Happy Earth Day! Or not so much.
For my blog this month I'm posting the homily I gave at my Unitarian Universalist Zoom Earth Day service on April 19. I hope you enjoy it.

Covid and Climate and Justice
Good morning. I’m going to share some thoughts today about Covid and climate and justice. The novel coronavirus pandemic has laid bare some of the more glaring problems in our society that climate activists have been talking about for years, and the issues of justice and injustice have jumped out in sharp relief. There are even direct connections between Covid and climate, like the fact that the melting permafrost is releasing giant viruses as much as 30,000 years old. Needless to say humans have never been in contact with them before.

Experiencing the spring – the incredibly early spring we’ve had this year – is different in the age of Covid. We can still take walks, we can work in our gardens, but group activities are out.

What kind of a cosmic joke is it that we are marking the 50th anniversary of Earth Day during a global lock-down? Now, all the youth-led rallies full of love, hope, anger, near-despair and incredible energy have all been funneled on-line, where we know in the age of Zoom that we can do a lot, but we can’t be outside feeling the sun or rain or breeze on our faces, hugging our friends and standing together for a brighter tomorrow. That’s one thing that our strange new world has encouraged – lots of creativity and thinking outside the box. If you can’t march to the insurance companies in Hartford that are underwriting fossil fuel production, organize an on-line march and call-in, with music and graphics. If you can’t hold a sing-a-long for the climate in person, put everyone in front of their computers and combine your voices virtually.

Spoofs in the age of Covid and YouTube have led to a contagion of humor, and let’s face it, we desperately need to laugh. One of my favorites is a reworking of the beautiful we’re all in this together anthem – From a Distance – that gives it a whole new meaning. Another is a beloved Fiddler on the Roof tune, parodied as Mask Maker. “Mask Maker, Mask Maker, make me a mask, any design, please sew it fast…”

The pandemic has allowed many of us to slow down and really see our world more clearly – limited though our frame might be. While lying on the floor of my study doing some exercises trying to stay in shape with the gym closed, I observed, upside down, our wacky pear trees in full bloom. I say wacky because they’d lost so many limbs in past storms and they were so Ichabod Crane-looking that I’d actually suggested cutting them down and planting something else. My husband disagreed and he was right, as I marveled at their delicate beauty. You can see them behind me.

I’ve also heard people say that they sometimes resented having to take their dog for a walk, but now it’s the highlight of their day, as they pass others at the required physical distance and exchange the greetings that were often non-existent before the pandemic cast human interaction in a new light.

Seeing groups of people move individually or in pairs along a street reminds me of the choreography – although spread out – of that beloved move in contra dancing – the hay for 4, in which two couples switch places through an elaborate set of moves to the right, the left, the right.

I have a friend who sends me funny or moving photos, videos or poems every day. The most amazing was a collection of two dozen photos of trees growing in challenging circumstances to say the least – through rocks, on tiny outcroppings in the ocean, on a nurse log that birthed many more of its own kind, and more.

Trees might put us in touch with nature better than any other living thing. I know that’s true for me, and these days we don’t call them things anymore, but living beings who co-exist in supportive communities, communicate with each other and support each other when times are tough.

Sometimes that’s true of humans, too, though often, alas, it’s not.

The pandemic has revealed both the best and worst of humanity, as many others have already pointed out. It’s also revealed the terrible divisions in our societies, where low income folks and people of color are suffering disproportionately from Covid-19, in terms of illness and especially in the death counts. For example, several weeks into the pandemic, while ten percent of Nutmeggers are African American, they were 16 percent of the fatalities. And the situation was even worse in some other parts of the country.  It’s like they have two strikes against them already.

And guess what?! You could say the exact same thing about the climate crisis. We know that the people who did the least to create the crisis are suffering first and worst from its impacts. That’s people in low-lying countries and island nations, and poor people generally.

And the generational crime is even more stark. I am so privileged to work on climate with young people, mostly college-age and 20-somethings, but high schoolers are passionately involved, too, and climate leaders have even emerged in the under-10 set. That’s one lesson for us older folks – don’t underestimate the youth. Climate scientists say we have until 2030 to reduce the emission of global warming gases by half -- enough to prevent irreversible climate chaos. Until this pandemic stopped the global economy cold, emissions were still going up. The young ones know they are facing a changed, diminished and very scary world. But they face it with a fierce resolve.

I love these young people with all my heart. I love their commitment, their love for each other, their welcoming elders like me into their bold, creative actions. But try as I might, being in my seventies, I can’t truly feel the terror they feel at what the future – the near future and then the extended future – will bring.

Sena Wazer is Connecticut’s own Greta Thunberg, the Swedish girl who kick-started the global youth movement. Both speak truth to power. In a speech last December in Hartford, Sena told political leaders, “I spend every day panicking about climate change, doing whatever I can to help combat it, but yet in your position of power, you continue to sit by and do nothing. But we're not waiting any longer: Stand up or step aside.” I can still hear hundreds of children and teenagers at the Capitol echoing that phrase, yelling “Stand up or step aside! Stand up or step aside!”

