , too late for many, lives lost buried by infamous cover-upmanship- their lengthy lethal omissions for callous greed as plastic enters our blood stream the harbinger of tossed principles by practiced pollution.
Recycling here is dumping over the hillside in obscured ‘hollers’, thrown or flicked out a vehicle window, burned in caustic pits yet deny the downwind responsibility, too poor in mental awareness to care or is that…bother?
The ripple affect has now become a tsunami , eradicating species , raising denials from even our own ‘representatives’…as the Erin Brockovich tare and tears fall to costs deferred by profit margins or lobby tactics.
The <<sighs>> are from Mother Nature’s tally …and she will win.
💙💙VOTE💙💙
You make an excellent point about people who make their living from companies who exploit earth's resources. Have you seen the "I am an energy voter" ads? They are well produced ads sponsored by Koch Industries, as in Charles Koch. The smiling people seen in the ads are Koch employees, going about their daily work. These people are doing their jobs, paying their bills, putting food on their table, etc. exploiting resources for Charles Koch's companies. They don't recognize themselves as contributing to the damage of the planet. Earth's resources, no matter what resources they are, are finite. They might look infinite at first glance, but they WILL run out. Many animals have been driven to extinction or almost to extinction because they were useful to humans in some way, example- whale oil.
Kochland is a frightening book of the two faced Koch industries.....How they employ a 110% rule for "compliance" while working to change the regulations so they can do as they wish.
That should sit right beside Jane Mayers iconic "Dark Money."
Precisely on target Jenn SH! Great examples, shameful as they are!
And for a book about the Koch brothers, read Jane Mayer's DARK MONEY.
Your insight into the need to attend to the psychology of change is right on. Yet, as my seventh grade gym teacher used to say, “It’s a dumb bird who shits in his own nest.” It doesn’t really take much more sophistication than that to see the need to join the environmental movement. What does that say about all those resisting sustainability?
And perhaps a different perspective is that it’s a dumb bird to produce too many egg hatches for the nest to hold. Because we are such a fractured populace, environmental issues will only be met half way if at all. Economics rules and our industries own Congress unique in the world, with so much influence. Continued population expansion will continue to cut short environmental goals. We are but one step away from electing a person who will turn every progressive clock back to the 19th century.
I remember attending the first Earth Day at the State Capital of CT. It’s amazing that the fully corrupted Nixon who prolonged the Vietnam war through obstruction of the Paris Peace Talks could be the person who created the EPA. The loss of additional life plus destruction of nature in Vietnam verses EPA. I can’t reconcile this. I am unable to get pass this mental road block.
We now have a candidate whose only mission is winning for his own glory and selfish desires to accumulate more wealth. But aren’t most like this? This populist character is in the extreme as demented as can be. he speaks to a disquieted populace. Now our gas stoves are bad for the environment. Biden must choose battles and not make everything a choice. I want my gas stove. So TFG makes gas stoves an issue. My God. What next. Back to pollution, while it’s very necessary to regulate (sure another bad lexicon for our populist candidate) we have long forgotten one aspect to natural balance: population expansion and it will never end because man is essentially a greedy species. We want it all. We want the now polluted oceans of polluted fish filled with micro plastics. We want expanded economic development and economists always tell us that an expanded population assures economic development. Man is in constant pursuit of his tail. And the tale is not a wonderful story to tell.
Ah, yes, the fate of the planet.
Nixon also tried to do something that would have made a big difference today. Nixon established a commission on population, as he understood that environmental harm is proportional to the numbers of people in a population, and the average consumption per person. There were slightly more than 200,000,000 Americans at the time of the first Earth Day, and now there are 336,000,000--an increase of well more than 50 percent.
Unfortunately, the Catholic Church let Nixon know in no uncertain terms that if he persisted in this vein the Church would ensure that he would not be re-elected.
And equally unfortunately, the US began opening the floodgates to mass immigration, which was the source of 40 million from 1990-2020, and which has added close to 10 million in just the four years of the Biden Administration.
Don't get me wrong--despite the fact tht Biden has not been good on immigration, I think he is the best president of my lifetime, which began the first summer of the Eisenhower Administration, but the Census Bureau projects our population will grow ~20 million per decade over the next four decades. Among much else, on average people who move to the US produce three times as much greenhouse gas as they did in their home countries. The US has the highest per capita consumption of the major industrialized nations--we're the worst place on the planet to put more people.
Thanks to our exploding population, insects, mammals, birds, reptiles, and amphibians have been in steep declines over the last 50 years. Overpopulation is killing nature.
You are so right and I would love to give the Pope some advice. Birth control should have been part of environmental protection act.
While I think it is possible to rub one too many crystals, we are all earthlings (I hope),and as such part of a system. A very large and complicated system.
I remember being in Mt Rainier hiking from Ipsut creek in the early 60's . Around '63 or so. My dad and I were looking at the Carbon glacier. He said "when I was your age that glacier was down here, and when you're my age it'll be out of sight around a corner that corner in the canyon." It is.
The ice caves in the Paradise glacier have been gone for some time now, and as kid they were huge and went very far into the ice. Beautiful.
When I see my life in respect to glacial time it's a trip.
Yeah we're all connected.
A great tour guide for my trip of being interconnected in geological time is Vanessa Machado de Oliveira. In her book, she has a chapter on metabolic literacy. She says, "To experience the world and ourselves in it as metabolism gives us one way of recalibrating our existence--away from separability and toward entanglement". Since her book appeared in 2021, people around the globe have been gathering and using its content as a prompt for practicing this awareness. The book: "Hospicing Modernity: Facing Humanity's Wrongs and the Implications for Social Activism."
Thank you for the reference. I'm adding it to my reading list.
Ditto.
Your Dad, a wise man
We are all aliens. Exceptive for, possibly, Native Americans. Only aliens would do what we do to this beautiful place we live.
"We have this big solar resource, we should use it." - Jimmy Carter, 1977
" A generation from now, this solar heater can either be a curiosity, a museum piece, an example of a road not taken or it can be just a small part of one of the greatest and most exciting adventures ever undertaken by the American people.""
- Jimmy Carter, 1979 at dedication of the installation of solar panels on the White House
"The Department of Energy has a multibillion-dollar budget, in excess of $10 billion . . . It hasn't produced a quart of oil or a lump of coal or anything else in the line of energy."
- Ronald Reagan,
"By 1986, the Reagan administration had gutted the research and development budgets for renewable energy at the then-fledgling U.S. Department of Energy (DoE) and eliminated tax breaks for the deployment of wind turbines and solar technologies—recommitting the nation to reliance on cheap but polluting fossil fuels, often from foreign suppliers. . . In 1986 the Reagan administration quietly dismantled the White House solar panel installation."
