Getting high(er)

 Only 2 more days in the month of June. It has sure been a busy month!

A compass in the sidewalk outside our local history museum surprised me, that State St. in Black Mountain flows North-east to South-west...rather than just E to W. Well, it does have a few bends that are almost unnoticeable.

And it tell us the elevation is 2,499.1 feet above sea level. I'm going to move to Durango CO at the end of July, and it's 6, 532 feet in elevation. Not sure exactly what part of town it is, since there's a big hill behind my soon-to-be-apartment building, with Fort Lewis College located up there. 

But the message to me is it's 2-1/2 times higher than where I now live. Thus all my trips up to the mountains nearby on the Blue Ridge Parkway. (You thought I just loved them, which is actually true.) What will I do when I have really high mountains to climb? OK, I'm not planning those trips until I can acclimate to the altitude where I'll be sleeping! Pulmonologists are saying I may acclimate in a few weeks. I still get to sleep with oxygen and my CPAP. And I have portable oxygen for possible need as well.

The other day I talked to scheduling in Durango and made my first doctor's appointment. A primary care provider. I'm learning to talk to the people on the ground, so to speak. The insurance folks thought another doc was taking new patients, so I called there for an appointment the month after my move. Nah, when I got the scheduler at the hospital where all the doctors are part of a network, she said that doc wasn't taking new patients, and what kind of doc did I want, an internist or general practitioner.

I honestly didn't know the difference. But I told her my major needs and she said a GP would do well. Of course he'll probably be 25 years old, and I may have to drive through awful traffic to get to him, where the first choice was 2 blocks from my soon-to-be apartment. 

There have been times in my life when I was unemployed and had no health insurance. We stayed healthier then, I think.

Wouldn't it be nice to have good healthcare that is free and no longer dependent upon profit making insurance companies?

How is it that this country has gotten into this mess?

My soon-to-be apartment building on the left, but my apartment will be on the other (west) side of the building.

I can't wait to see this boulevard covered in snow! Of course I may eat these words!

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For climate change interest:

See the new site as described in this NPR article for up to date info that's no longer available from NOAA due to the government cutbacks. climate.us

https://www.npr.org/2026/06/26/nx-s1-5869615/climate-noaa-data-trump-doge?utm_source=facebook.com&utm_campaign=npr&utm_medium=social&utm_term=nprnews&fbclid=IwY2xjawSrZTNleHRuA2FlbQIxMQBicmlkETFvcFV4MDJVTjB4b21xdURnc3J0YwZhcHBfaWQQMjIyMDM5MTc4ODIwMDg5MgABHj6tvo_8YB7uXgj3HtJr8fpZQMUyFeuvqZ4qlFdBdGE3cdB9c3y01gA6w3w1_aem_nHmjFgA4B9JfVK5bHI1GnA

Resist and persist

 

The January 6, 2021 Insurrection was live on TV, on all channels.

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Today:

"The deepest wound is knowing that they know, and that it doesn’t matter.

January 6th was a coordinated attempt to kidnap members of Congress, overturn a free and fair election by its people, and install a president whose criminality is simply unprecedented and whose involvement was complete.
It was a threat to our sovereignty.
It was a rejection of our Constitution.
It was antithetical to the teachings of Jesus.
It was an historic act of treason.
It was a vicious attack on democracy.
It was a partisan act of domestic terrorism.
It was a violent insurrection.

All Americans know this.

All of them.

Only decent ones care."

​-John Pavlovich

His whole article may be found HERE

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Months of investigations by Select House Committee about the January 6 Insurrection, resulting in a public report, including many of the testimonies.

Jan 20, 2025 President Trump pardoned 1500 who had been legally tried and convicted of the Jan. 6 Insurrection.

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Hang onto your own sense of reality.

Don't miss John Pavlovich's post "The Insurrection Didn't Fail, it Just Took 5 years"

Another excellent article was just published (Jan 6) by NPR "This is Not A Peaceful Protest"

"In response to NPR’s questions about Trump’s pardons, White House spokeswoman Abigail Jackson said, "President Trump exercised his constitutional authority to issue pardons to individuals who were abused by the Biden justice system and aggressively over prosecuted for political purposes."

NPR also included a link to their database of all charges and substantiating videos as historic information in the face of the pardons. 

Part of the Women's March of 2020 in Black Mountain NC

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Today's goddess:

ca 5500-4500 BC, Criș-Körös culture. Found in Méhtelek, Hungary.

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Catch-and-release, that's like running down pedestrians in your car and then, when they get up and limp away, saying -- Off you go! That's fine. I just wanted to see if I could hit you. -Ellen DeGeneres, comedian, television host, and actress (b. 26 Jan 1958)

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My vase which shows some protesters, and the sign "Persist." More than resistance, we must persist in what is right.

Today we are dealing with a new illegal war on Venezuela. Who knows what tomorrow will bring from the autocratic orange one.

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Celebrate This! 

Tennessee launched the first registry in the US to track repeat domestic violence offenders.

California is officially drought free and reservoirs are at 120% of average levels.

The Central Hillsborough Healthy Start program, which serves a cluster of Florida ZIP codes with roughly 177,000 residents, reduced preterm births by 30%.​

A rare jaguar sighting in Arizona is giving conservationists hope for the species’ recovery.​

Assisted fertilization is helping revive and restore disappearing coral reefs in the Dominican Republic.