There’s a good lesson for our climate future in our current conditions, where we off-handedly say that we are “locked down.” Even though most of us have access to food, entertainment, communication with friends, family and co-workers, and even the outdoors, many of us are chafing at our confinement. Imagine how people feel who are truly locked down – in prisons and immigration detention centers around the country. I’ve been spending some time at honkathons lately – Covid-safe protests in our cars outside those facilities, or at the site of decision-makers’ homes or workplaces, such as the ICE office -- Immigration and Customs Enforcement – or the governor’s mansion. Protesters are calling for the release of almost all detainees, so that their confinement doesn’t become a death sentence. So many immigrants who have come or tried to come to the U.S. are climate refugees, and their numbers are pretty much guaranteed to balloon as we encounter climactic tipping points that will increase desertification, sea level rise and other disasters. How we treat the least among us now is a good indication of how we might treat our fellow humans in even more dire straits.

In Todd Miller’s book, Storming the Wall, he writes about the hundreds of millions of climate refugees this century will see, and he talks about the two main responses to the climate emergency. One is climate security – that is, security for the wealthy and well-connected, who will arm themselves with weapons and technology and build walls to keep out the hordes of desperate earth-dwellers seeking survival. The other response is climate justice, where humans do believe and act that we’re all in this together and take steps to protect us all. One person who exemplifies this is Scott Warren, a member of No More Deaths, who was arrested for providing aid to two desperate migrants in Arizona near the Mexican border and faced 20 years in prison. After a second trial, he was acquitted, which provided a glimmer of hope and joy in a very dark time. I was part of a group of ten women from Connecticut who spent time with a similar group, the Samaritans, providing aid to migrants in the Sonoran desert.

We’ve seen both of these responses to the pandemic. On the security side, people hoarding supplies, authorities cracking down on certain groups and politicians playing the blame game. And on the justice side, mutual aid groups have popped up all over the country, including in New Haven and several other CT cities. Volunteers are gathering and disbursing food, cleaning supplies and cloth masks made by the hundreds at dining room tables like mine, across the region. Supporters are sending cash to immigrant rights groups because their undocumented members are not eligible for unemployment or for any federal money in the stimulus package. California is the exception, where state and private funds totaling $125 million will provide cash grants to immigrant individuals and families in need. Gov. Gavin Newsom explained the rationale, saying, “We feel a deep sense of gratitude for people that are in fear of deportation but are still addressing the essential needs of tens of millions of Californians” in food production and other tasks. That’s an example of climate justice.

It’s hard not to notice another benefit of the pandemic: a 95% drop in air travel and a huge drop in earthbound vehicle traffic means the skies are the clearest they’ve been since 9.11, almost 20 years ago. And I can bike down Whitney Avenue any time of day and have the road practically to myself.

There’s a potential political benefit as well. Young people in the Sunrise Movement calling for a Green New Deal over the past year were told there’s no money to provide health care for all and good jobs in the green economy. These young activists always said we could do it – it’s just a matter of calling forth the political will. Now we see that playing out – trillions of dollars made available in just a month, so far, to address this pandemic. Why can’t we spend the trillions of dollars needed to address climate change? Now that we’ve seen what’s possible, we can fight with even more clarity for what we need. Some politicians are calling for just that, but others – the most powerful – have found ways to tuck in hundreds of billions of dollars in slush money for fossil fuel CEOs from the stimulus package, making a joke out of our previous attempts to cut off the comparatively puny subsidies to the industry.

These same powerful misleaders are demanding we go back to business as usual before health experts say we can do so safely. We have to be in this for the long haul, just like the fight for climate sanity and climate justice is ongoing.

Many of you know that Greta Thunberg became so depressed about the so-called leaders of the world not taking immediate and powerful action to address climate change that she stopped eating, putting her life at risk and likely permanently stunting her growth. She came out of it when she realized there was something she could do about it, and she began her solitary School Strike for Climate in 2018 outside the parliament building in Stockholm, Sweden, which has since spread to millions around the world.

Things sometimes seem so bleak that I could picture myself giving up, though I can’t picture myself giving up eating 😊. But here’s the thing: tilting at windmills may seem like a useless thing to do, but working for a sacred cause together with many other committed people with heart and mind and soul, isn’t a bad way to go. I think it’s definitely better than the alternative.
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Our seventh UU principle is "Respect for the interdependent web of all existence of which we are a part." That’s a spiritual take on climate writer and activist Naomi Klein’s famous dictum: To change everything, we need everyone. We need the trees, the frogs, the insects, and all the humans. Because even though some humans ignore this fact – and pursue climate security, not climate justice – we really are all in this together.  Amen. 

