A grandmother's pride

 My granddaughter who lives in Columbus OH is a student in that university as well, going into her senior year in Early Childhood Education.

This spring she and 3 other young women traveled abroad for 10 days. They had some family friends in 2 places, so they started in Ireland, then went to Italy where my neice (astranged from me) lives, and then Nice France before coming home.

I finally got some of the photos that she took, my granddaughter! I think I'll share the ones without her in them...lots of scenery! I'll keep the ones of her pretty smile in my family album.

The three above are from their Ireland visit.

The next two are from Positano Italy.

Then they went to Florence.

And then to Nice France...

I've only been to Portugal in Europe, so it's wonderful to tease my granddaughter that she's now my internationally traveling grand!

Next I'll start posting some Black Mountain NC pictures...like the auto show last Sat.

Yes, I will share photos soon of Ohio family's vacation I didn't know about until I called my son as they were about to fly home (waiting in the Atlanta Airport) from the Turks and Caicos Islands. Same family! So wonderful they all enjoyed that trip together! I actually called my son on Thurs. because a fellow blogger told me it was Creme Broulee day...and my son loves it! He didn't know about that!

Today's quote:

Try not to take everything personally, things that people say and do don't always have anything to do with you.

Sunday respite music

 Tunes to enjoy ... thanks to whoever shared this wonderful song!

Or here's the live recording version...

Today's quote:

Wake at dawn with a winged heart and give thanks for another day of loving.

KAHLIL GIBRAN

What's Greta Thunberg been doing? - and a new Gold Mine in Alaska

 a FYI

Greta Thunberg arrested for demonstrating, then released and makes press comments. BBC News.

 https://www.bbc.com/news/av/world-europe-66295035

On both occasions, she was part of a group of protesters that blocked the road for oil trucks in Malmo harbour.

Outside court she said there was "no option but to continue to take action".

When I posted this on FB, a friend said she had read about it in the NYT. I'm glad to hear that.

AND on another note...how about gold mining to begin again in Alaska?

Here's a NPR article which goes in depth to all the aspects to be considered, for a mine which didn't have to prepare an Environmental Impact Statement (somehow) and the state of Alaska has partially funded.

https://alaskapublic.org/2023/07/26/a-large-gold-mine-youve-probably-never-heard-of-is-quietly-preparing-to-start-production-in-interior-alaska-despite-critics-objections/

Yes it should probably get its own post, but I keep squeezing these in together when more than one thing happens before it gets published!!

Indigenous Lives and The Climate Crisis

Here is part of a series of 3 photo blogs from a Special Rapporteur on Economic, Social, Cultural, and Environmental Rights (REDESCA). Soledad García Muñoz visited sites in Alaska and Louisiana with photos in the 3 parts of this series. The Unitarian Universalist Service Committee was part of this effort.

Indigenous Lives and The Climate Crisis: A Photo Essay Series 

UUSC works with Native communities in Alaska and Louisiana to call attention to climate change and injustice—on a global scale. by Mike Givens

"Native communities across the United States are helping to lead the global call for a definitive and effective response to climate change. Daily, Indigenous coastal communities—from California to Maine, Alaska to Nevada—live with the life-altering impacts of climate change.

Several communities in Alaska and Louisiana took the initiative to reach out to an international human rights body with an urgent request: Visit their communities and learn firsthand about the climate change impacts they are experiencing—and the injustices they’ve lived through as a result. 

The Organization of American States (OAS) is a 75-year-old institution founded to bring together nations across North, South, and Central Americas to address conflicts and challenges faced by these countries. Twenty-one countries founded OAS in 1948 and the number of member nations has grown to 35. The purpose of OAS is to serve as a diplomatic and political convener for the Americas, navigating conflict, promoting solidarity, and encouraging collaboration.

In the late 1950s, the OAS established the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) to serve as a human rights observer and documentarian for the member nations. There are 13 thematic human rights issues that the IACHR covers, from the rights of Indigenous peoples, women, and people in migration to the rights of older persons, people with disabilities, and those defending human rights. 