"I will end his war on American energy . . . Drill Baby Drill."
- Donald Trump
"A key plank of our Build Back Better Recovery Plan is building a modern, resilient climate infrastructure, and clean energy future that will create millions of good-paying union jobs — not 7, 8, 10, 12 dollars an hour, but prevailing wage and benefits. If executed strategically, our response to climate change can create more than 10 million well-paying jobs in the United States” - Joe Biden
"The Biden Administration’s climate fanaticism will need a whole-of-government unwinding. . . The fourth pillar of Project 2025 is our 180-day Transition Playbook and includes a comprehensive, concrete transition plan for each federal agency. Only through the implementation of specific action plans at each agency will the next conservative presidential Administration be successful. "
- Heritage Foundation, Project 2025 a plan for the next Trump administration
"The prized target for Trump’s Republican allies, should the former president defeat Joe Biden in November’s election, will be the Inflation Reduction Act, the landmark $370 billion bill laden with support for clean energy projects and electric vehicles. . . the legislation
was signed by Biden in 2022 with no Republican votes."
"Against a backdrop of record-breaking heat and floods this year, the $22m endeavor, Project 2025, was convened by the notorious rightwing, climate-denying thinktank the Heritage Foundation, which has ties to fossil fuel billionaire Charles Koch."
"Since 2021, Leonard Leo’s network has funneled over $50.7 million to the groups advising Project 2025, including donations from key Leo-linked groups such as The 85 Fund, the Concord Fund, and DonorsTrust."
Over 40% of funding for Project 2025 comes from groups affiliated with and funded through Koch bagman Leonard Leo. (Yet HCR has never mentioned Leo.)
https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2024/02/donald-trump-epa-energy-climate-policies-fossil-fuel-drill-baby-drill/
https://www.politico.com/newsletters/power-switch/2024/04/15/a-deep-dive-into-energy-plans-for-trump-2-0-00152281
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/jul/27/project-2025-dismantle-us-climate-policy-next-republican-president
https://accountable.us/leo-koch-networks-funnel-55m-into-project-2025-groups/
lin*
Yeow. Spot on.
This recap gives me a Lawrence O'Donnell, Rachel Maddow type of shiver.
We try to preserve and employ Earth friendly tools to drive our economy. They rape and pillage with no regard for the impact on the planet.
When I was a kid, there was a TV commercial for a brand of margarine. It featured a woman dressed in a flowing gown, in a forest setting, surrounded by ‘critters’. She was given some of the margarine to taste, and announced it was ‘my sweet, creamery butter’, when she was corrected that it was this brand of margarine.
She raised her hand and brought down thunder and lightning, and shouted, “It’s not NICE to fool Mother Nature!!
Too bad we didn’t take away the REAL message.
Lin, you have provided us an excellent "highlights" summary of the climate policy battle yet I think it will be enormously important for us to focus major efforts on the persuasion of our neighbors and family and friends and co-workers of the urgent and essential conversion to a whole-earth way of thinking, and more important a whole-earth way of working and buying or more often not-buying what the Leonard Leo's and Charles Koch's are selling. Those of us who can, MUST make our buying decisions based on whole-earth consideration so that the prattlings of the fossil fuel magnates fall on deaf ears. Think of NOT "cashing in" on all the CO2-emitting vehicles which fill the pages of "bargains" in the auto-dealers' endless promotional material. As convenient as it has become we must stop relying on deals-delivered-directly-to-our-doors via the Amazons of the world, a dramatically more fuel-wasteful, street-clogging way of shopping than going to the stores which sell them... SO MUCH TO DO!
And the contrast clearly presented in Lin’s post helps everyone know who can help us in that effort and who will not.
Project 2025 might be more accurately be named Project 666. The intent of the Heritage Foundation is simply horrifying.
Well said, Diane!
L Leo is refusing to comply with a subpoena issued by the Senate judiciary committee looking into right wing dark money that may be influencing the Supreme Court. I hope this story is going to take off like wildfire and an investigation begins!!!
The DC AG is investigating Leo regarding his not for profit and for profit organization. Leo refuses to cooperate and has instigated a campaign against the DC AG - being carried out by Leo's cronies in high places, including James Comer and Jim Jordan.
(Listen - Leo is a guy who got local police to arrest a neighbor kid for yelling at him from a passing car. And when police leadership refused to arrest a senior citizen for chalking 'google Leonard Leo', Leo got a town official to divert staff to follow her around washing away the chalk.)
Re: DC AG investigation
"The report highlights the circular payment scheme between Leo’s nonprofit and for-profit organizations, which sparked the DC Attorney General’s investigation into Leo’s activities and his cozy financial ties to Supreme Court justices. Leo’s central role in the corruption crisis at the high court spurred Senate Judiciary subpoenas of Supreme Court “billionaire matchmaker” Leo and billionaire benefactor Harlan Crow. "
https://accountable.us/report-leonard-leos-no-good-very-bad-2023/
Leonard Leo says he will not cooperate with D.C. Attorney General tax probe
A liberal group targeted by a similar tax probe said it would comply.
https://www.politico.com/news/2023/10/03/brian-schwalb-arabella-investors-00119751
What happens when an AG dares to investigate Leonard Leo’s network. Brian Schwalb’s probe followed a complaint that nonprofit groups associated with the judicial activist violated their tax status.
https://www.politico.com/news/2024/03/23/brian-schwalb-leonard-leo-investigation-00148385
Representatives James Comer and Jim Jordan recently launched an investigation into AG Schwalb’s reported investigation, accusing him of having political motivations, and citing concerns about donor privacy. CREW sent a letter to Comer and Jordan urging them not to interfere in the investigation, and laying out the precedent for investigators not cooperating with such congressional efforts. As the letter says, “Congressional interference in an ongoing investigation is not legitimate oversight; it is itself a weaponization of Congress’s oversight power that threatens to undermine our justice system and the American people’s faith in it.”
https://www.citizensforethics.org/legal-action/letters/congress-should-not-interfere-with-investigation-into-leonard-leo/
Lin, thank you for your detailed update! I appreciate that you are following and reporting on the L Leo evil doings. I will read the articles you referenced!
Excellent compilation
Yes, she has mentioned Leo (article about Clarence's abuses, April 6, 2023): "Crow has worked hard to move the judiciary and the legal system to the right, and at one of the properties where Thomas vacations, there is a painting of him in conversation with a number of figures, including Leonard Leo, the leader of the Federalist Society who has orchestrated the court’s hard-right turn. Leo is now overseeing Marble Freedom Trust, established to disburse funds from a $1.6 billion bequest to manipulate elections in favor of Republicans."