This should be the scariest time for me personally in my 72 years. As an older person, I am at higher risk for contracting a serious or fatal case of Covid-19, although I don’t feel at risk, and I don’t feel old. But I will not be celebrating my birthday on March 19 with friends or family except my hubby – which for the first time in memory is also the first day of Spring – because we are one step away from lockdown.

We are in a recession, with millions of people in the U.S. out of work and millions of students and pre-schoolers home from school and day care. And half to two-thirds of the entire population could be infected with the virus, and at the high end, millions could die. Things I did just a week ago – like drive with other elders to a cross-country ski weekend in New Hampshire (Mt. Washington pictured above) and sleep in a small dorm room with three other women, and go to my gym classes – now seem unthinkable. Everything is shutting down, except grocery stores and pharmacies. Stop & Shop just announced a special seniors-only shopping time from 6-7:30 a.m.

The roll-out of testing (or lack thereof) is a huge debacle, which has set the pandemic on its course. Mayors and governors are providing leadership, and Trump has finally seemed to have gotten religion about the seriousness of the virus after dismissing it for weeks.

But here are some good things about this weird time:

Much lower traffic is reducing air pollution and the amount of greenhouse gases produced, and making it much more pleasant to bike;

Using Zoom for meetings will probably carry over to some degree when the crisis passes, saving time and more pollution from those who normally drive to meetings;

Having more exclusive family time could strengthen bonds (if it doesn’t drive everyone crazy);

Since being outside alone or with others while maintaining social distance (6 feet) is one of the safest things we can do, more people are doing it (bike ridership has spiked in New York City as people avoid riding the subway); the parks are open (so far) and you can always just walk around the block. I saw way more people in my neighborhood than usual as I did my daily walking meditation today;

And finally, while these disasters bring out the worst in some people, they definitely bring out the best in more. Folks are checking in on neighbors, running errands, signing up for pop-up mutual aid list-serves, and more.

Cancelling in-person events – like the four planned in Connecticut April 22-25 for Earth Week – is pushing us to think outside the box to come up with on-line and phone-in events to create the kind of buzz we need to move forward on the climate crisis.

Although there’s no proof that Covid-19 is tied to climate change (since it’s been traced to bats in a wild animal market in China, since closed down), there is research showing there may be a connection of climate change to future pandemics, as the warming planet has pushed some animal species into closer contact with humans, as both have to navigate an Earth that has become less habitable, and a growing number of diseases are caused by an animal-human connection.

Here’s a story about more possible connections, summed up:

“The parallels between the coronavirus outbreak and climate change, and our collective global and U.S. handling of it, are striking. There are four ways these two threats resemble one another frighteningly closely.  And these similarities ought to give us all pause and motivate us to redouble our efforts to address the urgency of the looming climate crisis.

First, both COVID-19 and the effects of climate change will impact not only our health but also our economic prosperity and our way of life — everywhere.  And the people who will suffer the most are the ones who are already vulnerable and who need our help the most.

Second, the signs are all bad and getting worse — fast.

Third, the longer we wait to take action the worse the threat will become and the less we can do to stop it.

Fourth, only global collective action will suffice. And we are all in this together — everyone on the planet.”
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I’m hoping some of these sudden and extreme behavior changes will outlast – in some form – the pandemic, and set us on the road to a healthier planet and healthier people.

I just got a call from a Salvadoran migrant I met almost a year ago when I spent 10 days on the Arizona/Sonora border with nine other women from Connecticut. We learned a lot about the situation of migrants on both sides of the border and volunteered at a shelter in Tucson where up to 300 migrants – parents with children – stayed briefly before moving on to their sponsors across the country.

I also went across the border twice with Shura, a volunteer with the Samaritans, a group of Arizona retirees who put water and other supplies along well-traveled routes in the desert, hoping migrants will find them. Shura may be the most popular person in Nogales, Mexico, where almost everyone we saw on the street seemed to know and love her.

On the last day of my trip, in a tiny room on the Mexican side of the border crossing, with nothing separating it from the mean streets but a blanket over the door opening, I met Nelson Paredes and his wife and young daughter (pictured above, that day, and below, recently). He was full of hope and optimism as their number was soon to be called for their “credible fear” hearing to see if they could enter the U.S. legally and apply for asylum. He was confident that his story of threats and terrorism from the cartels in his home country would do the trick. He was looking forward to a better life and to contributing to his new country.

I was so taken with his optimism and can-do attitude that I asked if I could contact him when he arrived on the U.S. side to see what the experience was like. He cheerfully gave me the phone number of his cousin in Phoenix, where he expected to be heading.

When I called him a few weeks later, I learned that his wife, Brenda, and daughter, Emily, had passed their credible fear hearing, but that Nelson was detained and sent to an immigration prison near Phoenix. Brenda said officers didn’t believe Nelson’s story “because it was so common.” Apparently they let her in because she was with her daughter.