 

A community meeting in Nunapitchuk, AK with the Special Rapporteur

The Special Rapporteur on Economic, Social, Cultural, and Environmental Rights (REDESCA) was established in 2017 and heard an urgent request from Alaskan and Louisianan Native communities for support in addressing the human rights violations that accompanied the climate crisis. Earlier this year, the Special Rapporteur, Soledad García Muñoz, agreed to visit these communities and document their struggles. In May, she spent a week touring these coastal communities—first Louisiana, then Alaska—to understand what these communities are experiencing. 

On July 24, the Special Rapporteur will hold (HELD) an event in Washington, D.C. to announce its findings and make solid recommendations for the state and federal governments to better support coastal communities in Louisiana and Alaska. Stay tuned for a detailed analysis of the recommendations and the next steps for these Indigenous communities. 

Part 2 Here

Part 3 Here

  In solidarity, Salote Soqo

    Director of Advocacy, Global Displacement
    Unitarian Universalist Service Committee

 The Unitarian Universalist Service Committee advances human rights through grassroots collaborations.

Climate Chaos is all around us!

 

THis comes to my mailbox a day late...somehow. Perhaps it's published after I go to bed! Heather Cox Richardson said this July 26, 2023

"Yesterday a team of international researchers confirmed that human-caused climate change is driving the life-threatening heat waves in the U.S. and Europe. The U.S. has broken more than 2,000 high temperature records in the past month, and it looks like July will be the hottest month on Earth since scientists have kept records.

Another study published yesterday warns that the Atlantic currents that transport warm water from the tropics north are in danger of collapsing as early as 2025 and as late as 2095, with a central estimate of 2050. As Arctic ice melts, the cold water that sinks and pulls the current northward is warming, slowing the mechanism that moves the currents. The collapse of that system would disrupt rain patterns in India, South America, and West Africa, endangering the food supplies for billions of people. It would also raise sea levels on the North American east coast and create storms and colder temperatures in Europe.

On Sunday and Monday, the ocean water off the tip of Florida reached temperatures over 100 degrees Fahrenheit (37.8 Celsius), the same temperature as an average hot tub. According to the Coral Restoration Foundation, a nonprofit organization in Florida’s Key Largo that works to protect coral reefs, the hot water has created “a severe and urgent crisis,” with mortality up to 100%. The Mediterranean Sea also hit a record high this week, reaching 83.1 degrees Fahrenheit (28.4 Celsius).

An op-ed by David Wallace-Wells in the New York Times today noted that more land burned in Quebec in June than in the previous 20 years combined; across Canada, more than 25 million acres burned. And most of Canada’s fire season is still ahead.

Professor Ian Lowe of Australia’s Griffith University told The Guardian that he recalled reading the 1985 report that identified the link between greenhouse gasses and climate change, and worked to draw public attention to it. “Now all the projected changes are happening,” he said. “I reflect on how much needless environmental damage and human suffering will result from the work of those politicians, business leaders and public figures who have prevented concerted action. History will judge them very harshly.”

Former vice president Mike Pence, who is running for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, today unveiled his economic proposal. It calls for eliminating the Environmental Protection Agency and the Biden administration’s incentives designed to address climate change.

In that, he is in line with Republican lawmakers. Earlier this month, Mike Magner in Roll Call noted that at least four of the bills released so far by the House Appropriations Committee for 2024 include cutting funding to address climate change that Congress appropriated in the Inflation Reduction Act. Project 2025, which has provided the blueprint for a Trump presidency, says “the Biden Administration’s climate fanaticism will need a whole-of-government unwinding,” and calls for more use of fossil fuels.

A new report from the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and Columbia University says that court cases related to climate change have more than doubled in five years. Thirty-four of the 2,180 lawsuits have been brought forward on behalf of children, teens, and young adults."

Letters from An American

The Climate Bible

 I just found out this book has now been banned in Florida. 