Those aren't mystic mutterings. Those are facts. Thank you for stating them.
Richard, you are so right. And mine are also not mystic mutterings, but we are all connected to the past and to the future as much as to each other: we are all carbon-based life forms. We recycle carbon constantly by the mere act of breathing. Every inspiring breath contains atoms that were once metabolically part of a living thing, and every exhalation will again be part of something. If that were the only carbon we recycle we'd have no worries about human-induced climate change. Our actions today very much touch the future, and I feel guilt about that.
Happy Earth Day, to all who observe.
Exactly right!
#Oneness
Thank you, Richard. Today, Earth Day, is my only observed religious holiday. The Earth, the vast greatness of the out-of-doors, is my cathedral. Enjoy the day, everyone!
So right, Richard. It'll be sometime before we've managed to make civilization self-sustainable in terms of our interaction with the larger world, but going in that direction is purely in our self-interest.
The Earth and some of its life will survive. We may not, if we can't overcome our greed. We can't do that without inclusion and kindness.
I believe in one God, and no more; and I hope for happiness beyond this life. I believe in the equality of man; and I believe that religious duties consist in doing justice, loving mercy, and in endeavoring to make our fellow-creatures happy. ~ Thomas Paine
Alan A. Allen, Retired
Now at 85, having retired 3 years ago after nearly 60 years working to preserve the health of our oceans, I am delighted to read this profound summary of our nation's progress in doing so as well. Earth Day has always been a most special day for me - worked on Santa Barbara spill cleanup in 1969.
Great work, Alan. With whom did you work? I started at USGS Marine Geology in 1989. Besides geophysics, our work also focused on geologic hazards. The bottom core sedimentary record showed very clearly the fluctuations in our climate that increased or decreased the generation of micro organisms at the bottom of our food chain, as well as ice cores in the Arctic that correlated a significant acceleration of the changes in our climate, as well as concentration of radioactivity matching nuclear testing. Interesting stuff. I was an engineering tech that designed and built the equipment to carry out the studies and operate it at sea and in the ice.
I never would have retired, but the Taliban took over control of our Congress in 1994 and, since their book said nothing about science, they elimnated massive amounts of Federal science funding across the board. Many millions of NSF funding was left hanging when the Reduction in Force took effect in 1995. There was no one left to carry out the studies across all Federal agencies. The saddest moment in my career.
The Taliban, Ransom.
Yes, amazing the concerted, organized, determined agents of -- what? -- pure and driven hatred against science, humanities, nature?
I hate to sound academic, particularly in view of your personal brush with the monsters, but the Powell memo planned all this back in August, 1971. It set out to gut higher ed, to replace K-12 with mechanized, computer-gradable orgies of standardized testing, to turn state legislatures over to ALEC-cloned Republican vigilantes, and also turn the former Supreme Court over to the billionaire predators.
At least, Ransom, you had some good years with some good people before the living dead arrived with their sickles.
No worries from me, I am an academic. I spent a career teaching math at El Camino. College in Torrance Ca.
I watched as the caliber of input declined over the years. When I retired in 2019 they had dispensed with all of our remedial courses in the name of "not hurting the students feelings". I watched as they watered down the curriculum and brought in computers.
The math hasn't changed but what they expect from the students is far less. Nothing but pushing buttons. No thinking of the deeper concepts.
The old Methuselah's that taught me used chalk, period. It was a big day when they had colored chalk. They'd draw some wiggles on the board and look at us and say "Now visualize it moving this way."
Now i've got Mathematica on my computer. Real time rotations and animations of surfaces in 3D plotted for you.
I learned to see the behavior from the equations. It's fun to be able to see them in color and manipulate them.
I worry that today's students are missing out on visualization and imagination skills. The computer does it for them.
Time will tell what their lack of such skills will be. Maybe I'm just old fashioned. My favorite math book was written by Hardy, in 1906. I still take it around with me. He was such a great author. I've got a reprints of ten years of the Math Tripos exams 1910-1920. Three day exams covering everything.
I'm pleased to say that I have solved many of these old problems, at least one from each year. I still play around with them.
Oh to be in the room with Hardy and Littlewood , Russell and Ramanujan. What minds. No computers just hardcore analysis.
Pithy, eloquent you are, Bob, on the reduction of imagination in "higher" ed today.
Equally on-target you are for the pre-Powell memo days when great figures loomed large.
One of the keys the billionaires used to number, commodify, package all life, was when the ALEC part of post-Powell memo got all the Republican legislatures and many Dem ones, too, to reduce public aid to higher ed. First casualty, tenure. Easier just to hire tens of thousands of "contingent" labor -- no benefits, cheap pay, no longevity.
Second casualty, student debt, as the vulture banks swept in.
Third, all the neutering as cowardice ruled the getting of the few tenure slots remaining.
Add in the zombie HR which took over. The trigger warnings necessary to avoid offending any darlings. And the group-think in retreat by all to group identity safety silos.
The billionaires won who funded Heritage, Hoover, ALEC, the Federalist Society, Claremont, and all the rest of the far-right bequeathing us Citizens United, social media hate algorithms, MAGA, and the Clarence court.
Agents of GREED, my friend. The ruling principle of our times.
Especially ironic that many of these greed-mongers pretend to be Christians; their Jesus would smite them all and turn over their money-lending tables.
My sentiments exactly
Let us hope that "those Newts" go extinct.
If only there was a spell to turn him into a responsible person.
The Newt? Not possible.
Probably : (
BRAVO!
Let's fight back. Want some inspiration? Check out Rivera Sun's Dandelion Insurrection, a three-part piece of speculative fiction that is easy to read and hard to forget.
Also inspirational (frightening?) is Peter Brannon's The Ends of the World about previous mass extinctions. The world had taken this route before, although it has been set off by meteors and volcanos rather than creatures inhabiting it. "The good thing about science, is that it is true whether you believe it or not." Tyson
Thank you, Susan. Will order from here in Japan.
Seems interesting for its non-violent means, and for what appears to be good awareness of others in history who have effected needed change.
Today, I just received Max Wyman's "The Compassionate Imagination: How the arts are central to a functioning democracy." Another reader on Heather's site recommended it. Sometimes it takes awhile to receive, but so good to delve into such things. And better if there's apt way to apply to things Heather or her many good, thoughtful commenters may say.
Hi Phil,
Thank you and thank you for the Max Wyman recommendation. I will order it when I get home. Fascists lack imagination, among other things, and democracy thrives on it.
"Fascists lack imagination, among other things, and democracy thrives on it."
What a great line, Susan! May I steal it? :-)
I've not read it myself yet, Susan.
