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Archive for the ‘Environment’ Category

Honor the sacred.  Honor the Earth, our Mother.  Honor the Elders.  Honor all with whom we share the Earth:  -Four-leggeds, two-leggeds, winged ones, Swimmers, crawlers, plant and rock people.  Walk in balance and beauty.
    —     Native American Elder
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On This Day In:
2022 Keep Playing
2021 The False Stereotype
Extraordinary LOVE
2020 Fate, Agency And Dumb Luck
2019 You Too Can Choose
2018 In Line
2017 Just Get It Right
2016 In Support Of Common Core
2015 Oscillation
2014 Truth Shift
2013 Real Heroes
2012 Controlling The Beast
2011 1,002

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As long as I live, I’ll hear waterfalls and birds and winds sing.  I’ll interpret the rocks, learn the language of flood, storm, and the avalanche.  I’ll acquaint myself with the glaciers and wild gardens, and get as near the heart of the world as I can.
 
    —    John Muir
 
[Found at one of the blogs / sites I follow:  A Pondering Mind   (https://aponderingmind.org/)
The specific link is:  https://aponderingmind.org/2022/12/06/nature-9/
Please give the site a visit if you have a few spare moments.    —    kmab]
 
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On This Day In:
2022 Limited Knowledge And No Control
2021 Gifts
  Look Inside Your Heart
2020 A Strength Of Science
2019 A Higher Standard
  Make Two Calls
2018 Irreplaceable Sparks
2017 Saving For April 15th
2016 First Wish
2015 Tracing Shadows
2014 One Thing
2013 More Is Less
2012 The Screw-Up Gene
   

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In the confrontation between the stream and the rock, the stream always wins, not through strength but by perseverance.
    —    H. Jackson Brown, Jr.
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On This Day In:
2021 If You Do Nothing About Climate Change
Standing By
2020 Each Over All
Rollin’ Along
2019 And Integrity For Today’s Elected Republicans
2018 A Faulty Start, Too
Honorable Resignation And Syria
2017 Beneath The Tree Of Wisdom
The Republican Rape Of The American Middle Class
2016 Something Authentic Happened
2015 Back On The Bricks
On, Rocinante!!
2014 Changing Frequently
2013 Trifles
2012 Simple, Ordinary And Wonderous
2011 Humane Writers

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I believe that you control your destiny, that you can be what you want to be.  You can also stop and say, ‘No, I won’t do it, I won’t behave this way anymore.  I’m lonely and I need people around me, maybe I have to change my methods of behaving,’ and then you do it.
    —    Dr. Leo F. Buscaglia
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On This Day In:
2021 Said The Anti-Vaxxer
Ceiling Mash
2020 Is #45 In Good Spirits?
Alone With My Tears
2019 Learning To…
Day 15: Die By The Scale
2018 Just Wondering
2017 Until I Think Of Something Better
2016 Who Are You?
2015 Renaissance Reptiles
2014 Book Return
2013 Keep Writing Your Truths
Perilous Times For The U.S. Military
2012 The Victor
2011 Forging Away At My Deadlines
2010 Try This With Your Shoes…

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As we in the United States are currently experiencing terrible flooding in our South – South / East and extreme deadly heat in our South – South / West, let us take a moment to think about our fellow humanity suffering equally devastating weather related catastrophes in other parts of the world.
Tonight, as I am thinking of / praying for my fellow Americans in Mississippi, I am doing the same for Pakistan where there are estimates of over 1,100 people having lost their lives and over 20 million are homeless due to rain and flooding.
May God / Allah assist you in your time of need…
Salaam Alaikum for and from the people of America.
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On This Day In:
2021 Why Republicans Are Unhappy
I Guess It’s True
2020 A Tiny And Fragile World
Your Lyin’ Eyes
2019 Day 1: Done
#IncompetentDonald Fails On All Three
2018 I Put It Down To Bad Teachers
Day 34: In And Out
2017 And The Future Is Now
2016 I Am
2015 Positively Aiming Higher
2014 Suspicious Minds
2013 We Are Not Alone
2012 Lawyer, n.
2011 Each Day Remember…
2010 Impossible Dreams of Camelot

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We wish to pursue the truth no matter where it leads.  But to find the truth, we need imagination and skepticism both.
    —    Carl Sagan
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On This Day In:
2021 Broaden The Circle
The Phone Keeps Ringing
2020 Stay Gentle
2019 Immoral #45
2018 From My Soapbox
2017 The Single Most Effective Thing For Health
2016 A Trumpet Solo
2015 Potential Is A Heavy Burden
2014 Fear Not, Weep Not
2013 Half Way There
2012 Sacrificed Any Lately?
2011 The Value Of One’s Character
2010 Intervals
On Being Human
Non-predictive Emergence
Events
Bodily Functions
Standing Thoughts
Sent Home Is Better Than Fixed

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The trees and stones will teach you what you never learn from the masters.
    —     Bernard of Clairvaux
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On This Day In:
2021 Re-institute The Wall Between Church And State
Once In My Life
2020 Early Knowledge
Seen Any Messages Lately?
2019 I Don’t Think We’ll Be Serving Them Cake
2018 New And Old
2017 Ever
2016 At The Center
2015 True Value In Life
2014 A Potential To Be Concerned
2013 Fine No More
2012 Have You Checked Your Height Lately?
2011 Are You Convinced?