I had several phone calls with Brenda and tried to get information on Nelson, but besides his detention number, I couldn’t find out anything. After a few weeks his number disappeared from the data base and her phone stopped working. I could only assume they had been deported. I felt terrible that I hadn’t been able to help them.

Ten months later, he called from Nogales, Mexico. The Mexican government has allowed Central American migrants to settle legally in the country and work, if they can find work. Nelson told me they have a tiny apartment, but haven’t been able to work consistently, even though he has construction experience and actually ran his own business in El Salvador. “I think Mexicans don’t like immigrants, either,” he told me.
Yet he was still his same upbeat, positive self. And even though last year he seemed very afraid of leaving that tiny shelter for the crime-ridden streets outside, on the phone call he didn’t mention fear or crime. He said Emily, who’s 5, will be starting school soon. After the call he sent me this email:

“Hi…melinda. God bless you.    Well this is nelson after been in jail and had deported….we live in mexico here in Nogales where we meet us for first time. Right now i dont have a job but God allways good with us…my daugther will start the school next september ….like i said by phone we have small room where we live and a few furnitures …we just start a new life…..mexico has been good with us….we have the Resident statutus and waiting to see if we can apply for citizen ship……    God bless your life……say hi to. Shura. And the other ladys that know about our lifes…..Brenda say hi….and. Emily.    God bless you. A lot”

Immigration is as much a fundamental a part of what makes us U.S. Americans as was enslavement of Africans and genocide against the indigenous first peoples. But it’s the good part. I’m glad my friends are safe and together, but I’m sad that they’ll be making their contributions to a different society, not ours.
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It’s mid-February and I’m thinking the only real snow we might see this winter is the plastic version. It’s been, as they say, “unseasonably warm” almost every day, but that expression starts to seem quaint after weeks of above “average” temps. It actually hit 70 degrees in New Haven on January 12. The next week it snowed an inch – not enough, really, for any winter activities (with the possible exception of a few slides down a hill), but it sure looked pretty. We went for a beautiful hike on the back side of our beloved Sleeping Giant State Park, and saw dozens of sets of tracks crossing the trail – deer, rabbit, mice and likely coyote were the only ones I recognized.

Knowing the animals are out in the woods made me think of all the animals – at least a billion, experts say, and that’s not counting insects – that have died in the fires in Australia. In Connecticut record warmth is something most people can get behind (though not me – I love winter), but Down Under record warmth is life-threatening even without these devastating wildfires.

Coincidentally, Michael Mann, one of the world’s greatest experts on climate change, based at Penn State, happened to be starting his sabbatical at a university in Australia just as their summer began, and was able to witness personally the conflagrations. Australia, like the U.S., has a climate change-denying leader, but he’s beginning to come around in the face of residents’ outrage. Not that he will necessarily do anything about it.

The grass is green, the ground is soft, and I noticed something green in my garden yesterday, and upon closer inspection I saw that it’s some shoots of spring bulbs – probably daffodil – starting to come up. That’s way early and will mean any flowers that open before April will most likely be killed off by any cold snaps between now and then.
It’s a very serious problem when the phenology – the study of cyclic and seasonal natural phenomena, especially in relation to climate and plant and animal life – gets out whack, like when the migrating birds return north and the insects and flowers they need to survive have already peaked.
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I remember a few years ago we had a very mild winter (not as mild as this year) but then March and April were way colder than average. By then everybody’s ready for spring to come. And all the peach blossoms froze and there were no peaches in CT that year.

Twenty years ago I read a paper predicting that by 2050, if the climate continued warming apace, New Haven’s climate would be closer to that of present-day (2000) coastal North Carolina. I think we’re headed there much quicker, as we are for many of the impacts climate scientists started warning about around the turn of the century: ice melt, stronger storms, bigger and more destructive wildfires. 

There's good news, too, but there's that phenology problem -- it's out of phase  (or out of proportion) with all the bad news. We can still make it less horrible if we take action.  
 
 
 

On November 23 about 130 students from Yale and Harvard ran onto the field after the half-time show at the annual playing of a rivalry so iconic it’s simply called The Game. They unfurled banners calling on the two prestigious, almost unbelievably wealthy universities to divest their holdings in fossil fuel companies and Puerto Rican debt. I was one of a handful of baby boomers who joined them.

Divestment would help delegitimize the fossil fuel industry, which is doing everything in its power to obstruct the transition to renewable energy that is so desperately needed to prevent climate disaster. Puerto Rico, still recovering from the devastation of Hurricane Maria, urgently needs debt relief. Thus, the overall theme was “climate justice.”

To me this action was right in line with my involvement over the past five years with Beyond Extreme Energy, which has been fighting to stop the expansion of fossil fuels, especially fracked “natural” gas, which the Federal Energy Commission (FERC) routinely approves, and to call for FERC’s conversion to FREC – the Federal Renewable Energy Commission. Fracked gas is more than 90% methane, which leaks at every stage of production and use. That makes it not a “bridge fuel” to a clean energy future as industry and politicians have touted for years, but actually a dirty fuel than can be worse for the climate than coal.

