Change Is Here…

The following image is from the United Nations Development Program, who’s task it is to gather and provide information related to helping people build a better life for themselves.
2016 Climate Related Population Disruption / Displacement
Relative to the complete human species (roughly 7 billion people), a figure of 15 million people being displaced due to climate related issues in a single year (2016) may not seem like a large number.  What needs to be understood is this is just the canary – coughing and wheezing –  in the coal mine, or (probably) a better image might be the first trickle of water from the smallest of cracks in a gigantic dam.  And this is just the wet weather data…  It does not show displacement due to drought and water shortage (increased fires) or winter storms and tornado damage.
New Orleans (LA), Seaside (NJ), Houston (TX) and Puerto Rico are just the beginning…   And, yet, we (the United States) are withdrawing from the Paris Climate Accords…  We need to wake up and smell the coffee.  Climate change is already here, not coming in the future.  The question is:  What are we going to do to mitigate its effect on our country and our civilization?  This is a national security issue, not some pie in the sky hoax started by environmentalists.  The longer we wait, the more difficult (and expensive) our response will be.  …And the more catastrophic the period between now and whatever becomes “the new normal”.
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On This Day In:
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Seeking Needs

Everybody needs beauty as well as bread, places to play in and pray in, where nature may heal and cheer and give strength to body and soul alike.
—  John Muir
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On This Day In:
2018	Not Sure Anyway…
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2017	Forms Of Conservation
2016	Oh, So Lacking
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Where Does This Leave Us?

Where does this leave all of us and the planet we inhabit?  Even thinking optimistically, enacting climate-change legislation that matches the scale of the challenge is hard to imagine: the science is damning and the clock is ticking.  And while the conversation may be shifting, there’s still a climate-change-denying President in the White House and nothing like a broad consensus on a path forward among Democrats.
In the face of all that, it would be easy to dismiss the new breed of climate activists as noisy but dreamy, idealists distant from the powers who run the show.  But that’s the thing about social movements, from civil rights to gay rights.  At first the activists may look naive, and maybe they are.  But in the rearview mirror, they come to look like instigators of massive and, in hindsight, obvious change.
—  Justin Worland
In Mr. Worland’s article: “A New Climate For Climate“
Appearing in Time Magazine, dtd: 3 April 2019
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On This Day In:
2018	Or A Small Blue Planet
2017	To Infinity And Beyond
2016	And Some Unawake, Too
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2014	Seeing The Light
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2012	Tricked Again
2011	Liberty And Justice For Earth
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Quiet, Please!

A loss of silence is as serious as a loss of memory and just as disorienting.  Silence is, after all, the natural context from which we listen.  Silence is also the natural context from which we speak.
—  Cornelius Plantinga, Jr.
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On This Day In:
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We Are Approaching Default

The world is not given to you by your parents.  It is loaned to you by your children.
—  Kenyan proverb
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On This Day In:
2017	Today Is Not Lost
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2016	Paying Attention
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2014	What Are You Doing?
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2011	Unnecessary Stagefright

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Or A Small Blue Planet

The most amazing thing about trees is it doesn’t actually matter how rich you are.  You can never buy a really old, beautiful tree.
—  Steve Jobs
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On This Day In:
2017	To Infinity And Beyond
2016	And Some Unawake, Too
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2015	Natural Shapes
2014	Seeing The Light
2013	Requirements
2012	Tricked Again
2011	Liberty And Justice For Earth
2010	Home Again, Home Again, Jig-A-De, Jig…

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So We Agree, #45 Is Dumb – Too

I was in business for 30 years, and my experience is that the best way to operate is to work fairly and closely with partners over a long period of time.  The most expensive way to do business is to do it deal by deal, each of which is highly contentious.  If deal by deal is the model, where instead of partners or allies we have counterparts and competitors, that is very expensive, difficult, and dangerous.  OK, so look at the Paris agreement: It’s going to force the developed world to change its energy sources.  That means the US could be the leader in developing renewable technology for more than a billion people — a huge incoming market — who don’t have electricity at all.
The Paris agreement was a great achievement of American leadership.  So the idea that we’re going to walk away and give up leadership of 194 countries, and walk away from our position as a leader in the world for the past 100 years, will be an incredibly expensive and dumb thing to do.
—  Tom Steyer
From the article: “The Billionaire on a Mission to Save the Planet From Trump“
Article written by: Nick Stockton
Article appearing in: Wired Magazine, dtd: April 2017
Link to article: http://www.wired.com/2017/03/tom-steyer-interview/
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On This Day In:
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2013	Future Trustees
2012	Praise Not The Day…
2011	Educated Living

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