Spring breezes

From about the middle of May into around the middle of June is one of my favorite times of the year. The skies are often blue with puffy clouds drifting across. I think that I accidentally deleted a picture I took of the curtain blown by a nice breeze entering my bedroom where I lived in Baltimore's Charles Village neighborhood in part of 2017. I wanted to include that picture in this entry. That moment was so relaxing and reminded me of how my bedroom curtains moved on a June morning where I grew up in Kansas.

I took the picture above in Madison's Rennebohm Park, near my apartment. This scene and the weather make me wish that I could wash clothes in the morning and hang them to dry on the line, as I did at my grandmother's in Gettysburg. I loved the feeling of the whole atmosphere. As a way of keeping touch with that time, I wish that I could have gotten my grandmother's grey bag in which she kept her clothespins. The bag had a large hook that could be hung on the line so that it was more convenient to fetch a clothespin. I sometimes had to replenish the clothespins because my grandmother liked to use them to clip together things. Another reason I loved this is because of the smell of the clothes after they'd dried and knowing that I'd not used the drier, which consumes a great deal of electricity.

I've stayed longer in Madison so that I could take some training classes for faculty and staff. On Thursday, for instance, I took a workshop on what to do if someone feels suicidal. I asked the instructors about the ideas of that workshop's approach--QPR (Question, Persuade, Refer)--versus ALGEE in Mental Health First Aid. My impression is that ALGEE focuses more on taking the time to talk, but I'll need to look into the research.

For the time being, it has been better for me to keep my position in Madison as I also live in the DMV area.

Buying toilet paper made from recycled paper

The Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) issued a report earlier this year--"The Issue With Tissue: How Americans Are Flushing Our Forests Down the Toilet"--calling on us to buy more environmentally friendly toilet paper and to tell the major manufacturers to switch to recycled paper. The report says that among the advantages of toilet paper made from recycled paper instead of virgin wood are that its production uses much less water and produces a lot less greenhouse gases. This also protects forests and the wildlife inhabiting them.

Grocery store shelf in Madison, Wisconsin

NRDC article discussing the report: "A Shopper’s Guide to Home Tissue Products" March 12, 2019
https://www.nrdc.org/stories/shoppers-guide-home-tissue-products (The image with grades is from this article.)

Link to NRDC report:
https://www.nrdc.org/sites/default/files/issue-tissue-how-americans-are-flushing-forests-down-toilet-report.pdf

I should have taken this more into consideration and promoted it long ago. The next time I'm in Gettysburg, I'll see how well the stores stock more environmentally friendly toilet paper.

Climate Change: Information Statement of the American Meteorological Society

Adopted by the American Meteorological Society Council on April 15, 2019, issued on April 22. Its last statement on climate change was in 2012. The body of this statement is only a little more than five pages.
Web-page version
PDF version

A lot of news stories talk about people being scared of climate change. Reading this kind of thing is more likely to anger me because of failure to be more responsible.

Excerpts:
"Global temperatures were last on par with the present ones in the previous Interglacial Period (125,000 years ago), when sea level was 6–9 m (20–30 ft) higher than today. Projected warming over the next century will likely place global temperatures in a range not seen in millions of years of geologic history." Page 1

"In addition to the widespread warming, the oceans are becoming more acidic and the amount of dissolved oxygen is decreasing, impacting marine life. These changes are consequences of well-understood chemical and physical processes. Seawater becomes more acidic when it absorbs some of the excess carbon dioxide that has accumulated in the atmosphere. Observations show that the oceans have become 25% more acidic (0.1 pH decrease) over the last century. Ocean acidification affects marine organisms, notably those that build calcium carbonate structures, including shellfish, corals, and many species of marine plankton. Pervasive surface warming has led to reduced ocean oxygen levels that, when combined with coastal pollution, contribute to ocean 'dead zones' and massive fish kills. An increase in the magnitude and duration of ocean temperature extremes represent an acute near-term threat to many marine ecosystems, including coral reefs, as apparent from the global-scale coral bleaching event of 2015–2016." Page 2

This is what Senator Gaylord Nelson, the founder of Earth Day, said in a speech during the first Earth Day on April 22, 1970:

"Our goal is not just an environment of clean air and water and scenic beauty. The objective is an environment of decency, quality and mutual respect for all other human beings and all other living creatures. 