Since becoming active in the anti-Vietnam War movement in the 1960s, I have participated in an untold number of protests, but this was perhaps one of the most powerful. Time will tell if the global media coverage will help move Harvard and Yale to divest these holdings from their endowments ($39 billion for Harvard, $29 billion for Yale). But the action has already had an impact on me.

After we sat down in mid-field and prevented the second half of the game from starting, hundreds more students (and some others) flooded onto the field to join us. It was a beautiful sight. We chanted ‘til we were hoarse: “What do we want? Climate justice! When do we want it? Now! If we don’t get it, shut it down!” The game announcer pleaded, “Out of courtesy to the players and the fans, please leave the field. The game must go on.” The absurdity of prioritizing a football game over the survival of life on earth as we know it was not lost on us. I wonder how many people in the stands noticed.

Climate scientists say we have until 2030 to reduce the emission of global warming gases enough to prevent irreversible climate chaos. The students know they are facing a changed, diminished and very scary world. Despite the exuberance and joy we all felt in accomplishing our goal of reaching the field and unfurling our banners, the overall feeling is one of trepidation. But also a fierce resolve.

I love these young people with all my heart. I love their commitment, their love for each other, their welcoming elders like me into their bold, creative actions. I love that one of the organizers said we might have to run onto the field and asked me if I could run. You betcha I could.

After 45 minutes, police threatened to arrest those who didn’t leave the field, and most did. Fifty of us stayed and were detained, charged with disorderly conduct. Our court appearance was the morning of December 6 – the same day as another round of powerful and well-attended youth-led climate strikes. How fitting.

​Oh, and Yale came back from a 15-3 deficit at halftime to win the game in double overtime – another historic aspect of this year’s Game. Maybe we inspired them.   

I’ve been arrested several times in DC doing non-violent direct actions (NVDA), protesting FERC (Federal Energy Regulatory Commission) as a rubber-stamp agency that is contributing mightily to the cooking of the climate and destruction of local communities and landscapes, but Nov. 5 was my first arrest in the Capitol. It was at a Senate hearing of the Energy & Natural Resources Committee to consider the nomination of James Danly to be the third Republican member of the five-member FERC.

The hearing room is small, so we had to get in line two hours early to guarantee our spots. (We took a break in the women’s bathroom to video record our statements, which is why it sounds sotto voce.) We took our seats and observed some of the senators greeting the nominee, at least one – ranking member Joe Manchin (supposedly D-WV) declaring his support even before the hearing began.

As I sat in that ornate room, each side of the aisle alternating in their questions and comments to the nominee, I felt viscerally that the plodding pace of the Senate is all out of whack with the scope and immediacy of the crisis. When I couldn’t stand it any longer, I stood up and declared, “We’re in a climate emergency, and FERC is fanning the flames of the crisis. We need to convert FERC into FREC, the Federal Renewable Energy Commission.” I was taken out of the room, but let my demand echo down the hall, and I know they could hear me inside.

After being handcuffed, I was escorted down the stairs very gently by two officers who said they didn’t want me to trip. I don’t know if that’s because I have gray hair, or I’m white, or a female, or if they would have treated any other arrestee the same. (Somehow I doubt it.) I asked the young arresting officer what he thought of the climate crisis, and of course he didn’t answer, but he smiled seemingly sympathetically.

I loved that I wasn’t taken to a freezing cold holding cell! I was held for maybe an hour to 90 minutes before being released after paying a $50 fine.

There are many ways to raise the alarm, and disrupting a staid Congressional hearing is just one of them. We often don’t know what impact our actions will have until more time has passed. I’m hoping some of the senators, their young staffers, or some audience members – including the mom and three-year-old girl who were relatives of another nominee – will consider my plea for climate justice.

Update: Manchin was the only “Democrat” to join all the Republicans in approving Danly’s nomination and moving it on to the full Senate. Even though there is an opening for a Democratic appointee, and the Dems have what looks like a good candidate, Trump has so far declined to make that nomination. Minority Senate Leader Chuck Schumer had earlier pledged to hold up all legislation coming out of this committee unless they gave the Dem FERC nominee a fair hearing. Stay tuned.

Then two weeks later I attended an amazing NVDA action 90 minutes across the New York state line in Duchess County, in a last-ditch effort to stop the biggest fracked gas power plant in the Northeast from coming on-line, which would spew 279 tons of nitrogen oxides, 570 tons of carbon monoxide, and more than 60 tons of sulfuric acid pollution, plus a shocking 6 million tons of greenhouse gases annually. People locked down to a tractor, above, signifying support from some local farmers. And four people scaled a 275-foot smoke stack that’s part of the plant, and stayed there for almost 12 hours. They got on the property before dawn, and the company called out the few workers on the overnight shift, shutting down the plant for the day. The photo below of the smoke stack doesn’t convey its height, except for a tree branch very low for comparison.

