About that Democratic climate change forum

It's not often we find ourselves bouncing back and forth as much as recent stock market shifts. We're currently changing opinions daily or more frequently about which of two leading Democratic candidates for POTUS we prefer. One's a man, the other's a woman. That's all we're saying for now. Over the past several decades we've displayed an unfortunate ability to put a jinx on many people, places and things we admire. We hope to avoid doing anything like that in the upcoming election. In fact, our track record is such that we are actively considering endorsing one or more candidates that we'd have a hard time voting for.

Where were we? Oh yes, as we checked out the reports on last night's climate change forum, we once again came across a reference to the United Nations' Sustainable Development Goals. We approve of and support the way the 17 SDGs are related to our current "climate emergency."

The urgency of responding to the rapid breakdown our climate is experiencing shouldn't push us to think it's an issue we can tackle in isolation. That's an example of the kind of thinking that got us in the current messes in the first place. Please repeat after us this John Muir quotation from My First Summer in the Sierra:

When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the Universe.

We believe that this is a more important concept than how much money a candidate proposes to throw at the climate breakdown problem. It isn't a technical climate green house gases issue, it's a systems issue. Our support will go to the candidate that we think has the best systematic approach to tackling climate breakdown, adaptation and drawdown. It's important to leave fossil fuels in the ground. It's also important to make sure their replacements are phased in at the same rate that fossil fuels are phased out. We haven't heard enough discussion yet about that aspect. Have you?

We gained some personal insight into this issue as we thought about how we're going to manage the dead branches that keep falling onto the drive and the back yard. If we just throw them into the woods, eventually fungi and bacteria will cause them to decay and the carbon contained therein will be available to help grow other plants or those that feed on them. It's the rate of carbon release that makes a difference between natural decay and intentionally burning the brush and branches, just as burning fossil fuels is releasing carbon that was contained in plants millions of years ago. We've been releasing most of it in the past couple of hundred years. The rate of change makes a difference. That's part of the systemic change that needs to be managed better than we've even talked about so far.

bald eagle, symbol of the US

Photo by J. Harrington

Eagle Poem

Joy Harjo- 1951-

To pray you open your whole self
To sky, to earth, to sun, to moon
To one whole voice that is you.
And know there is more
That you can't see, can't hear,
Can't know except in moments
Steadily growing, and in languages
That aren't always sound but other
Circles of motion.
Like eagle that Sunday morning
Over Salt River. Circled in blue sky
In wind, swept our hearts clean
With sacred wings.
We see you, see ourselves and know
That we must take the utmost care
And kindness in all things.
Breathe in, knowing we are made of
All this, and breathe, knowing
We are truly blessed because we
Were born, and die soon within a
True circle of motion, 
Like eagle rounding out the morning
Inside us. 
We pray that it will be done
In beauty.
In beauty.

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