What a week and weekend! Final part of California coast signed into protection, No fishing zoned upheld, and St. Patrick's Day!

California Coastal National Monument

Good news for marine life in California!

The California Coastal Commission has banned the Navy from any further sonar testing off the coast of California because it is dangerous to the marine life that live there. BRAVO! Now let's hope the Navy steps up and respects that decision! They are climate patriots!

Earth Hour this Saturday, March 26!

Climate Bill moving through Congress

Well, I am still waiting on the $1 million rebate to Americans to come through. In the mean time some news on the Climate Crisis/Global Warming problems. Finally the US government is doing something about our major contribution to CO2 emissions by working on a Climate Bill. The House will probably finish up their work this summer and then on to the Senate. This bill is an excellent lesson on what happens when a President presents a really good bill to Congress and then the vultures take it apart. When the final bill is finished it would be a really good example of what started as a terrific bill and what Congress and lobbyists do to it. It is also a good example of how powerful anything to do with energy is in this country. Still it is better than nothing. Maybe concessions to big industry is the only way to get something like this done, even if the middle class taxpayers lose something.

Exxon has started drillling in the Arctic. Govenor S. is talking about more offshore drilling around Santa Barbara near Channel Islands National Marine Life Sanctuary. Oil already leaks on top of the ocean around the present platform. What if it caught fire? Taking 10 steps forward on the answers to our CO2 emission problem in our Climate Crisis and then going 50 miles backwards is not the way to proceed. It does take thinking and a whole lot of committment to turn our civilization around. We must. The polar ice caps are melting faster than thought as well as our glaciers and Greenland's coast. We can only predict what a couple of degrees warmup of our oceans could mean to life there. There are already dead zones that are huge in the Pacific Ocean. Scientists are predicting that we will lose at least 1/3 of the species on the planet. That loss will effect their environments in far-reaching negative ways.

I never thought I would see what is happening and read about what is going to happen in my whole life and I have been working in environmental concerns for over 40+ years.

Second Week of Advent

The Season of Wonderful

It's the second week of Advent and I just finished decorating my house tonight. Diana Krall is singing Count Your Blessings Instead of Sheep on her Christmas Songs CD. There are still a lot of rough edges around my life, my estrangement from my daughter, missing my grandchildren who live so far away in the Midwest. But somethings just have really sparkled my life this last week like believing in miracles.

First Miracle: my neighborhood is basically wonderful but had some bad places. The children are particularly sweet here. The neighborhood association has been cleaning it up by making landlords spruce up their properties, allowing us to report unruly neighbors, etc. We live around a lovely park which is still turning fall colors. The apartment across from my mine had been vacant for several months, and last month the maintenance crew remodeled it with new carpets, linoleum, paint and new windows. This week a man and his two young children just moved in, they had been homeless in a shelter, but he had a job. I just feel blessed to witness this event.

Second Miracle: one of my oldest friends in San Jose, someone I could call if I needed someone to lean on and she the same, called me to tell me what we had been off and on discussing for a year. Her boyfriend is now her fiance and is flying her to Oklahoma to be with him and is also moving her things back there this weekend! We had lunch yesterday to say goodbye and even though she had spoken with the movers that morning, she still wasn't completely convinced she was going! Her fiance and she have known each other for 8 years via Internet, phone calls and visits. She is going home and should be there by now! One of the best Christmas miracles I have ever seen!

Maybe there are some more coming next week! Good things come in 3's! Three is a divine number and it will be the third week of Advent! I wouldn't care though because these two were wonderful. (Maybe the new energy and environmental teams being assembled this week by President-elect Obama is the 3rd miracle!)