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It is our attitude at the beginning of a difficult task which, more than anything else, will affect its successful outcome.
   —     William James
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On This Day In:
2021 Our Identity Crisis Continues
There’s No Hiding Place
2020 In Need Of Concerted Action
2019 Anything / Everything
2018 Touching A Nerve
Good Fences Make Good Neighbors
I Have Realities In My Past
2017 Did I See You In Chapter 13?
2016 As I Recall
2015 Less And More Irritation
2014 That Marvelous Feeling
2013 Exceptional
2012 A Wild And Crazy Believer
2011 A Lack Of Scarcity
The Joy Of Prevention

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The limit of your present understanding is not the limit of your possibilities.
    —    Guy Finley
In these times – where social appearance is more important than spiritual substance – what has become our longing to change is really the unconscious desire to control not just the shape of our bodies (according to prevailing values) but to dominate our environment as well, regardless of the cost.
    —    Guy Finley
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On This Day In:
2021 I Should Have Started Earlier
To Soothe Your Soul
2020 Let’s Make It So
2019 Today’s Question
2018 A Moment Of Union
2016 Symptoms
2016 Tossers
2015 Hunger
2014 Outside Dependence
2013 Doing Right
2012 A Short Course In Human Relations
If Death Be My Future
Strive
Such A Fool
2011 I’m Working For A Living

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Consider again that dot.  That’s here.  That’s home.  That’s us.  On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives.  The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every “superstar”, every “supreme leader”, every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there — on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.
The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena.  Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that, in glory and triumph, they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot.  Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of this pixel on the scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner, how frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds.
Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the Universe, are challenged by this point of pale light.  Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark.  In our obscurity, in all this vastness, there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves.
The Earth is the only world known so far to harbor life.  There is nowhere else, at least in the near future, to which our species could migrate.  Visit, yes.  Settle, not yet.  Like it or not, for the moment the Earth is where we make our stand.
It has been said that astronomy is a humbling and character-building experience.  There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world.  To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another, and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we’ve ever known.
    —    Carl Sagan
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On This Day In:
2022 This Dot – Our Home
2021 The Imposition Of Position
Rainin’ Fire In The Sky
2020 Stand Up!
Crowd Sourced Scouting Report
2019 Only One Direction
2018 Respect Is Long Gone
2017 Dream Of Dreamers
2016 Dear Automakers
2015 And Some Not So Brave Too
2014 In My Lifetime…
2013 Democracy
2012 Borrowed Expectations
2011 Not Necessarily True

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If we’re going to live together, the [tech] giants and me, I’d like to ask them something.  Humbly. If you’re a product manager working on a feed or search interface inside of a giant tech company, you have access to hundreds of billions of hours of human attention.  Could you help your users spend one hour a year learning about what’s coming for the world, climate-wise, with a small dose of civics to go with it?
Because, if you did, that would be 2 or 3 billion hours of shared experience.  Two to 3 billion hours of people learning how important it is that we come together calmly.  And that is a beautiful canvas of time upon which to paint a future.  It would be one hell of a product.  We’re counting on you.
We have no choice.  You won.
Billions of us need help making millions, billions of decisions.  Decisions about whether to upgrade HVAC systems, or how to fuel our shipping, or what to plant in the backyard.  Sometimes it feels like the paradigm has inverted.  Technology was the mold growing across human systems.  Software was eating the world.  Now it feels like humans are the mold growing on technology.
I said that there’s no next big thing.  But deep in my soft, uncynical heart, where I keep my most embarrassing predictions, I do know what it is.  The next big thing is us.  Just plain old people.  Humans using language.  Humans accepting limits.  I can’t help you turn it into Q4 results.  I don’t know how to invest in it, nor who should run the conference series.  Nor could I tell you who should host the podcast.
I just know that it’s got to be our turn.  I love technology, but this is faith.
    —     Paul Ford
From his article:  “The Great Unbundling
Appearing in:  Wired Magzine;  dtd:  May 2021
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On This Day In:
2022 One Hour Per Year
2021 If You’re A Lucky 11 Year Old
Just Got To Be
Masked Countdown And Gratitude
2020 Democratic Aspiration
2019 Soul Before Will
2018 Small Things
2017 Clear And Warm To Me
2016 Ripple
2015 Amazing Or Full Of Wonder?
2014 Are You Confused?
2013 But The Odds Are Against It
2012 Far Better Off With Books
2011 Timid And Fainthearted

