Since the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio, our global community of nations has sent delegations to more environmental meetings in Kyoto(1997), Copenhagen(2009), Manila( 2012) and other cities to consider how legislation might be passed followed by action taken to protect the planet for future generations. These gatherings have brought only limited progress over twenty-two years [...]
Sean Sweeney, a researcher from Cornell University was asked about the KEYSTONE XL job promises for Louisiana in a public hearing on his analysis of the KXL pipeline, now hotly discussed in national politics. When Sweeney was asked how many jobs would be lost in LA if KXL was rejected, he laughed and said, “I [...]
One day in November a kind neighbor brought several bags of sweet potatoes to our home. He sat for a moment to provide a tale of trust that would exceed any nutrition flowing from the potatoes. Our gift bearing neighbor was returning to Lafayette from his childhood home near Marksville north of “Oil City.” He [...]
Premier Xi (pronounced Shi) Jin Ping and President Obama, as heads of state for the two biggest climate warming nations in the world recently agreed to reduction of carbon dioxide emissions in this century. Their hope is staving off climate catastrophes in our future. Australians will recall temperatures of 125 degrees last summer. Climate change [...]
Having broken another spending record in the 2014 midterm elections, political observers feel justified in describing our system as a certified “plutocracy” in which elected officials become marionettes of big corporations that pour millions into their campaigns. TV networks love expensive pleas for votes. Will any politician deny being paid handsomely by supporters of the [...]
Abolitionist editor Elijah Parish Lovejoy was murdered by a pro slavery mob in Alton, IL on November 7, 1837. Memorials in Alton relate the story of one courageous opponent in the face of a global movement that had to end. The power of a few abolitionists is worthy of respectful remembrance in our Anthropocene age [...]