One of the protesters explained, “The longer they’re not doing construction the better. But the long-term goal is to hopefully awaken Cuomo’s conscience and get it shut down.”
The action was enlivened by the beautiful harmonies of the choir of the Church of Stop Shopping, as well as a big brass band. Click here and here to listen.

I read one article saying this plant could replace half the power of the Indian Point nuclear plant nearby, which Cuomo plans to shutter in late 2021, but renewable forms of energy are available and cost-competitive with dirty gas. The plant is due to open in early 2020. Opening gas plants is not the way for Gov. Cuomo to meet his own stated goal of making New York’s grid carbon-neutral by 2040.

Twenty-nine people were arrested, charged with trespass or, for the climbers, criminal trespass.  Let's hope they touched Cuomo's conscience.

 I was visiting relatives in Florida recently. It was late October, and it poured much of the weekend. My aunt Judy said in the 40 years she’s lived in the southeastern part of the state, this is the new normal. I lived on the Gulf coast side back in the mid-1960s, and in the two summers I was there, it rained like clockwork every day around 1 p.m. for up to an hour, and the temp always topped out at 91 or 92 degrees. The weather was boringly predictable. My high school was built like a Spanish mission, with open porticos and no air conditioning, and it was comfortable and hardly ever rained during the school year. On our recent visit the air was oppressively hot and humid, almost like summer.

And don’t get Judy started about the sunny day flooding, especially pronounced in Miami Beach but apparent in other Florida coastal cities, too.

Such are the sub-tropical indications of the climate crisis.

On the West Coast, where my daughter lives, the indications are much scarier. Wildfires scorched 10 million acres across the West in 2017, almost double the area from the year before, according to the National Interagency Fire Center. And that doesn’t count the horrific two more recent years, which included the destruction of the town of Paradise and the death of 88 residents. Due to the changing climate, the fire season has extended a full month longer than it was 35 years ago, according to NOAA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration; drought, low humidity and intense winds fan the flames. The power companies are cutting electricity to tens of thousands of homes and businesses to try to reduce the threat, but it doesn’t even seem to help, so it’s sending Californians back to the 19th century for nothing. People are evacuating both north and south of where my daughter lives in Orange County, but so far she and her family have been spared.

A few weeks ago, my friend D’Arcy and I attended part of a week-long series of Extinction Rebellion (XR) events in New York City. These are the folks who brought London to a standstill back in the spring by Super-gluing themselves to buildings, bridges and buses, demanding that the government declare a climate emergency, and the government did. Their demands are that governments tell the truth about the climate crisis by declaring a climate and ecological emergency; act now to halt biodiversity loss and reduce greenhouse gas emissions to net zero by 2025; and create and be led by the decisions of a Citizens’ Assembly. XR has created a bill they hope to get introduced in Parliament to do that. After being criticized, as a mostly white, middle class movement, for being oblivious to some of the concerns of those most affected by the crisis – i.e., those who aren’t white and well off – the American offshoot of XR added a fourth demand: “a just transition that prioritizes the most vulnerable, and indigenous sovereignty and establishes reparations and remediation led by and for black people, indigenous people, people of color and poor communities for years of environmental injustice.”

I like XR’s emphasis on addressing the emotional fall-out from recognizing the crisis we’re in. They held a ritual in which we all offered something we said we’d miss that’s already gone, like an extinct species, or something that’s threatened, like the trees that fall victim to over-wintering insects that used to be killed by the formerly cold winters. Two women with gorgeous voices also led some spirited songs. Later there was a sharing circle for people to express their fears.

At the end of our family visit, my sister-in-law asked me what chance I think we have of avoiding climate melt-down and I immediately replied, “One percent.” I think that’s realistic, and it’s grim, but it doesn’t change my desire to work to increase the odds. (Thanks to Rebecca Solnit for the title of this post.)

My three-day bike trip on the Great Allegheny Passage (GAP) from Pittsburgh to Cumberland, Maryland, was a 150-mile dream come true. I invited my friends Laura and Paul to go with me, then they did all the work, arranging accommodations and transportation to the starting point, which is the confluence of the Allegheny and Monongahela rivers to form the Ohio. I had been to that very spot one night a few years ago, led in a procession from the site of a hotel conference to fight gas and oil projects by several indigenous participants. I got a sense of the incredible sacredness of the place, as we were led in ceremony. This time it was broad daylight, and a man who appeared to be overdosing sat on a nearby bench, attended by two cops who motored over from their boat on the river. But it was a beautiful day, and we sat in the shade, watching the people and the rivers.

