“Renewable energy investment has overtaken fossil fuels, and green technologies are advancing at record speed. More governments are rethinking their energy systems to improve affordability, accessibility and sustainability.”
See Solar Schools: What’s Possible on this blog. The Tidewater area of Hampton Roads in Virginia is seizing the soon to end tax credits from the Inflation Reduction Act. It makes good sense for schools to gain the benefits of cleaner energy and reduced costs.
“Even a wounded world is feeding us. Even a wounded world holds us, giving us moments of wonder and joy. I choose joy over despair. Not because I have my head in the sand, but because joy is what the earth gives me daily and I must return the gift.”
― Robin Wall Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants (from goodreads)
“Our challenge is to create a new language, even a new sense of what it is to be human. It is to transcend not only national limitations, but even our species isolation, to enter into the larger community of living species. This brings about a completely new sense of reality and value.” (Thomas Berry, “The Ecological Age,” in The Dream of the Earth, 42). https://thomasberry.org/quotes/
M. Scott Momaday, reading his poetry, A Man Made of Words.
Scott’s understanding of language arises from his deep conversation with the land of the Kiowa. He received the Pulitzer Prize with his first novel, The House Made of Dawn.
To read or listen to powerful voices of people who have devoted their lives to celebrating the Earth is to heal and to find our way home. Each offers us solace and a direction for our lives as we anticipate times of destruction in America and around the world. Earth teaches us to live in community, to know each other and to be in reciprocal relationship with each other and all of life around us. I highly recommend these great teachers, each of whom has helped me understand a way forward in uncertain times. They offer hope and a longer point of view than ephemeral politics. They are an antidote to avarice. We need this deep resonance now to stabalize our spirits and our collective wish for unity, equality and peace.
Here is a brilliant conversation between Robin Wall Kimmerer and Emanuel Vaughn Lee of Emergence Magazine. Robin describes the wonderful serviceberry tree and what she has learned from its generosity. I also recommend Emergence Magazine for its films from artists and thought leaders across our great planet. I go there frequently to keep the balance.
The Serviceberry: Abundance and Reciprocity in the Natural World by Robin Wall Kimerer. I am awaiting my copy!
This morning an article about Joe Biden’s record of climate legislation appeared in Distilled on Substack. Michael Thomas, the author, believes most Americans need to know how much Biden has accomplished on climate legislation to move the nation and the world toward a viable future.
Thomas compares Biden’s record to what we can expect from a T(Rump) presidency. From believing climate change is a “hoax” to promising to raze environmental regulation, Trump plans to disengage from the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change), which he did when in office (2017 to 2021), and promises to “drill baby drill” to increase oil and gas production. That is reckless with the futures of millions of young Americans and all the countries in the world affected by rising temperatures and its consequences. No one can buy us out of the climate catastrophe that awaits foolish decision makers and the public.
If you care about your children’s future wellbeing, it is imperative that we keep climate innovation at the pace spurred by investment into companies and communities toward a clean energy future through Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act (IRA). Billions of investment dollars are spurring innovation and contributing to a strong economy–stronger than any other nation in the world. The future of clean energy is being laid down now, but it is in its infancy. Will we let a mad man disrupt that again?
Read or listen to Michael Thomas on Distilled on Substack.
Read on Carbon Brief what is likely to occur if the former president is reelected.
Photo by Susan Feathers: Pensacola Beach
Related: “Last year, the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) invested nearly $20 billion in promoting climate-smart systems such as advanced grazing management, manure composting, and soil health practices like cover cropping through the USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) working lands programs. One of the issues under negotiation for the new Farm Bill is whether to keep these funds where they are – supporting and expanding climate smart conservation – or move some or all of the remaining funds into commodity programs where they will accelerate farmland consolidation and further disadvantage small to midscale farms. The 2024 Farm Bill must maintain or expand the IRA investment in helping farmers build climate resilience, sequester carbon, and reduce greenhouse gas emissions and not raid conservation to support the outdated “get big or get out” agribusiness paradigm.” ~ VA Association for Biological Farming
Bill McKibben presents a new approach to galvanizing action by wisdom keepers (Elders) to gather experienced Americans to steer leaders toward a more sustainable world: https://thirdact.org/.
I have joined Third Act Virginia
Listen to Bill McKibben below to learn more about how Third Act! is focused on Voting Rights, divesting big banks from investing in fossil fuel companies, and the principles that guide members of Third Act!
Susan Feathers 