Today, February 2nd, sunrise was 7:02am and sunset will be at 5:06pm: a gain of 13 minutes in the morning and 44 minutes at night … a total of 57 minutes. Over the next two days, we add another 6 minutes making it more than a full hour of additional sunlight since Winter Solstice.
Of course, that is the sciencey stuff. We know that there is more to it than that.
Today is the first day in a ban on on-campus sales of bottled water at the University of Vermont.
When students at the University of Vermont resume classes on the snow-covered Burlington campus Monday, something will be missing: bottled water. UVM is the latest university to ban on-campus sales of bottled water.
Last night I had the opportunity to attend the Do The Math Tour event when it arrived in Madison WI. It had a Bus, a Building, and, best of all, Bill … Bill McKibben of 350.org.
A bus and a building
Bill McKibben and his plan
Here is The Math, in a nutshell.
It’s simple math: we can burn less than 565 more gigatons of carbon dioxide and stay below 2°C of warming — anything more than that risks catastrophe for life on earth. The only problem? Fossil fuel corporations now have 2,795 gigatons in their reserves, five times the safe amount. And they’re planning to burn it all — unless we rise up to stop them.
The presentation was eye opening and the number that kept haunting me was “15 years”. In 15 years, enough of that fossil fuel will have been burned to destroy the livability of our planet. And it will not just be waking up one morning, 15 years from now, and saying “Wow, our planet is now unlivable!!”. It will be Hurricane Katrinas and Superstorm Sandys and Midwest Droughts of the CenturyDecade Past Week … and tornadoes, floods, unbearable heat, unbearable cold, food shortages … leading up to “our planet is now unlivable”.
This morning over breakfast, I shared with my teenage daughter a little about the presentation and mentioned to her that at our present rate the earth would be destroyed within 15 years. She said “That’s too bad, I kind of wanted to live my life”. (To be fair, she was also doing something on her iPod and may not have been paying complete attention — curse you, Angry Birds! — so her comment was a bit understated). Yet this really struck me.
President Barack Obama in New Jersey (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)
During the 1960s and 1970s, natural disasters hitting the United States underscored the need for a national response and national relief efforts. There were over 100 different federal agencies involved in disaster relief and the states were asking for help.
President Jimmy Carter, Democrat, created the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) by Executive Order in 1979:
FEMA was established under the 1978 Reorganization Plan No. 3, and activated April 1, 1979 by Jimmy Carter in his Executive Order 12127. In July, Carter signed Executive Order 12148 shifting disaster relief efforts to the new federal level agency. FEMA absorbed the Federal Insurance Administration, the National Fire Prevention and Control Administration, the National Weather Service Community Preparedness Program, the Federal Preparedness Agency of the General Services Administration and the Federal Disaster Assistance Administration activities from HUD.
Well, there is another reason to vote for Democrats: to be heard.
President Barack Obama reminds us of that (and the importance of every single vote) in this campaign ad released this past week:
Apologies to those who still suffer from Stolen Election 2000 PTSD … but this is a BHD.
“Five hundred and thirty seven.”
“The number of votes that changed the course of American history.”
[Newscast: "Florida is too close to call"]
“The difference between what was…And what could have been…”
“So this year, if you’re thinking that your vote doesn’t count.That it won’t matter. Well, back then, there were probably at least 537 people, who felt the same way.”
“Make your voice heard. Vote.”
In red and purple states where there is little doubt about the outcome of the presidential contest or the U.S. Senate races, there might be a tendency to think that your vote does not matter. Besides the obvious need to vote to elect Democratic candidates to school boards, city and county government, state legislatures, and congressional districts, there is another reason your vote matters:
To make your voice heard
Every time you stand up and are counted, even if you are voted down or shouted down, you win. Because those who vote you down and shout you down have heard your voice and while they may defeat you electorally, they can’t ignore you. Yours is one more vote that will need to be overcome for the next election and the election after that … until maybe … just maybe … there are enough of you standing up and being counted that you start winning elections.
The Republicans did not all wake up one morning and say “Let’s all get together and start hating poor people and people of color and women and gay people and unions and teachers and the middle class and Big Bird”. They started small (“Let’s hate women and people of color”) and kept building their “coalition” until they became the loudest voice heard in some states and they won elections.
September 30 is always a day of personal reflection for me. The day arrived with the full moon having manifested just a few hours before midnight and after the fall colors were becoming more visible in the stand of trees behind our wetlands.
This year I reflected on cleansing flames and new growth.
President Barack Obama in New Jersey (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)