More reason than ever to read it!

I received mine a few weeks ago, and was busy trying to finish some other climate oriented books. So I could lend them to friends. But yesterday at our Climate Conversation meeting, I showed them my copy, and found out it's banned in Florida.

Not able to find out if Michael was related to the Robert Oppenheimer from the Manhatten Project (and the film currently being shown) But he did write about the beginning of Climate Change.

 One of the charts, showing the last 70 years with CO2 immissions compared to Climate Agreements world wide.

Here's the entire Table of Contents...to give you a glimpse into how many scientists contributed their expertise, with just a few essays by Greta Thunberg.

I'm a table of contents browser, but for those who read the back cover of books...here it is.

I'm not sure whether people can still purchase books once DeSantis bans them in FL. So if anyone has trouble purchasing one...just let me know. I have relatives in Florida. Not that they'd ever do anything illegal like buying/reading a banned book!

PS...I'm trying to only publish one of my blogs daily...so am trying this out, probably not for the first time. If only I didn't have so many opinions!

Today's quote:

I learned long ago that being Lewis Carroll was infinitely more exciting than being Alice. 

-Joyce Carol Oates, writer (b.1938)

Barbenheimer and the Anthropocene

The following are quotes from:

Washington Post opinions

'Barbie' and 'Oppenheimer' tell the same terrifying story

"As an unabashed enthusiast of all things lowbrow, I’ve delighted in the campy, mindless confection of Mattel-meets-mushroom-cloud content that this nuclear meet-cute has produced. As an environmental studies professor who has spent a lot of time studying the history of science and technology, however, I’ve found “Barbenheimer” strikes a darker chord.

The underlying premise of all the jokes — that these films come out on the same day but are about hilariously different subjects and have wildly different tones — is misguided. The two movies actually have a fundamental, and disturbing, common ground. J. Robert Oppenheimer, the man behind our nuclear age, and Barbie — a toy that takes more than three cups of oil to produce before it lingers in landfills around the world — both tell the story of the dawn of our imperiled era.

“Barbie” and “Oppenheimer” each offer a window into the creation of the Anthropocene, the suggested term for our present geological epoch, in which human beings have become the most significant influence on the natural environment at a planetary scale.

He goes on to describe the various geologic eras, and finally comes to the present day (or last 70 years or so.)

"Yet, the 1950s was not only the decade of plutonium. It was also the decade of plastic.

"The war was over, and Americans were being promised “better things for better living … through chemistry.” Only days before Hiroshima was consumed by a second sun, the president of DuPont advised his employees that Americans, drunk on peace and whose homeland was largely untouched by the war, would crave new trinkets and luxuries.

"In the 1940s, DuPont had played a part in bringing about the war’s end, producing the plutonium required to make the atomic bomb at its Hanford, Wash., facility. Now that the global conflagration had ended thanks to that plutonium, DuPont turned its attention to plastics and the mass production of consumer goods. The company had begun making polyethylene at scale in 1944, which was soon hailed by Fortune as “the fastest growing plastic on the market.” By 1951, polypropylene would join its ranks as a new wonder material that would help bring about the transformation of consumer manufacturing in that decade.

In the spring of 1959, one of the most famous consumer goods in world history emerged at a New York City toy fair. Produced from polyvinyl chloride — colloquially known as PVC — the inaugural Barbie came in blonde and brunette. More than a quarter of a million dolls were sold in the first year.

"Almost 65 years later, Barbie remains one of the most recognizable American brands on the planet, with approximately 100 dolls being sold every minute. Polyethylene, polypropylene and polyvinyl chloride remain the three most common variants of synthetic plastics in the world, and are among the primary “techno-fossils” that help distinguish the Anthropocene from prior epochs in Earth’s past.