Our goal is a new American ethic that sets new standards for progress, emphasizing human dignity and well being rather than an endless parade of technology that produces more gadgets, more waste, more pollution. 

Are we able to meet the challenge? 

Yes. We have the technology and the resources. 

Are we willing? That is the unanswered question."

From text of speech Denver, CO, April 22, 1970

http://www.nelsonearthday.net/docs/nelson_26-18_ED_denver_speech_notes.pdf

Climate Change and Child Sexual Abuse

In recent years I've been focusing more on the environment and child sexual abuse. This week while reading Betrayal: The Crisis in the Catholic Church, a book by the Boston Globe about its Spotlight investigation on child sexual abuse, I've been reminded more strongly that central to both problems are outrageous failures to act on obvious evidence that simple steps must be taken. Not acting as soon as possible made matters much worse. This past December I felt similar shock and even anger about this while reading a good summary of climate change published by Oxford University Press--Climate Change: What Everyone Needs to Know, by Joseph Romm. It was the 2014 first edition, so his discussion about how climate change increases the likelihood of wildfires in California exasperated me.

Climate change and my own health have combined to motivate me since I was an undergrad to walk to reach places. I've nearly always lived within less than a twenty-minute walk of at least one grocery store. In this century, in places like Gettysburg, Madison, and Baltimore, it's usually been at least two grocery stores, which is great for taking advantage of sales.

My concern about child sexual abuse has increased while thinking about what to cover in criminology and intro sociology classes I teach, after learning about Adverse Childhood Experiences research, and when people have confided to me about this happening to them. Many of my students have told me that they'd learned nothing or very little about this before. I wish that I'd known years earlier about the extent and harms of child sexual abuse. Another thing I have been doing is contacting legislators and the news media to get more done. A couple of examples are to enact Erin's Law to teach about sex abuse prevention K though 12 and for public radio talk programs to do shows on the topic. I'd thought that sending letters glued into greeting cards would more likely get attention and action, but I'm very disappointed that I got almost no response. Because of the renewed attention to child sexual abuse in recent months, I'm trying again. I suppose people who were abused would feel a lot worse if they got no response.

Climate Change

In Harwood Community Garden, southwest corner of Whitridge and Greenmount Avenue, Baltimore (The garden is briefly discussed in this 2018 article: "What’s Growing in Baltimore? Community Gardens!")

Many of my previous posts could be tagged as about climate change since trying to reduce greenhouse gases relates to a lot of my habits going back to the 1980s, such as walking or eating close to a vegetarian diet. This past October, as I looked over the points raised by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Special Report on Global Warming of 1.5 °C,  I realized that I should have been much more and consistently active over the years.

I like this perspective from environmentalist Paul Hawken:
"The single most important thing to do about reversing global warming is to recognize there is no one single thing, that addressing global warming is a way of seeing the world, a way of being in the world, a pathway to understanding that human systems created the problem and thus the cure is within the whole of the system. The most impactful act an individual can do will depend on that person’s life, knowledge, community, influence, relationships, courage. It will be different for everyone. Together, we act and make a difference. It is not about what 'I' can do. It is about what we can do. Carbon is an atom (and molecule) that holds hands and collaborates. That is what global warming is telling us to do.” From "16 Sustainability Leaders Weigh In: How YOU Can Help To Reverse Global Warming"

While I was teaching in China, I was so immersed in living there but losing touch with life in the US that in 1994 I decided to go to the English-language room of the Beijing National Library and read Al Gore's Earth in the Balance. So much has changed in China since then. I usually felt happy there from spending time with my students and Chinese colleagues. I have too many thoughts about that time and my life now. 

"--for time is the longest distance between two places." Tom in The Glass Menagerie by Tennessee Williams. I'm quoting Tom, but I more often feel like what his sister felt. That's one reason why going to China was one of my best decisions.