My online scouting shows the author (a Canadian) may be a bit more polite than I'd like regarding what our billionaire predators have done to our humanities. Will find out.
Love what you say of imagination -- who thrives on it, who lacks it.
By the way, since last exchange, have found copy here in Japan ("Dandelion Insurrection"). Arrives in three days. I'll keep your commenting tab and let you know if I can aptly apply any of the Rivera Sun to any of Heather's.
A couple of the other things are curiosity and humor. Their brand of curiosity is in the service of greed and their humor is sarcasm.
Oh, and yes, I know all about the Powell Memo.
The Neo-Feudal Empire struck back.
The Austin Lounge Lizards go into that pustule upon our history in sharp detail.
I was one of about twenty "environment, science, and technology" focused foreign service officers (State Department diplomats) who dedicated years of training to work bilaterally and multilateral in support of protecting the global environment and enhancing scientific cooperation. When Clinton came to the White House, his people ironically decided that such a dedicated coterie was not needed. For most of us, that pretty much ended our careers. It was a sad day indeed, Ransom!
Clinton was a Wall Street Corporatist. He supported and helped pass more Republican legislation than any Repuplican could ever have done, with a Dem majority Congress. If we manage to keep the POTUS and the Senate, and regain the House, those careeres will become important again. We must contribute $$ to effective organizations that back the candidates that have the realistic chances, as well as the GOTV youth organizations. It's now or never.
There are still hungry minds out there eager to learn. Excited to try things without their calculators and computers.
First you learn how to do something by hand, then you get to use the high tech tools.
The difficulty is time. we've added to the curriculum by teaching a computer component to calculus at the detriment of reasoning skills.
Cantor didn't need a calculator nor Riemann or Lebesgue.
Nothing in the first two years of calculus needs a computer.
Ransom, I suspect that contributing money is a less potent force than how we spend our money and what we refuse to spend our money on while persuading those we can to spend their money "earth-wisely" and most important, to NOT spend our money in earth-destructive ways.
There are heartbreaking consequences when science gets tossed 😣…..
If Biden had not won, it would have happened again. Vashon? I ran the little ship that did the sub-bottom imags of all the landlides (still hazardous) on the long Southeast side of Vashon Is. as well as all of Puget sound. You on that beautiful island?
My uncle ran the cal lab at Keyport in the early 80's and I worked as a calibrater there after the Marines and before grad school at UCSB.. Sort of a full circle moment for me.
My dad was involved in designing the first 3D range in Dabob late '50's early 60's. He worked at APL out of UW. Sometimes I would get to go with him. I used to fish off the pier there as a kid. In those days they had to keep an electronic tech onsite for the vacuum tube computer.
Had to correct for the drift of the tube as they warmed up. Used the heat from the computer to heat the building.
Co-generation.
Shucks it was cold and rainy outside.. We just liked to get warm.
Yes, we have been here going on 37 years! Just now I am looking at the diminishing snowpack on the Olympics. I think they are using LiDAR scanning tech to map the contours of Colvos passage (maybe all of Puget Sound?). What agency was in charge of the imaging? So interesting that you were part of that!
I have close relatives on Vashon and remember it fondly.
That’s great that you have Vashon connections! Over the years we have experienced an eerily high number of coincidental connections to Vashon😆!
I need to get back there soon… my last visit was in 2017, I think.
AKA recognition of reality.
The work continues despite the Taliban because fundamentalists lack the imagination and creativity to do anything other than STOP or destroy. That is a negative force. Something deep inside all of us requires imagination and inquiry. I believe that to be as hardwired in us as negativity and mass destruction. And I believe that energy is growing. Just look no further than the moss that grows on cyclotrons after rain.
Newt, Tom Delay and that crew of self-righteous vipers really did a number on so much that was worthwhile. The Taliban is a good name for them, a precursor to our Russian mafia in Congress.
I'm with you Ransom. I've seen the vanishing of the glaciers on Mt Rainier since I was a kid. It's sobering.
I was at UCSB studying in the math department '83-'90. Knew a couple Geo grad students. Were you in Isla Vista in those halcyon days?
My uncle, Charles Woelke was head of the Shellfish lab in Quilcene Wa. He brought oysters from Japan after the war and seeded the bay. Grew up eating all the oysters we could handle. They're all gone now. But as a kid we used to get the water boiling before going out to pull the shrimp and crab pots. That's fresh seafood.
He told me in the '70's that the salmon run was going away. Sad.
Memories of that fresh seafood…As kids in Rhode Island in the 60’s ,we would walk down to a deserted beach ,search for the squirt holes and dig up steamer clams to throw in the pot.
Here in Florida we’re using oysters with,as you probably know, their amazing filtration rate of 50/gallons/day to clean up our man-made mess in the lagoon.
Thanks for the memory, and Happy Earth Day!🌎
Growing up in South Florida after WWII, the waters around were still clear, the fish and crawfish (Florida lobster) were bountiful, and life was good. As kids are wont to do, I thought it would last forever, Paradise.
One of the family stories I’m most proud of is of him and my grandfather going across the island to get some crawfish (Florida lobster) for supper. Dad said they were stacked like cordwood under the rock ledges, and he began to stuff his croker sack with them. Grandfather told him to put them back, saying, “We only take what we need for today, son.”
Thank you for your service to the health of Mother Earth and all her children! 👏👏👏❤️🌎🌍🌏
Isn't it somehow wonderful to honor someone whose service was for the life of all life on this amazing planet? Thank you.
Yes, it is! We are so used to thanking military service men and women (rightfully so), I realize now that we should extend an equal measure of thanks to those protecting the Earth.
Thank you for your good work, Alan.
Hear, here!
Thank you for service.
Bless you Alan 🙏 and thank you
Let me join the chorus of those thanking you for your service.
Proud to know you here; thank you, Alan.
Thank you, Mr. Allen!
Thank you, Sir.
Thanks for helping the bay heal.
Thank you Alan!
Thank you to Alan and Heather for this wonderful focus on Earth Day and bringing us up to date on what the Biden Administration is doing in this area.
So amazing! Thank you for your important work!
Thank you sir. I agree that our entire World is an alarm clock that started ringing more than 60 years ago.
Thank you for your service....to our planet.
I’m early and you are early posting!! Thank you for a great summary of Earth Day. We need to remember why we celebrate and preserve the natural world for our children, or as the Native American might say in planning for seven generations into the future!
We have to switch so many of our priorities. Imagine the beauty of dew diamonds after rain. Imagine the fog lifting over a still lake in the morning. Imagine those gifts being given to our children, our grandchildren, and all living beings. That is growth. That is the eternal treasure we must store up for seven generations. That is love beyond all imagining.