"In the new “Barbie” film, an older woman imparts a piece of wisdom to Margot Robbie’s titular character: “Humans have only one ending; ideas live forever.” The recent news that scientists have selected a lake in the Canadian wilderness — riddled with traces of pollution, waste and radioactive fallout — as the proposed start to the Anthropocene signals that the immortality of ideas is more than just a pretty thought: It’s a reality in a world where humanity has baked its worst vices into the Earth’s geological record. Despite their apparent differences, both “Barbie” and “Oppenheimer” tell the story of core ideas of the 20th century: accelerating militarism and unbounded consumption, ideas that might well outlive our species in the form of plastic and plutonium’s lingering traces across our fragile planet."

Author: Tyler Austin Harper is an assistant professor of environmental studies at Bates College. 

See my post on the lake in Canada being used to measure the Anthropocene HERE.

What to do with Climate Emotions

 Climate Therapy

From The New Yorker

A rather long article, (see link above) but excellent in exploring several points of view from Alaska to the Philippines. I quote below just two paragraphs.

"Leslie Davenport, a licensed therapist in Washington State, is a pioneer in the climate-therapy field. In the nineteen-eighties, she became anxious about what was happening to the planet, and did things to allay that anxiety: she signed petitions, she searched for environmental organizations that she could support. Then it occurred to her that climate change was caused by human behavior, and human behavior was her field of expertise. “So much of what we’re trained in, in the mental-health field, is to break through denial, to work with grief, to motivate life-style changes, to facilitate contentious conversations,” she said, when we spoke on the phone. “We’re trained to do all these things that are needed to equip people to respond to the climate crisis.” Davenport wrote a book, “Emotional Resiliency in the Era of Climate Change,” aimed at helping clinicians recognize when patients were struggling with the issue. She has since pushed for climate-related training requirements and created programs for therapists similar to the modules that are mandated on such topics as elder abuse and self-harm.

Climate anxiety differs from many forms of anxiety a person might discuss in therapy—anxiety about crowds, or public speaking, or insufficiently washing one’s hands—because the goal is not to resolve the intrusive feeling and put it away. “It’s not a keep-calm-and-carry-on approach,” Davenport told me. When it comes to climate change, the brain’s desire to resolve anxiety and distress often leads either to denial or fatalism: some people convince themselves that climate change is not a big deal, or that someone else will take care of it; others conclude that all is lost and there’s nothing to be done. Davenport pushes her clients to aim for a middle ground of sustainable distress. We must, she says, become more comfortable in uncertainty, and remain present and active in the midst of fear and grief. Her clients usually struggle with this task in one of two ways, she said: they tend to be activists who can’t acknowledge their feelings or people so aware of their feelings that they fail to act."

Later on the author speaks of herself being urged to use the Serenity Prayer, in determining what you can change, vs. what you cannot change.

Urban poor suffer from climate change in the Philippines. Photo by By SuSanA Secretariat 

Today's quote:

It is almost impossible to carry the torch of truth through a crowd without singeing somebody's beard.

-Georg Christoph Lichtenberg, scientist and philosopher (1742-1799)

 

Antropocene choices

Before I get to today's topic, I must mention that on our 6pm news from Asheville, which covers most of Western North Carolina and a bit of South Carolina's upstate...the announcement was made that tRump had just landed in Asheville and was traveling south, with his secret service brigade. Nobody knew where he was going. There were a few shots of the big black SUVs traveling on the road. They did mention that the judge had ruled that the court would be held in May of 2024 in FL for his charges of keeping secret documents etc.

So why is he in NC? His plane said "TRUMP" on the side.

Now to consider climate change...

Canada's Crawford Lake selected as the spot to watch for the developing Anthropocene. Article HERE in Science News.

The mud of Craford Lake holds an extremely precise record of human influence, Photo by Sarah Roberts

"Out of 12 locations around the world, Crawford Lake in Ontario, Canada, has been selected as the site that would mark the official beginning of the Anthropocene, a proposed geologic epoch starting in the 1950s, researchers announced at a July 11 news conference during the Max Planck Society Conference for a Sustainable Anthropocene in Berlin...

