Dot's connecting

without life, Earth would look much life its moon [Earthrise image credit NASA]

One of our long-standing complaints about main stream media [MSM] is the frequently poor job it does connecting the dots. MSM seems to be trained and educated to see and present everything without putting anything into a context. Let's not even begin to consider what MSM tries to present as fair and balanced coverage. Recently, through no effort of our own, we've been encountered a number of dots that we believe need connecting. Consider this a follow up to our short series on climate change behavior change checklists. Here are the five dots we see that are connected but not enough folks know it:

• We have 12 years to limit climate change catastrophe, warns UN
  
  
• New outlook on global warming: Best prepare for social collapse, and soon
  Ron Meador
  
  
• Don't despair: the climate fight is only over if you think it is
  Rebecca Solnit
  
  
• Leaders move past Trump to protect world from climate change
  
  
• BUSINESS AND THE SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT GOALS:
  Best practices to seize opportunity and maximise credibility
  
  

  

  SDGs align with the top 5 global medium-term risks identified in the WEF Global Risks Report 2016

  
  

Climate change is developing more rapidly and severely than the conservative estimates indicated. The effects may be more severe than anticipated. Giving up is not an option since it means we lose without even trying. Others are flowing around obstacles. There are markets to be won and profits to be made by responding to not only climate change but a number of other emerging issues that could make the world less sustainable for humanity. The options are lose-lose or win-win. Business, and politics, as usual is a losing strategy.

Our natural inclination is to be like Eeyore and look for the worst outcome (see Madore's piece). What we know we need to buy into is Solnit's perspective. Are you connecting any dots these days? Do they lead to a winning or a losing strategy? As a recovering planner, one of the dictums we remember from our days a a practicing planner is that "More of the same never solved a problem." The odds are really good that the earth will continue for quite some time. The question is whether it will do so with or without us humans.

Looking

Robert Kelly, 1935

Once when I read the funnies
I took my little magnifying glass
and looked too close.

Forms became colors and colors
were just arrays of dots
and between the dots I saw the rough bleak
storyless legend of the pulp paper
empty as the winter moon

and I dreaded it.
I had looked right through,
when I wanted a universe
that sustains
looker and looking and the seen
forever, detail after detail
never ending. And all I had found
was between. But between
had its own song:
Find it in the space between—

it is just as empty as it seems
but this blankness is your mother.

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Thanks for visiting. Come again when you can.
Please be kind to each other while you can.

For whom should Minnesota's anglers, hunters, and environmentalists vote?

It's less than a month until Election Day. In Minnesota, early voting is available. We honestly wish we could point to a list of Democrats and say "These folks!" It's not that simple these days. Once upon a time, we believed the Democratic party were the "good guys" and were in favor of labor and environmental protection. Then came the 1968 Democratic Convention, the Chicago police riots, courtesy of Mayor Richard Daley (a Democrat). During the 1970s, we watched as a Republican President helped create the Council on Environmental Quality, the Environmental Protection Agency and many of the environmental laws Americans have depended on for generations: The Endangered Species Act, the Clean Water Act Amendments, and the Clean Air Act. These days we're hard pressed to find more than a handful of real environmental champions in either political party. The following is the best guidance we've been able to find to help us decide who we're going to vote for in less than a month. Minnesota is not without any good choices for protecting the environment, but we'd be better served if we had more, especially in mining and farming country.

near the northern end on MN's Congressional District 8

Photo by J. Harrington

The Sierra Club (full disclosure: we're long  time members) sent us an email with a link to their national Voter Guide. In Minnesota, as of about 11:45 am today, there's no endorsement for Congressional Districts 6, 7, and 8; nor for either Senate seat. The North Star Chapter's endorsements for state elections are listed here.

near the southern end on MN's Congressional District 8

Photo by J. Harrington

Hatch magazine (@hatchflymag) offers this perspective on who to vote for, or vote out, to protect clean air and clean water. The only Minnesota politicians we can find listed are Lewis, J., Paulsen, Emmer, and Peterson, all of whom voted "TO REPEAL THE STREAM PROTECTION RULE IN THE HOUSE." You can probably figure our for yourself whether that means they should be voted in or out.

Thanks to a Tweet from Agate Magazine (@AgateMag) in our Twitter time line, we found Outside Magazine's How to Vote for the Outdoors, which includes separate sections by:

•  The League of Conservation Voters
  The League offers a Scorecard, based on politicians voting records. Minnesota was disappointingly average, thanks to three Rs and one DINO in the House.


•  The Outdoor Industry Association
  In their Voters Guide, Eric Paulson(R) is the only endorsed candidate in MN. (?)


• The Trust for Public Land
  TPL seems focused on getting local funding measures passed, not on getting candidates elected.


• Backcountry Hunters and Anglers
  We found no voters guide information in the National nor the Minnesota Chapter section.

Each of these listings might get updated before the election, so consider checking back if you don't vote early. We're still hoping to find a political party that truly believes there doesn't have to be a tradeoff between a healthy economy and a healthy environment. The early effects of climate change that we're seeing these days make it clear to us that we need a major transformation in how we source, produce, deliver and dispose of our material goods. The best time to start that transformation was twenty years ago. The second best time is November 6, 2018.

Why I Voted the Socialist Ticket

By Vachel Lindsay

I am unjust, but I can strive for justice.

My life’s unkind, but I can vote for kindness.

I, the unloving, say life should be lovely.

I, that am blind, cry out against my blindness.

Man is a curious brute—he pets his fancies—

Fighting mankind, to win sweet luxury.

So he will be, though law be clear as crystal,

Tho’ all men plan to live in harmony.

Come, let us vote against our human nature,

Crying to God in all the polling places

To heal our everlasting sinfulness

And make us sages with transfigured faces.

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Thanks for visiting. Come again when you can.
Please be kind to each other while you can.