In order to "conserve" we have to sweep. Register Democrats -- preserve the earth.
https://www.fieldteam6.org/
The true conservatives
Wonderful imagery, Susan. Seven Generations is quite a good guideline to use.
So good, Susan.
Earth Day April 22, 1970. 13 days later, on May 4, 1970 the shootings at Kent State. Depressing events in real time. I was 19 and you could feel the generational divide become a chasm.
Remember also that the Gallup poll showed nearly 60% of Americans thought the students brought it on themselves and deserved it.
😢so many betrayals….
so true
Those 2 events helped to shape my thinking and actions these past 50+ years.
SAH & TC, remember also the large proportion of the national guard troops called out at Kent State were also kids, frightened kids with leaders who had forgotten the fundamental dictum of never firing on one's own citizens!
Blame the victim: and it happens over and over to this very day. Sad but history does repeat itself so far as victim blaming goes.
We remember this well…another turning of the Tide and Wind…excellent , most excellent Winds of Change , TC ,today. BRAVO👏
I do remember. My Dad was furious with people who thought that way.
A kid from my high school was shot that day...
That day is seared into my memory. I was a freshman at IU, the next state over. I remember the iconic picture …
So sorry to hear that.
💔❤️🩹
Thank you for this refresher letter about the origin of Earth Day! I had forgotten the history behind Earth Day, especially Nixon’s role. I will honor Earth Day tomorrow by planting a few seeds in my backyard. For the past two years, my husband and I have done away with using disposable plates, cups, and plastic spoons/forks in order to protect our earth. And we now use cloth napkins instead of paper ones. I will thank our earth for her beautiful lands, waters, rocks, and everything else she provides!
Richard Nixon . . . nobody is all bad.
Things are so bad now that Nixon, the guy who started it all with the "Southern Strategy" looks good. But he was a worthless motherfucking scumbag who doubled the Vietnam War and under whose "leadership" the majority of casualties in that war - US and Southeast Asian - more than doubled from the first four years under LBJ. He was the first one to try to overthrow the constitution, and no matter the small acts of good like the EPA, he has to be remembered as the Fount of all the Evil - everyone of the GOP Big Gargoyles today started out as little gargoyles under Nixon. His enemies list and COINTELPRO tried to fuck up my life. The best political action I ever took was when I went and pissed on his grave. Him and that worthless war criminal Henry Kissinger who Establishment Washington turned out for his funeral. (I think mostly they wanted to be sure it was him.)
Nixon did not lead the country to an environmental movement. The country demanded movement on the environment, Nixon 'led from behind', it was advantageous politically. BUT in these partisan (crazy MAGA delusional) times, people grasp at any showing of bipartisanship and thus point to former GOP compliance with larger trends. The GOP gave up progressive causes with Lincoln, briefly were briefly dragged back to them by Teddy Roosevelt.
I don't think Nixon lead an environmental movement, but he more than paid lip service to it in ways that contrast sharply with Reagan's contempt for environmental stewardship. that does not outweigh his crimes and his McCarthyesque "red baiting", but there was that facet to him. It seems to me that Reagan sabotaged democracy and the common good at an even deeper level. The GOP of the Nixon (and Eisenhower) eras still contrasts with the openly criminal party of today.
So true J L however, Reagan proved to simply be the voice actor of the military-industrial-corporate class which sought unfettered capitalism as the "solution" to all America's supposed ills, solutions which accelerated the movement of money and power upward to the increasingly rich and powerful, part of a recurring see-saw contest between capitalism and government of the people, by the people and for the people, otherwise known as democracy but usually portrayed as "socialism" and social justice.
My impression of Reagan is that he was a self-important fool who told himself he was on the side of the angels, while I think that Trump knows he he is a fraud and is proud of it. Both are and were malignant narcissists with a certain charisma for those who respect authoritarianism.
"That is the issue that will continue in this country when these poor tongues of Judge Douglas and myself shall be silent. It is the eternal struggle between these two principles -- right and wrong -- throughout the world. They are the two principles that have stood face to face from the beginning of time, and will ever continue to struggle. The one is the common right of humanity and the other the divine right of kings." - Lincoln
The press, that could not stop loving such a made-for-TV phenomenon called him "The Great Delegateor" (as well as "The Great Communicator" ) because he passed so much of the work of being president onto others. Some in the press noticed that he was pretty out of it, but somehow it was all dismissed as part of his charm. I do think he was the pitchman for the by then well organized "Powell Memo" revolution. The "government" he ridiculed was government by and for the people, and his promised saviors were the neo-feudal ultra-wealthy.
AND they pulled it off. Much of the influence of our lives that was once reserved for the public sector is now in the hand in profit-focused quasi-monopolies, what the public had fought against since the "Gilded Age". Lately resistance has increased, but the enemy is entrenched. That said, solidarity, unity among diversity, is the antidote.
TC, did you really piss on Tricky Dicky's grave? Where is his grave anyway? Is it still possible to piss on it? Not sure when I'll make it to California again....
I did. There wasn't a fence around it then, and I waited around till there wasn't anyone nearby then"did the deed" quickly. I wasn't the only one. That's why there's a fence around it now. It's at the Nixon Library.
TC, finally a good example of “trickle down theory” I can applaud!
Good for you! Kissinger’s grave next please. Such a disgusting pair.
My 4am laugh
My 0600 laugh! "That's why there's a fence around it now."
Exemplified by gargoyle Roger Stone’s tattoo.
You could also phrase that as "Roger Stone's gargoyle tattoo".
Love the grave thing. I still play “Masters of War” Bob Dylan. Wonder where they will hid trumps grave.
First Green at Bedminister.
Bury him like Bin Laden. Mid-Atlantic.
Did Kissinger actually die?
They drove a stake through his heart and left the body out in the sunlight to be sure.
Maybe one exception.
Marble Mouth Marge or her cult leader, the fat guy with encrusted orange make-up?
I beg to differ Steve. And I'm not just thinking about Don Snoreleone. Steve Miller, Roger Stone, Paul Manafort--TFFG seeks out those with Machiavellian tendencies.
It's a long list and I would include many corporate leaders (but I won't).
Happy Earth Day!
Another example just to stir everyone up . . . Herb Kaumbach, Nixon's bag man, was with my father and tended to him when my father had a massive stroke. May have saved my father's life. Admittedly, I can't see Steve Miller doing the same.
No argument here about those individuals. Please do not assume that my comment about Nixon represents a defense of the people you list.
Not so. Having spent 21 yrs contracted to FLA your statement is proven false by the human and animal victims and survivors. Stop dismissing the trauma of survivors and violence against victims.