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Indifference and neglect often do much more damage than outright dislike.
    ―     J.K. Rowling
[While the world is currently (and rightly) obsessed by the war / humanitarian crisis in Ukraine, we should not “forget” the many other people all around the world who are suffering at the hands of “indifferent” (if not hostile) governments / societies and the global climate crisis which will effect humanity as much as any nuclear war might.
We have no shortage of minority haters here in the United States – from those subject to government indifference (the poor, the homeless and racial minorities), to anti-Semites, anti-Asians, and anti-Native Americans.  America has a LONG history of racist / nationalistic hatred which includes many who are now in more privileged classes (Irish, Italians, etc) and who seem to have forgotten their own not too distant past when they were the hated.
Outside of our own country there are Palestinians (and Christians) in the Middle East, the Uyghurs (Muslims) in China, Shiites in various Sunni countries and Sunni in various Shiite countries, non-Hindus in India, and the list goes on and on…  And, yes, I recognize this “short” list is biased to “just” the Northern Hemisphere…  I am reminded of the saying:  “Justice delayed is justice denied.
And while we spend all this time, effort and attention on what are truly minor differences, the world is cooking.  The polar icecaps are receding and the northern tundras are thawing.  And, then there is COVID and global pandemics…
I am in no way making light of the war (and war crimes) happening in Ukraine, but time is running out on civilization as we know it.  We – the people of Earth – individuals and nations – need to wake up and take responsibility for the planet we are leaving to our children’s children.  Think globally;  act locally!  Do what you can personally where you live to spread tolerance, peace and hope and help elect representatives who will spur community / societal action to save the planet.  This is the ONLY place in the universe where we know humanity can live.    —    kmab]
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On This Day In:
2022 One World (Our Only Place)…
2021 Move The Heart
Join Hands
2020 He Broke Even
Whoever / Whatever
2019 The Right Anger
Another P&P Review
2018 Does Fatalism Equal Mental Health?
2017 Choice
2016 Growing Worlds
2015 Change The Tide
Martyr, n.
2014 You, Too!
2013 Bitter Stand
2012 Lost For Words
2011 On Market Reactions…

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The only thing that stops God from sending another flood is that the first one was useless.
    —     Nicolas Chamfort
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On This Day In:
2021 Climate Change Is Already Raising Sea Levels
Running From You
2020 Speaking For Us
Tears Don’t Wash Away
2019 Foundational Pillar Of Civilized Discourse
2018 Seven Minutes. Not Six, Not Eight
2017 Falling Forward One Step At A Time
2016 And Without Expectation
2015 Just Do It
I Am A Runner
2014 Some Things I Learned (Mostly) In The Army:
2013 Who You Are
2012 Mine Stands
2011 Aversions

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It’s the action, not the fruit of the action, that’s important.  You have to do the right thing.  It may not be in your power, may not be in your time, that there’ll be any fruit.  But that doesn’t mean you stop doing the right thing.  You may never know what results come from your action.  But if you do nothing, there will be no result.
    —     Mahatma Gandhi
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On This Day In:
2021 If You Do Nothing About Climate Change
Standing By
2020 Each Over All
Rollin’ Along
2019 And Integrity For Today’s Elected Republicans
2018 A Faulty Start, Too
Honorable Resignation And Syria
2017 Beneath The Tree Of Wisdom
The Republican Rape Of The American Middle Class
2016 Something Authentic Happened
2015 Back On The Bricks
On, Rocinante!!
2014 Changing Frequently
2013 Trifles
2012 Simple, Ordinary And Wonderous
2011 Humane Writers

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Earth provides enough to satisfy every man’s needs, but not every man’s greed.
 
    —     Mahatma Gandhi
 
[Mankind cannot continue our war on the Earth’s environment and expect to survive – let alone expect to “win”.  Yes, we can destroy the environment, but the Earth will not care and it will go on.  If we continue to make the planet uninhabitable for our species, we will become extinct, but the Earth will continue just fine.  The planet is indifferent to our survival as a species.  This will be a bitter lesson (for humanity) for the next 150 years…    —    kmab]
 
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On This Day In:
2021 My Thoughts On Global Climate Change
  And Never Understand
2020 Waiting For 20 January 2021
  #45: You Would Cry Too…
2019 #Corrupt45 Fails Another Great Test
2018 Where The Economy Is Headed Thanks To #IncompetentDonald
2017 Time For More Research, Too
2016 Original Thoughts
2015 If They’re Good Enough
2014 Three…
2013 Uncle Joe’s Song
  Live, Then, As If…
2012 Still Trying
2011 Not Deserving
   

 

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