Even though most folks probably don’t think “Appalachia” when they think of Pennsylvania, this southwest corner of the state definitely is. Paul counted 190 cars on a train filled with coal, and we passed many reminders of the area’s coal-producing past, including a cave that was used to fire coal into coke for use in steelmaking in Pittsburgh (see Laura in photo below), and a rusty red waterfall that an explanatory panel told us was acid mine drainage. Even though the GAP trail took up one rail right-of-way, there are many, many trains still running – almost constantly – on the other side of the river. We wondered what they’re carrying in the closed containers. 

Meanwhile, on the ridges we observed fleets of wind turbines, indicating a new, cleaner, safer form of energy and the jobs that go with it.

The first and third days were sunny and warm, and we were cooled most of the way by riding under the tree canopy along the Monongahela and Youghigheny (yahko-GAIN-y) rivers.

The middle day, Sept. 1, began with a drizzle that turned into a pretty heavy rain, mitigated by the tree cover, so we managed to stay dry. I promptly got a flat on my front tire, which was fortunately easier to fix than a flat on the back, where we were carrying our panniers. Paul fixed it, as I watched avidly, realizing that I’m no longer competent to change a flat on a bike, as I used to do, and that I’d better re-learn fast. Once rolling again I promptly got a second flat, and this time Laura inspected the outside of the tire and found the culprit – a tiny stone that had made a little hole in the tire. As we worked in the rain, many cyclists passed us and asked the exact same question: “Do you have what you need?” We did, so on we rode through Ohiopyle State Park, along the Youghigheny, a stunning place with lots of whitewater rafting/kayaking and hikes going into the forest off the GAP trail.

It had stopped raining when we got to the town of Ohiopyle and the first thing we saw was a hose made available to cyclists to clean off our muddy bikes. We had a delicious lunch at a farm to table place a block away and then walked over to the river, where a country fair was in full swing, including a bluegrass band. I spoke to two guys selling Ohiopyle State Park merch who volunteer with the trail crew there, and they were so nice and so committed to protecting their wild place, as I am to my own local state park. I really wanted to initiate a conversation about politics, but I didn’t. I knew I was deep in Trump territory. I kind of regret it now.

We had our share of trail angels, in the form of bike shops when we needed them and helpful bike mechanics. Back on the trail, Laura had a flat on her back tire. Again the questions if we had what we needed, which we did, except for a standing pump to get enough air into her tire. A trail angel, Bob, came by and escorted us to the next town, where his friend ran a bike shop that was many blocks from the trail. We could have found it on GPS, but he was very nice to personally take us there.

Back on the trail, Laura promptly had a second flat on her back tire. This time another trail angel immediately passed by who shot some CO2 into the tire to pump it up.

We lost so much time on the second day that we missed our chance to visit Fallingwater, architect Frank Lloyd Wright’s master work, which was just a few miles off the trail at Ohiopyle, but it was straight uphill and we needed a shuttle. But that night at our B&B I found a book about it. I really enjoyed looking at the photos and reading a little of his philosophy, about combining architecture with nature. One thing I learned is that he was commissioned to build it when he was 68 and his career was ebbing. Quite a comeback!

After breakfast the next morning we set off in the lovely day and covered the same number of miles as yesterday in about half the time. We hit the Eastern Continental Divide, the Mason-Dixon Line, the Savage Tunnel and one other tunnel all within an hour or so. The Big Savage is half a mile long, but it had lights in the ceiling so it wasn’t that dark (we had our bike lights too). All the tunnels and viaducts (like the one above) were built to make the grade level for the railroad, and it was fascinating to see all the engineering feats.

After the Continental Divide, the ride was noticeably downhill for the last 15 miles, while it had been so slowly going uphill from Pittsburgh that it seemed flat. There were some spectacular views of mountains and wind turbines and hay bales sitting in green fields; felt like a combination of old world and new.  

When we got to Frostburg, we learned the town itself was up a steep hill so if we wanted lunch we had to ride up the switchbacks and then on a steep road. We got to the top and the only restaurant we saw open (since it was Labor Day) was fortunately right in front of us – a Chinese place. So we ordered and our food came immediately, and it wasn’t bad. From Frostburg we coasted/pedaled all the way to Cumberland. We arrived in town, took a few photos, and piled our bikes and ourselves into Paul’s car parked near the end of the trail. Even though it was Labor Day, we didn’t run into traffic and they dropped me home at 10 p.m., the end of a fabulous, Bucket List-worthy adventure. Thanks, guys!
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We had a great trip to the Canadian Rockies in late July-early August. Besides being 8 days of fabulous hiking with perfect weather and gorgeous scenery, it was very educational. Banff National Park and Lake Louise are among the most pristine, beautiful places in the world, but they are in Alberta (on the border with British Columbia), the same province as the infamous tar sands, 460 miles further north. That’s a little less than the distance from San Diego to San Francisco. Alberta is an extraction state – coal, gas, oil, limestone for cement.