Huh? What does your comment have to do with mine?
When I moved to Wisconsin in 1968, Gaylord Nelson and Bill Proxmire were my US Senators. Having moved from Republican Nebraska, I was thrilled to find I was now in a blue state with two enlightened and hardworking progressive legislators. Ah, those were the days.
I grew up with two Republican US Senators in Oregon: Mark Hatfield and Bob Packwood. Both were good senators and worked for all of Oregon. Hatfield was a US Navy WWII veteran and was the Governor for 8 years before going into the senate. He is responsible for all 300+ miles of Oregon's beaches being public access, and for our bottle bill regarding deposits on beverage containers. They worked well together, with Packwood's ultimate demise being from charges of sexual misconduct. I suspect both would be Democrats today.
It's about time that Climate change, Earth Day, EPA, etc get back into the headlines and the onslaught of tfg news disappears, together with him, from the front pages.
Thank you so much, Heather! And Happy Earth Day to all the life forms here on Earth! 🎉🎉🎉🌎🌍🌏 And in honor of our Native American Interior Secretary, here’s Oren Lyons speaking on Native Americans’ relationship to Mother Earth. He’s in his 90s now, but this is from 2011. I first heard him about 30 years ago at a sustainability conference organized by John Denver. So much wisdom in the many videos of him on YouTube 🙏🏻😊
https://youtu.be/Xqob5eg8KK8?si=2NedpnkLgnQGKS5P
Thank you, Steve, for the video. Truly, we can learn much from our elders if we just listen.
My pleasure, Marlene. Yes. Here's to the wisdom of our elders ... including Joe Biden! ;-)
By the way, I just edited my comment to show the video is from 2011... 13 years ago. I was off by 5 years.
Planted three patches of milkweed for the monarch butterflies ...
My garden is all about keeping them and the bees happy.
Adjacent to our organic community vegetable garden is a large field carefully maintained to promote milkweed. The Monarchs visit me as I gently till the Earth. Grateful I am.
I was very found of milkweed as a kid. It does not grow where I live now. I don't think there a monarchs here either. Fewer numbers and kids of butterflies on the West Coast than when I lived in the "Midwest", so far as I have seen, Butterflies are one of the standout joys of summer.
When I was in elementary school in Medford Oregon in the mid 1960's, one of the foundational activities we would participate in was the collection of milkweed and monarch caterpillars. They'd live in mayonnaise jars with nail holes in the lids, munching on milkweed until they made their cocoons. When they came out, we'd interrupt class, and take the butterflies out to free them.
55 years later, the milkweed that I have in my yard is far, far different than the milkweed that grew wild in the alley behind my parents' house. I have yet to see monarchs, but I hope....
In NE PA during WW2 we rural kids were issued gunny sacks for collecting milkweed pods which were used to fill life vests. I live in Sonoma county CA where we see very few monarchs so I'm hoping to attract them along with the smaller ones, the moths even...
Same here, Robin.
S W E E T
Everyday is Earth Day! I pulled weeds today.
I did too, and yes every day is Earth Day. Looking at probes of other planets, we got the grand prize. We owe her just about everything.
Yes! Planted lettuce and more peas last week. The garlic is looking strong. And the first spears of asparagus are emerging. Nothing like getting on your hands and knees and pulling weeds!
And I stepped out on patio at 10:00 p.m. because we heard an owl . It’s been a few years since we’ve heard one, because of development, but now all the trees planted in the 26 years in this house have many wild creatures returning. The owls absolutely delight me. I’m hoping he’s back tonight.
I agree with you Elaine!!Everyday is Earth 🌎 Day!!👍
We ought to try to become better stewards of Planet Earth. The Webb telescope has yet to find intelligent life elsewhere in the solar system.
We averaged 3.3 severe weather events annually during the 1980s… storms that each caused at least $1 billion in damages.
Last year, we had 28 such storms (inflation adjusted)
Good point Gary. My daughter recently sold her house in Jacksonville, FL because the cost of homeowner's insurance and property taxes had doubled to over $1000 a month.
Recently Allstate requested a 52% increase in their rates in FL to cover the losses from the previous storms and insured they will have enough reserves to cover their insureds for the next multi-billion dollar event.
DeSantis has no clue on how to solve this problem as the mortgage companies require homeowner's insurance and the state owned HIC is losing money hand over fist.
One more storm and FL will come begging us, the people to bail them out for allowing homes and businesses to be built on the shore that aren't builtt on stilts. (Not that it will matter in the long run).
Even some churches in Texas are encountering difficulties renewing insurance coverage
The few companies that are left insuring property in FL require new policy owners to have a roof that is 15 years old or less. My daughter's roof was 17 years old and had weathered two Force 3 hurricanes with no damage. Before she could sell her house, she had to spend $12,500 to replace the roof.
After the hurricanes in Jacksonville, unscrupulous contractors came in and took up-front money and never showed up to do the work or the work was inferior in many cases. Of course, the insurance companies retaliated with severe restrictions on the contractors. Who loses? The homeowners and the businesses.
Florida will come begging soon to be bailed out as soon as the next hurricane.
I think we should tell them to pound sand unless they address climate change issues which, of course, they deny.
I have a friend in the Keys and the amount of money she doles out for insurance is atrocious also!
And yet the State of FL including DeSantis, the FL legislature and the FL Supreme Court pretend our climate is the same as it was in 1960.
It wouldn't find intelligent life here on Earth either.
Well, flickerings.
Deb Haaland is looking at quite a few places in Northern California to designate as protected lands for animal species and the preservation of our waters. This is necessary for our environment to sustain the weather patterns we are experiencing and will, in the future. It is exciting to have a very capable Native American woman at the helm of these projects. https://www.doi.gov/pressreleases/secretary-haaland-announces-95-million-through-presidents-investing-america-agenda
Hi Marlene, thanks for sharing the link. "Chronic Water Shortages due to increased population." Yes, historically consistent supply is expected to meet an ever increasing demand? With regards to No Cal, and the Klamath, are you familiar with the Yurok, '70's Salmon war, one of the largest fish kills in US History as a result of water diversion due to Agriculture Necessity? She spoke in Albuquerque, a high desert, with regards to water rights. Marlene, I hope you're right about Deb and her integrity. Washington has devolved into Me but was founded on We. Cheers, and keep being positive and optimistic .
I watched footage of the removal of the Iron Gate dam on the Klamath River. I have friends in Southern Oregon who worked tirelessly to make that happen, and are now stewards for the replanting of native plants.
No Scott, I wasn’t aware with the Yurok but that was in the 70’s and the knowledge gained in the years afterwards, plus the power of social media, has been studied and enhanced, hopefully. Keeping my fingers crossed that we gain rather than regret.