 

Among the locations, Crawford Lake’s muddy layers have trapped one of the most precise histories of human activity. Each summer, the water’s pH and warm temperatures cause mineral crystals to form near the top of the water. The crystals fall to the lake’s bottom like snow, where they lay undisturbed. “You get these lovely stripes,” Turner says. “And you can resolve what year [they’re from] pretty much by counting backwards from the surface layer, like a tree ring.”The layers capture a sharp rise in radioactivity and other evidence of human activity starting in the early 1950s (SN: 9/25/16).

 But not all scientists agree that the Anthropocene began merely 70 years ago, or that it should be defined as a geologic term at all. “Any time you draw a hard line in the geologic record or in any other system, you’re creating a binary — there’s a before and there’s an after,” says paleoecologist Jacquelyn Gill of the University of Maine in Orono. “We know human impacts began well before 1950.”

Written by McKensie Prillaman 

Today's quote:

“Children [...] need both windows and mirrors in their lives: mirrors through which you can see yourself and windows through which you can see the world,” she explained. “And minority children have not had mirrors. That has placed them at a disadvantage. If you want to call white children majority children — [they] have had only mirrors. That has placed them at a disadvantage also.”  Lucille Clifton 

This is such an important concept when considering education, or racism, or privileges.

Regarding Biden's cognitive health and how O'Keefe reacted to others seeing her work in progress

 A neuroscientist explains why Biden might not be a great pick for our next election. HERE.

"At this moment, there is simply not enough information about Biden’s cognitive health to be able to accurately assess his vulnerability in the upcoming election. But I can tell you this — if Biden fumbles his way through the 2024 campaign, gets destroyed in the presidential debates and loses as a result, everyone is going to ask, “How did this happen? Who thought it was wise to place the burden of warding off autocracy on an octogenarian grappling with cognitive decline? ? Who is to blame for handing the presidency to Donald Trump?”

"Perhaps there’s still time to consider another Democratic candidate. It won’t be the first time a sitting president didn’t run for a second term. There are s"ix presidents who chose not to seek re-election, including Lyndon B. Johnson, who publicly cited health issues as the main reason for the choice. Although Biden says he’s in the race to win, there is absolutely no shame in reversing such a decision, and depending on how the next few months go for Biden, it may be the only responsible thing to do.

"To be clear, I am not saying stepping aside it’s the right thing for Biden to do, because I know I lack the information needed to determine that with any confidence.

"But I am saying that it could be, and if we simply ignore the issue, we could be risking everything." 

 Bobby Azarian is a cognitive neuroscientist and the author of the book The Romance of Reality: How the Universe Organizes Itself to Create Life, Consciousness, and Cosmic Complexity. He is also a blogger for Psychology Today and the creator of the Substack Road to Omega. Follow him on Twitter and Instagram @BobbyAzarian.

--------------------------------------------

On another hand...

Georgia O'Keefe says (an artist that I dearly love):

"What others have called form has nothing to do with our form—I want to create my own and I can’t do anything else—if I stop to think of what others—authorities or the public—or anyone—would say of my form I’d not be able to do anything.

I can never show what I am working on without being stopped—whether it is liked or disliked I am affected in the same way—sort of paralyzed—."

As quoted by the Marginalian frrom  Georgia O’Keeffe: Art and Letters.

The Marginalian article is titled: 

Georgia O’Keeffe on Success, Public Opinion, and What It Means to Be an Artist, in a Letter to Sherwood Anderson

Compostable Garbage Bags arrived

They feel like plastic, but everything they write about them says they'll compost away if in a composting site.

I do wonder what they're made of. Here are some photos. And with my super chemical nose, I'm feeling a tickle or two for whatever chemistry they are made from.

I'm not pleased that the bottom is gathered and won't bloom apart...thus losing some of the inner space for trash and such.

