How America is finally focusing on fighting the climate crisis
Scientists and climate journalists alike announced 2020 was the beginning of the climate decade. Essentially, the last 10 years in which we could take substantive action to curb our runaway greenhouse problem. Long gone was the notion of reversing it. Now dire action was needed simply so things didn’t get much worse. But, at first, it seemed business as usual here in the States.
Then a pandemic happened. Seemingly overnight, as we confined ourselves inside our residences and shut down business and travel, the skies cleared. And we got a literal look at what our future could be — what…
I’m not sure what tomorrow will bring. But it’s my hope that the goodness living deep inside all of us will shine through the bleakness that we are enduring, like sunlight through shattered glass.
Despite our crushed spirits and broken hearts, maybe we can find a new path forward, together. (I’ve been stewing in doubt, but I know I can’t stay there.) Is it too much to ask ourselves, and each other, that we examine how we got to where we are today? …
Using our current discord as the fertilizer for a better culture.
This week’s insurrection has brought to a head all the inflammatory incitement our president has been fomenting for the past four-plus years. Sure, there’s hope because the sun is about to set on his disastrously divisive administration. But because one man goes away doesn’t mean the problems go away. (And he’ll still be very public, by the way, just without power or a sanctioned platform.) The worst thing we can do at the beginning of a new administration is to turn away from this — sweep it under the rug and pretend that we’re moving forward when we’re simply walking…
Or the merits of lifting a finger rather than pointing it, as it pertains to the climate crisis.
Read five articles on the climate crisis and you’ll read about 5 different culprits for our current predicament. From politicians to businesses to the very nature of our economy and everything in between. Who’s right? Truthfully, all of them. Who’s to blame? Simply, all of us. But while there may be some catharsis for a climate writer in pointing their finger, or some absolution for us in reading about it, the honest truth is it doesn’t help.
I saw the movie “Rising Sun” when I was 14, it’s an action crime thriller based on a book by Michael Crichton. And…
The Great Lakes and one of the many unsung battles of the climate crisis.
In 2010, an oil pipeline in western Michigan burst, spilling more than one million gallons of oil into Talmadge Creek, a tributary of the Kalamazoo River. It was the largest inland oil spill in the history of the Midwest, and according to the NTSB, it would become the costliest onshore oil cleanup in US history. That tragic accident set the stage for a fight nearly 300 miles away beneath the waters where the great Michigan and Huron lakes meet.
Enbridge Energy, a Calgary-based oil and natural gas company owns the world’s longest network of pipelines transporting crude oil and liquids…
How (and why) treating the Green New Deal as a boogeyman only ensures we all lose.
If you’re like most Americans you haven’t read the Green New Deal. You’ve heard the debate around it, the posturing and the grandstanding. If you’ve a strong political leaning, then you’re favoring whatever the politicians you align with are saying. At the very least, you’ve taken in sound bites about it from news programs. In short, we’re treating it like we do all things politics — with as much attention as we absolutely must give it, and not one brain cell more.
I have read it, but I don’t blame you if you haven’t. Politics is not my thing. I…
How a healthy appetite can help fight the climate crisis.
Human psychology is a funny thing. You can perfectly understand why doing something is good for you and not do it. Other times, seemingly out of nowhere a switch flips and you consciously close a chapter in your life.
Over 15 years ago I unknowingly started a slow journey to giving up meat. At the time I was a full-time meatatarian. To me, three meals a day meant there were at least 21 opportunities every week to fill my face with meat. I half-joked about wanting to open a restaurant called Everything Bacon — a meat-packed menu with bacon infused…
How climate change (and what we’re doing about it) is the issue behind every single choice on your ballot.
There are many reasons why people vote—from the ideological to the practical, all of them personal. But this year climate change is on the ballot. It has been for years, but now we can no longer afford to deny it. In every ballot decision we make we will be casting a vote for or against saving our species and bringing our planet back into balance. From the president down to the local drain inspector, and every tax proposal, town millage, and state amendment in between, climate change is a factor in the choices we make.
This may sound like an…
How becoming temporary parents taught us that it wasn’t our purpose.
This article was originally written for, and posted on, Think Tank of Three.
I am a 38-year-old woman, happily married for 11 years, and living in Michigan with three adorable dogs. No picket fence because our HOA won’t allow it. And no kids because we’re childfree.
“Childfree” is a word you may or may not have heard before — I only learned it in the last few years. It’s used in place of the word “childless”, meaning a life without children isn’t negative for those who feel that nothing…
As our federal government drops the ball, the states take the lead.
“Look for the helpers, you will always find people who are helping.” — Mr. Rogers
This is a very easy notion to understand as children, but it becomes more difficult as we get older. Especially in an age when we often can’t agree, at least politically, on what the problem is or what even constitutes a problem. Having my eyes opened to the true scope and scale of climate change has been a long, slow process. I always believed the science. Hearing about the hole in the ozone and prepping for acid rain events as a kid, helped ensure that…
Barnhill
A husband and wife team exploring the topics we are passionate about, both individually and together.
