For sensitive me (sensitive you may share these experiences?), the soap opera that is our National Government has of late provided me with headaches, nightmares, a feeling of uselessness, helplessness. But I’ll never give in. Out to prove to myself, family, friends and readers (those we don’t yet know) I’m seeking support for the thesis that we CAN live out our lives on a liveable planet – if we have a clear plan to protect and regenerate the earth and our culture upon it. Whew!
No small task – and a few people I’ve met do seem up to it. Still, have always trusted Paul Hawken’s observations since his days creating California Conservation Corps with Jerry Brown, though Hawken’s books are as wooley as the Rudolf Steiner Agriculture book I stare at but have yet to absorb. Dealing with climate crisi, we’re all like Sysiphis, pushing the same rock up the same mountain eternally, but, we hope, making a tad of progress. We desparately need hope.
So glad, then, to hear Paul Hawken and friends once again put in the hard work of reviewing our possibilities to face off with and actually reverse climate change. I plan to work my way (sometimes hard work!) through DRAWDOWN and summarize in this blog. First up: After a forward by Tom Steyer, Origins gives how the book came to be, then we look at a ranking of solutions, then Energy…I’ll dig in there next week.
How on earth could we reverse this dredful direction? For Jerry Brown, the path is helping state governments, corporations and mayors of cities to committ to support of the Paris Climate Accords regardless of our National Government’s abdication of responsiblity in this urgent global matter.
Reactions to the incredibly stupid and arrogant and backward motion of our Pres. DT “pulling us out of the Paris Accords” include grief, despair, fear and a budding hope that somehow our Governor Jerry Brown and another eight governors, over 1,000 corporations and over 100 cities are determined to uphold the strictures of the Accord – moving us toward true regenerative agriculture and all the various things THAT means for a variety of groups.
For those of us determined to respond responsibly to the Trump team’s new deep, painful cuts in our civil liberties, our apparent move away from what we know of democracy and toward a heavily militarized, centralized, corporate-run AMERICA the GREAT…the massive shifts toward authoritarianism in our beautiful, uber powerful country – well, it seems just plain wrong!
But how to respond without either losing our principles or our peace of mind? Not an easy balancing act! And it takes not only reminders to keep internal peace perhaps many times per day (listen to your breath), but outreach to friends, family and organizations we trust. Those links have to be active to be useful. Luckily for us, there is a long list of people and great eco-forward organizations in and near Petaluma and environs. Sierra Club, Indivisible, Citizens Climate Lobby, 350.org, NRDC, Southern Poverty Law Center, ACLU, more.
I continue to be glad we live in California and that our Governor Moonbeam made it all the way into 2017 as our Gov. He’s got the right idea and enough bravery so very often!
How on earth and the heavens are we supposed to respond to the complete idiocy of our President as he gives the finger to the Paris Climate Accords, an agreement of 200 countries to be responsible about our growing climate crisis. OUCH! Just following his announcement, many of us read and heard that each statement he made was factually just plain wrong. He quoted an MIT study and it’s author said right away he misunderstood the data and conclusions of the article. Some hints lie here:
https://insideclimatenews.org/news/05062017/paris-climate-agreement-trump-bloomberg-cities-states-businesses?utm_source=Inside+Climate+News&utm_campaign=a50d12223b-InsideClimate_News12_10_2014&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_29c928ffb5-a50d12223b-326459361 But all is not lost! Thousands of cities and a few states have vowed to uphold the Climate Accords.
Jerry Brown says “Stay the course. California has a very aggressive and… we’ll go beyond our goals; now at 27% of renewable energy. We’re all in in decarbonizing our economy…Now CHina is that pillar and California will do all that it can to renew its goals.” This is a temporary deviation from the norm and I’ll do everything we can to win the minds and hearts of the people…this is an existential threat to the future of humanity…we have to make the investments; we have to change the economy of the world…Trump demonstrates that climate denial has no future…in the coming years that we rise to the occoasion and do what is necessary to come …He was doing this for Pittsburgh not Paris…a junk fact. (He is)
Wrong on the jobs, wrong on public opinion…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X9_bBhRbuwQ&list=PLDIVi-vBsOEyETRGoRP9y8zhyu6bHl6iK&index=4
More soon on DRAWDOWN…and how you can engage in Reversing Climate Crisis.