I honestly hadn't considered composting with these garbage bags. As one person I don't make that much veggie leavings...though there are the times I over buy and have a whole bag of spinach that's gone bad.  I know if I were making that large amount of compostable scraps, it would definitely be a wet mass, and I agee that I think it's not reliable for a week long pile of mush. I'm going to start with just my dry trash...papers, things that can't be recycled...and will add the compost items the day I take the trash out to be picked up by the big garbage truck. My goal is to have all the trash inside continue to deteriorate (if it does) and in 6 months the bag will have dwindled down, thus saving one piece of plastic in the dump.

Isn't that a hoot?

But I will certainly pass the box around and offer friends to try a bag. The cost with shipping for 30 bags was just $22.87.

Today's quote:

The highest result of education is tolerance. 

-Helen Keller, author and lecturer (1880-1968)

Good news from the EU and My Mi'kmaq heritage and a Beatles song

For the Climate Change folks, first...a bit from Katharine Hayhoe...

Last week, the European Union’s member nations committed to restoring 20% of their degraded natural land and marine area. Spanning a colossal 1.6 million square miles, from the icy Arctic Circle to the balmy Mediterranean Sea, this measure represents an important step towards a more sustainable and resilient planet.

The new EU nature restoration law, which will be finalized in the coming months, follows the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework signed by 190 nations last December. Europe’s initiative is one of the first tangible actions driven by this international commitment, and it comes while the region is wrestling with unprecedented heat, drought, and flooding fueled by climate change."

______________________________-

 A few weeks ago I shared HERE about the Mi'kmaq who live in Newfoundland, Canada, and one of their daughters was my great times ten grandmother.

 

Then I heard this lovely rendition of Black Bird in Mi'kmaq language.

To raise awareness of her native language, 16-year-old Emma Stevens sang a version of The Beatles’ 1968 classic “Blackbird” in the Mi’kmaq language, an Eastern Algonquian language spoken by nearly 11,000 in Canada and the United States. A member of the Eskasoni First Nation, the Nova Scotia student sang lyrics that were painstakingly translated by Katani Julian, a teacher who works in language revitalization. Julian told WBUR. “My language is very different from other ones.” “There’s a lot of syllables in ours. And there’s a lot of long words that translate into something really easy in English.”

You can find the lyrics below and the song above.

Pu’tliskiej wapinintoq
Kina’masi telayja’timk
tel pitawsin
eskimatimu’sipnek nike’ mnja’sin

Pu’tliskiej wapinintoq
Ewlapin nike’ nmiteke
tel pkitawsin
eskimatimu’sipnek nike’ seya’sin

Pu’tliskiej…layja’si
ta’n wasatek poqnitpa’qiktuk

Pu’tliskiej…layja’si
ta’n wasatek poqnitpa’qiktuk

Pu’tliskiej wapinintoq
Kina’masi telayja’timk
tel pitawsin

eskimatimu’sipnek nike’ mnja’sin
eskimatimu’sipnek nike’ mnja’sin
eskimatimu’sipnek nike’ mnja’sin

——————————————————–

Boo-dull-ees-kee-edge wobbin-in-toq
Kee-na-ma-see dell-I-jaw-dimk
dell-bit-ow-sin
ess-gum-mud-dum-oo-sup-neg nike’ mn-jaw-sin

Boo-dull-ees-kee-edge wobbin-in-toq
ew-la-bin nike’ num-mid-deh-geh
dell-bit-ow-sin
ess-gum-mud-dum-oo-sup-neg say-ya-sin

Boo-dull-ees-kee-edge, lie-jaw-see
don wassa-deg poq-nit-ba’q-ik-tuk

Boo-dull-ees-kee-edge, lie-jaw-see
don wassa-deg poq-nit-ba’q-ik-tuk

Boo-dull-ees-kee-edge wobbin-in-toq
Kee-na-ma-see dell-I-jaw-dimk
dell-bit-ow-sin

ess-gum-mud-dum-oo-sup-neg nike’ mn-jaw-sin
ess-gum-mud-dum-oo-sup-neg nike’ mn-jaw-sin
ess-gum-mud-dum-oo-sup-neg nike’ mn-jaw-sin

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