We stayed in Canmore and visited a local museum about the history of the town as a coal mining center and then a cement-producing one. It included a virtual reality trip through a coal mine that was pretty cool and gave me an appropriate sense of claustrophobia. The coal mine closed down in 1979. The cement plant still operates, digging into a mountain of pure limestone, and even though the company destroyed half the town to expand its operations, people quoted in the museum all seemed to think it was worth it to preserve jobs. The man who drove us to our hotel from the Calgary airport said the company is very environmentally conscientious and donates to things like Little League baseball. Sounds like greenwashing to me.

Along the hiking trails in town are many exhibits explaining what’s happening there, and they all mention the negative impacts people have on the environment, including other species. It’s kind of a different take than we usually see in the U.S.

Another day we visited the Canadian Rockies Earth Sciences Resource Center. There were three young PhD student geologists there who all talked to us about the history of oil, gas and coal in the region. They said that the oil we’re drilling for is the result of fish (and plant life, I later learned) that decomposed in the water way before the dinosaurs and the creation of oil deposits had nothing to do with dinosaurs, which was news to me. They were gung-ho on continued fossil fuel development, which they said could be done safely for the climate, and added that there are “two sides” to the issue of such development warming the climate. I think Rob and I were both a little shocked, or at least disappointed, but I guess we shouldn’t have been, as they know what side their bread is buttered on. They, of course, hope to see the Keystone XL pipeline built, which would bring 800,000 barrels a day of tar sands from Alberta into the U.S. I mentioned I’d been arrested trying to stop it.

The lead guide on our Road Scholar program was a guy in his mid-60s who wasn’t exactly a climate change denier but had an interesting take on the issue. He said the glaciers – which are currently receding – have always advanced and receded over millennia, so he downplayed the human-caused heating that’s happening now. No sense of urgency.

We drove to Lake Louise (pictured above) and as I was standing looking out at the turquoise water and the glacier behind it, I remembered standing in the exact same place in 1961 on a trip out west with my family. I imagine the glacier was smaller this time, but I really couldn’t say. (Photo below is of Moraine Lake, which was much deeper turquoise. We learned the color comes from refraction of light on the "glacial flour" or finely ground particles that come off a melting glacier.)

It was tough to make the decision to fly, since that contributes so much to CO2 emissions. We might not do vacations that way again.  
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Due to a combination of forgetfulness and fear – forgetfulness in leaving my water bottle in a friend’s car and fear of going on a long bus ride with no water – I bought what might be my very first plastic bottle of water. I got sticker shock – it was $2.52, just about exactly what a medium mug of coffee costs (which I always buy in my reusable mug, thus saving probably thousands of Styrofoam cups over the decades). It’s not that I’ve never used a plastic water bottle before, but I just haven’t paid for it.

Remembering a story I did 30 years ago about how bottled water is much less regulated than the water out of our taps – and is sometimes that very same tap water put in a bottle * – I felt a little like a chump. But off I went, comforted that I had water at the ready if I needed it.

It’s how I feel about air conditioning. For 25 years we’ve been putting a room AC unit in my study, just so it would be there for the few days every summer when I actually used it. Mostly I rely on fans, which we have scattered throughout the house. They are a true lifesaver, draw a lot less energy than AC and thus contribute less to the warming of the planet that will make people feel even more that they need AC (unless they’re powered by renewables, in which case they are a guilt-free pleasure).

This is true on a global scale, and I wish every person on the planet who must live in a hot climate could have access to at least a fan.

It’s about 95 degrees as I write, with humidity to match. I biked this morning to do a little food shopping, and it was bearable. Now it’s not. So I’m hunkered down at home until the yard is in shade, so I can do a little weeding in my garden. The saying “Everything’s relative” certainly applies to heat. My air-conditioned room feels comfortable compared to the upstairs, which is probably 15 degrees hotter. But if I venture outside and then come back in, it feels too cold.

My daughter and her family just spent a week in Paris during a heat wave where the temps topped 100 degrees. They had no AC in their rented house, but she didn’t mind at all. They used fans. There’s still very little AC anywhere in Paris – so much so that any establishment that has it advertises it. There was a three-week European heat wave in 2003 that killed 70,000 people, including 15,000 in France. That is incredible. This one was much shorter and also occurred in late June, not August, when the French go on vacation and leave their elders at home, who died in droves. 

It’s tempting, with the climate crisis, to call this the new normal, but the “new normal” is a moving target, where normal means hotter and hotter unless we humans can motivate enough of us to take the steps needed to rein it in. More trees would be a good start.

* Of course, Dasani is a Coca-Cola product, and OMG, I just looked it up and Wikipedia tells me it is bottled tap water, just filtered through reverse osmosis. Which also means Coke is exploiting the municipal water supplies of cities all over the world. Why would millions of U.S. Americans pay $2.50 a bottle for something that they could get almost free? That is also incredible. And then way too often toss out the plastic bottle. It’s got to be the best marketing scam ever.

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