Thank you Professor for the reminder of our role in protecting our environment. “Public outrage ran so high that President Nixon went to Santa Barbara in March to see the cleanup efforts, telling the American public that “the Santa Barbara incident has frankly touched the conscience of the American people.” I was a preteen in Santa Barbara in the 1950s and sixties and loved the ocean and beaches. However while the air seemed clean, there were areas of oil on the beaches. Even swimming out on rafts we found ourselves dribbled with oil. In my poem, “Cleaning Feet with Gasoline” I describe how there was more than one spill, and how my father helped us clean up after a swim. “On weekend excursions this burly-chested Neptune rose out of the ocean, shaking off the salty brine. We children lined up to wait our turns, as he gently removed tar from our feet with gasoline.” Since those years, the California coast and beaches have been cleaned up and are pristine. And the air pollution dramatically reduced. There are laws and restrictions on land use and protection, also making the value and cost of property high. We cannot rely on private companies and entities to protect the land. Laws and regulations work for all of us. We rely on our government to create and enforce laws that protect people and property. Earth Day is every day.
My partner worked on a fishing boat and on the night of the oil spill, at Stearns Wharf, while unloading the catch, the oil rig service boats were being loaded with bags of crushed walnut shells. There was a panicked rush, and the crew said a huge spill was going on, and they hoped to stop the fissure with those shells.
Irenie, I grew up in Carpenteria…..moved north to Humboldt County for college just months before the big spill….many of my high school friends were hired to work on beach cleanup…I probably would have been among them were I not hundreds of miles away. I have great memories of swimming & body surfing in the ocean there—something not done in far northern CA!!!!!!
The quote from Rachel Carson reflects the clarity of genius. She was a courageous long wolf.
Indeed, she was, Steve. I have long stated that Rachel Carson was a most underrated American hero. She was the rare, Renaissance type academic who combined scholarly scientific wisdom with wonderful, near poetic writing, and a sensitive, non-polemic nature.
The chemical industry conspired to smear her. "Deregulation"? What the hell for?
lone
Fine essay, as always, Ma'am. ¡Hooray, President Biden! There will always be push-back. Full speed ahead. I remember that first Earth Day fifty-four years ago. My sixth grade class skipped Art as the Art teacher instructed us to go to the local business intersection to pick up litter. ✌️
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/history/article/first-earth-day-history-legacy
Nine years later, I read 'Silent Spring' for an Environmental Econ. class. As l had been the product of a pro-business conservative family, fellow Pittsburgher Ms Carson's work 'shocked, chagrinned, and appalled me", as an informal banking mentor used to say. 😯
https://www.richardpowers.net/the-overstory/
Rarely does such a compelling reaction repeat itself in later life. But this one did when I read 'The Overstory' by Richard Powers in 2023. As a novel with quirky characters rather than straight science, 'The Overstory' is not many people's cup-of-joe. ¿For me? ¡My cup runneth over! 🙂
My springs are noticeably more silent (at least from birdsong) in the last decade or so. Seemingly far fewer birds and many in the past standby species not seen here (at my home) for years.
Well that is very sad news, J.L. I am not one for the outdoors, but we have a moral obligation towards those birds, it seems to me. Rather a guilty, if not violent, complacency on my part. 😢 I am not trained in the physical sciences to make any kind of empirical judgement about climate change. So, I take others' words for it, others far smarter than I. 📛 What strikes me as a liberal arts guy is that something is ethically off and just plain stupid if we just keep dumping stuff, willy nilly, into the air, water, etc. 😱 Nice to hear from you.
Nice to hear from you. I am trained in the biological and physical sciences and grew up surrounded by "nature", but that's not the important thing. In the story a child saw that the emperor was naked. Teenage Greta Thunberg towered over mealy-mouthed politicians. I believe that the key to wisdom is more of less accurately sensing what is most important. It a slippery thing to define, but I think it requires a resonance between empirical realities and human sentience. It's perhaps the beauty that is truth and the truth that is beauty. We can be clever and educated and still be utter fools. We can also be naive yet observant. In fact what we know, or think we do, can give us an advantageous place to stand and observe from, but if we are not very careful, can also block our view.
Very aptly and wisely stated, J.L. I spent a full day (a lot of time for me) before the 2016 election, reviewing the everyday telling of the science you understand and which you kindly share in these threads.
😯
The material, anchored in one particular article, was overwhelmingly persuasive of the science, at least to a layman like me. The ethical concern tipped that conclusion into a conviction.
✍️
https://nedmcdletters.blogspot.com/2016/11/those-who-cannot-remember-past-are.html
🤔
Young (wo)men like Miss Thunberg hearten me. They reign as 'snowflakes' in the best sense of the word: each equipped with a resilient and unique purity seeking to maintain a world still capable of producing snow from the atmosphere rather than some machine in Dubai.
😇
My, oh my, G-D knows what a mess my generation has left behind. 😢
To me science is a commitment to a kind of integrity, at least as it's root. Presumably on the basis of casual inspection Aristotle decided that the more something weighs the faster it falls. You would easily get that impression from dropping a feather vs a shot-put, but there is where it pays to look deeper, which Galileo did, measuring the influence of gravity with a system of ramps. By doing so he uncovered one of the greatest underpinnings (and attendant mysteries of modem physics. The details are mostly of interest to physicists and engineers, but the process is a procedural form of critical thinking.
And we humans seem very keen to lead each other astray. We are inured to it, but how much advertising, even from fine non-profit groups, is designed to leave some sort of false impression? Nixon's dishonesty was considered a scandal, but Republicans appear to lie, and lie big, every single day. Why have they not been banished to the fringe". Those who tell the truth, especially to the expose abuses of power, as Alexander Vindmann did, as Brooksley Born did, should be hailed as heroes, over and above the public vindication they have received from time to time. Also, significant, proven liars be stigmatized.
Lies hurt, even kill. And yes, ethics is a essential part of civilized conversation.
Aristotle can hardly be faulted. It seems to me that science is the accumulation of knowledge. That requires a humility in 'looking weak, wrong, or bad' in changing one's opinion or conclusion. That is what seems to be lacking all too often these days. Hopefully, after this past w/e, and the Trumper tantrums at the Court House will consign these people increasingly to the fringe.
https://bandyxlee.substack.com/p/the-psychology-of-trump-contagion-413
Ours may be a culture of narcissism, as Christopher Lash argued forty-five years ago, but people do have limits. The link above clicks through to an interesting essay, as a chapter in a forthcoming book, by Dr Bandy Lee, who led the twenty-seven psychiatrists and intellectual leaders . In 2017, these professionals gathered and questioned Trump's fitness for the presidency.
