Bill McKibben Article and comments from Mr. Bear!

[Veronica]

-------- Original Message --------
Subject: [NIONSC] Bill McKibben Article
From: "Edward Bear edwar...@cox.net [NIONSC]" <NIONSC-...@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Sunday, April 22, 2018, 1:42 AM
To: Edward Bear <edwar...@cox.net>
CC:

 

Dear Friend,

Greetings on Earth Day Weekend.  

The first Earth Day was on April 22, 1970 and began as an environmental teach-in by Wisconsin Senator Gaylord Nelson.  He was disturbed that an issue as important as our environment was not being addressed in politics or by the media.  So he created the first Earth Day, on April 22, 1970. 

An estimated 20 million people nationwide attended festivities that day. It's half a century later now, and we in the United States are going backwards.  I wouldn't have believed that we could have been pushed into that dumb and reckless a position, but we have. We exist on one beautiful, perfect planet for us, Earth.

    

Bill McKibben's latest article, "100% Renewable Energy is Within Our Reach," reminds us that there is great progress being made everywhere.  It's being done by individuals, by many groups and organizations, and by intelligent companies and nations, in spite of the chokehold that the Koch brothers and other fossil fuel companies have on the U.S. government.  Here's the opening of Bill's article:

---------------

"We watch in horror as the damages from climate change continue to mount.

Last year, Hurricane Harvey dropped more rain on Houston than any storm has ever dropped on any American city, ever. Hurricane Maria set back development in Puerto Rico 25 years, according to early estimates. And the tab keeps mounting: in 2017 alone, the economic cost of hurricanes and wildfires was greater than the cost of paying tuition for every American in a public college or university. 

We can’t have a working nation or a world if we don’t stop the climate from careening out of control. That’s been clear for decades now, but what’s been less clear is precisely what we should do about it.

Happily, that’s no longer the case. We now know exactly what to do, and we’re increasingly certain it can be done. We have to switch off of coal, oil, and gas, and on to 100% wind, water, and sun energy sources. And though this drive for a conversion to clean energy started in northern Europe and northern California, it’s a call that’s gaining traction outside the obvious green enclaves. 

More and more major US cities have taken the pledge to go 100% renewable by the year 2050, while others have taken action to sever their ties with the fossil fuel industry, signifying a global shift in how we’re thinking about our energy system.

What Medicare for All is to the health care debate, or Fight for $15 is to the battle about inequality, 100% Renewable is to the struggle for the planet’s future." 

"Scientists now tell us that at current rates, within a decade we’ll likely have put enough carbon in the atmosphere to warm the earth past the Paris climate targets. And in any event there’s no need any longer to go slow: engineers have in the last few years brought the price of renewables so low that it would make sense to switch over even if fossil fuel wasn’t wrecking the earth. 

In fact, that’s why the appeal of 100% renewables goes well beyond the left: if you pay a power bill, clean energy is increasingly the common-sense path forward. But that doesn’t mean it’s going to happen automatically: the fossil fuel industry recognizes its peril, and is rallying all the political power its cash reserves can buy to prevent the idea getting traction. It’s going to be a hell of a fight."

Full article:  https://www.commondreams.org/views/2018/04/20/100-renewable-energy-within-our-reach

---------------

It is a hell of a fight, that's for sure, but one that aware people have to take on for ourselves, and to help today's young people have a livable future.  

Joining the fight are 20,000 scientists who have endorsed and/or signed a paper entitled, "World Scientists' Warning to Humanity: A Second Notice" which was published in the journal Bioscience last November.  The original version was published 25 years ago by the Union of Concerned Scientists and signed by 1700 scientists then, including the majority of living Nobel laureates in the sciences.  

The "Second Notice" is endorsed by 20,000 scientists who state: "Human beings and the natural world are on a collision course."  At every opportunity, we have to pull ourselves back from having an irreversible collision with a climate gone too extreme for normal human habitation.  By spreading the real information widely to inform others, and knowing we have strength in numbers, we can do it.

And if you have any doubts about how ignorant and destructive Trump, Pence and their people are to the environment, read this article from January about the 67 key environmental rules that they have reversed:

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/10/05/climate/trump-environment-rules-reversed.html

As Churchill, in October of 1941, knee-deep in World War II, said: 

”Never, never, in nothing great or small, large or petty, never give in except to convictions of honour and good sense. Never yield to force; never yield to the apparently overwhelming might of the enemy.  Never, never give up.”

Thank you for whatever you can add to this fight.

Best wishes,

E.Bear

THIS IS NOT SPAM

__._,_.___

---

Posted by: Edward Bear <edwar...@cox.net>

---

Reply via web post

•

Reply to sender

•

Reply to group

•

Start a New Topic

•

Messages in this topic (2)

---

Have you tried the highest rated email app?

With 4.5 stars in iTunes, the Yahoo Mail app is the highest rated email app on the market. What are you waiting for? Now you can access all your inboxes (Gmail, Outlook, AOL and more) in one place. Never delete an email again with 1000GB of free cloud storage.

---

Visit Your Group

• Privacy • Unsubscribe • Terms of Use

.

__,_._,___