Shame on me for not knowing of Brooksley Born for I was a banker in the 1990s. As a risk manager, I became deeply suspicious of credit derivatives after 2000. There were tell-tale signs of intellectual and systemic corruption. I warned my employer repeatedly that things were going blow up. All that came later, after I had exited banking (without the door tapping my hiney on the way out).
That nuclear destination in the financial markets proved far graver than I could ever have imagined because of the dissemination of crummy assets throughout the markets through collateralized debt obligations. That happened just as I got the final boot from an investment bank.
Do you remember, when we were young, how our windshields became obscured by the insects we killed while driving? That doesn’t happen anymore.
About 10 years ago, I was on a motorcycle trip in Northern California (up around Mt. Shasta) and we ran into a butterfly migration. It was awful how many of those beautiful insects ended up on my bike, my helmet, and me.
Ally, I don’t mind killing stink bugs or mosquitoes, but butterflies break my heart. They’re so fragile and beautiful.
We had the same experience. I slowed to about 45 mph because it seemed like I hit fewer of them... I'm sure there were at least 75 on my bike, my windscreen, and my face shield. It was awful.
I escort spiders and stinkbug from the premises but mosquitos bring out the evil sociopath in me. Mwaahahahaha Gotcha!
That’s stink bugs for me! I hate them. I never say the word stink bug without preceding it with an expletive starting with F. I flush them. They’re destructive to crops around here.
True, and the impacts of pesticides have decimated bird populations.
I grew up between age 5 and 16 in Ohio, mostly around Akron and Cuyahoga Falls, and recall that aspect of summer. Also recall lots of butterflies, and fireflies as well, but I have not been back in a while. Brief visits have revealed many changes.
I went back to Ohio
But my city was gone
There was no train station
There was no downtown
South Howard had disappeared
All my favorite places
My city had been pulled down
Reduced to parking spaces
A, o, way to go Ohio
Well I went back to Ohio
But my family was gone
I stood on the back porch
There was nobody home
I was stunned and amazed
My childhood memories
Slowly swirled past
Like the wind through the trees
A, o, oh way to go Ohio
I went back to Ohio
But my pretty countryside
Had been paved down the middle
By a government that had no pride
The farms of Ohio
Had been replaced by shopping malls
And Muzak filled the air
From Seneca to Cuyahoga falls
Said, a, o, oh way to go Ohio
Writer/s: CHRISTINE HYNDE, DAVE BROCK, N. TURNER
Publisher: Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC
Lyrics licensed and provided by LyricFind
What a melancholy song, but I can’t say it’s not true. I’m from a similar area - northeast Ohio, but Cleveland, not Akron. Today’s newsletter had me recalling going to the beach at the Mentor Headlands, but not being allowed to touch the water. It was smelly, with that foam of pollution. That, at least, is much improved today.
I’m in Columbus now. We have fireflies, but not the swarms I remember from the 60s.
Read Overstory right after Simard's Finding the Mother Tree. They dovetail nicely.
Unfortunately, I must plead, "So many books, so little time, so much inertia."
Ned, are you familiar with the word “tsundoku”? It means, in essence, you buy more books than you can ever read…..yeah, I’ve got it bad!
Oh, how I can empathize with you, Barbara! 🙂
I am reading “The Overstory” now Ned. Very interesting.
What made that novel so unsettling was, for me, getting wrapped around the axle by the characters only to be knocked off balance by some fact or observation of what de-foresting is doing to all of us.
It’s really written in a unique way that’s for sure. I am only starting story line 3, but it’s sad and disturbing.
“The Overstory” by Richard Powers, winner of Pulitzer Prize for fiction. Fabulous writing felt so real I kept thinking the characters must actually be real. Talk about deserving Pulitzer.
Before your time, Black Rain in Donora, Pa. Stan Musial, Joe Montana, Ken Griffey X2, Black Rain.
Is the Black Rain in Donora referring to the smog that killed many people? Many PGH stories about people like Gertrude Stein, Danny Marino, Czechoslovakia, et al. Of course, we cast a wide net to claim people as being from Pittsburgh. 😉 Many PGH stories about waking up to two stripes under the nostrils, whacking curtains with a broom to start the day, taking a shirt to change into at lunch-time for executives, etc. 👀 For all of that, I loved PGH as a steel town and was lucky to work in an integrated steel mill during my summers in college. Thank you, Daniel, for the walk down memory lane. 🙂
How soon we forget. "The yellow fog arrived five days before Halloween in 1948, swaddling the Pennsylvania city of Donora and the nearby village of Webster in a nearly impenetrable haze. Citizens attending the Donora Halloween parade squinted into the streets at the ghostlike figures rendered nearly invisible by the smoke. The Donora Dragons played their habitual Friday night football game, but, their vision obscured by the fog, ran the ball rather than throwing it. And when terrified residents began calling doctors and hospitals to report difficulty breathing, Dr. William Rongaus carried a lantern and led the ambulance by foot through the unnavigable streets."
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/deadly-donora-smog-1948-spurred-environmental-protection-have-we-forgotten-lesson-180970533/
Will be reading 'The Smithsonian' article later today. I remember reading about it in grade school and being astonished by the tragedy of Donora. Thank you for sending the article along.
@JL & Ned. I live in Baghdad By the Sea where even the Republicans panic about sea rise and heat pollution in the Gulf Stream.
My late parents and my late brother left Pennsyltucky and followed the sun to live near the poisoned estuary near Stuart, Florida.
https://www.wptv.com/news/protecting-paradise/harmful-blue-green-algae-found-in-martin-county-waterways-health-department-says
https://www.tcpalm.com/picture-gallery/news/2024/04/04/a-look-back-at-toxic-algae-blooms-from-lake-o-discharges-since-2005/73197475007/
Thank you for the vid. on Florida. I worked in Baghdad by the Dust (i.e., Iraq). Talk about climate change. Many people died due to the lack of affordable oil for air conditioning on nights over a hundred degrees, at least in the early hours of the night. Brutal.
Among 182 other kinds of cases I heard Defense Base Act "Iraqi crud" cases. VA now covers them thanks to Biden.
Thank you, again, for the history lesson that puts today’s events into realistic, understandable context.
This could not be more critical and so clearly expressed. I would also recommend the Encyclical letter “Laudato Si - on care of our common home “ from Pope Francis. Of course there is a Catholic perspective but it also clearly articulates how nature must be accorded the equal agency as man/womankind. There is so much more but it demonstrates that although Trump seems to dominate the media, this is more important. We are in a time like no other with both political and environmental instability. Thank you Heather!