Nineteen U.S. states raised their minimum wage on January 1, with most of them reaching $15 per hour or higher. Another 49 cities and counties are also raising their minimum wage at the start of the new year.

Trump announced that he would abandon for now his efforts to deploy the National Guard in Chicago, Los Angeles and Portland, OR.

Paul Weiss’ ex-pro bono chief Steve Banks, who left after the firm’s deal with Trump, will lead the New York City Law Department for Mayor Mamdani, putting a longtime liberal advocate in the city government’s top legal position.

After six months in detention, a Connecticut teenager returned home to a standing ovation from community members. Local activists were a HUGE part of this win—as were Kevin’s schoolmates, local officials, several Connecticut lawmakers and a host of leaders from various faiths. AMAZING!

A group of Buddhist monks have been walking from Ft. Worth, TX to Washington DC “for peace.” Their journey is inspiring millions. If you’re not following them on social media please consider doing so!

The Kennedy Center is ending the year with a new round of artists saying they are canceling scheduled performances after Trump's name was added to the facility. Stephen Schwartz, the composer of “Wicked,” also announced that he would no longer host a gala there.

Thanks to conservation efforts and government funding, Coho salmon are making a comeback in Northern California.

A Georgia judge tossed racketeering charges against dozens of defendants accused of a yearslong conspiracy to halt the construction of a police and firefighter training facility that critics call “Cop City.”

Renewable energy produced a record amount of electricity in Great Britain in 2025

Just days before a year-end foreclosure deadline, the Museum of the Earth in Ithaca, NY has paid off its mortgage following a wide fundraising campaign that rescued the beloved landmark.

Scientists have discovered two new subtypes of multiple sclerosis with the aid of artificial intelligence, paving the way for personalised treatments and better outcomes for patients.

Pope Leo XIV immediately ousted a traditionalist priest after his anti-gay slur was caught on a hot mic.

Less than two hours after his inauguration ceremony, Zohran Mamdani signed three executive orders designed to put pressure on landlords and fast-track housing development.

In Colorado, immigration activist Jeanette Vizguerra was released after spending nine months in detention while her years-long deportation case continues.

Tesla is officially no longer the leader in global EV sales! They have fallen to the second place spot as their sales continue to fall over Elon Musk’s politics.

NY Governor Kathy Hochul signed legislation requiring social media platforms with infinite scroll, auto-play and algorithmic feeds to display warnings to young users.

Thanks to decades of investment in recycling, landfill bans, and efficient waste processing, less than 1% of Swedish household waste now ends up in landfills. Instead, waste generates about 1% of the country’s electricity and 25% of its district heating to homes. ¹

Zohran Mamdani is officially the Mayor of New York City! His inauguration was a joyous occasion, attended by tens of thousands of New Yorkers, as well as AOC, Bernie Sanders, and Mandy Patinkin, among others.

Ratings for the 2025 Kennedy Center Honors sunk to their lowest numbers ever—worse even than during Covid— as Trump hosted the once-prestigious event from the illegally renamed Washington, D.C. performing arts center.

Democrat Renee Hardman won a state Senate seat in Iowa, denying Republicans the opportunity to reclaim their supermajority. It was the final election of 2025, bringing our total record of wins and overperformances in key elections to 228 out of 256 in 2025 — a rate of nearly 90%.

A newly announced sanctuary in Texas will help protect the whooping crane, one of the rarest birds in North America.

A study shows that, over the past year, a slew of new expanded tax credits in Colorado helped cut child poverty there by 40.5%.

Thanks Jess Craven for your newsletter Chop Wood Carry Water.

Climate change affects your life in 3 big ways, a new report warns

 

(Here's the link...) Climate change affects your life in 3 big ways

Morning Edition of NPR gave a summary of this 5 year report last Tuesday...

Released every five years, the National Climate Assessment is a congressionally mandated evaluation of the effects of climate change on American life. This new fifth edition paints a picture of a nation simultaneously beset by climate-driven disasters and capable of dramatically reducing emissions of planet-warming gasses in the near future.

The National Climate Assessment is extremely influential in legal and policy circles, and affects everything from court cases about who should foot the bill for wildfire damage, to local decisions about how tall to build coastal flood barriers. "It really shapes the way that people understand, and therefore act, in relation to climate change," says Michael Burger, the director of the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law at Columbia University.

Hundreds of scientists from universities, industry, and federal agencies contributed to the report. They reviewed cutting-edge research published since the last report and contextualized it in decades of foundational climate research.

Here are the three big takeaways from the Fifth National Climate Assessment. More information about the specific effects of climate change in your area can be found in the assessment's regional chapters.

Climate change makes life more expensive

Food, housing, labor – it all gets pricier as the Earth heats up, according to the National Climate Assessment.

And the hotter it gets, the more profound the economic harm, assessment warns. Twice as much planetary warming leads to more than twice as much economic harm, the assessment warns.

Climate change makes people sick and often kills them

Since the previous NCA was released five years ago, the health costs of climate change have gone from theoretical to personal for many Americans.

The most obvious risk? Extreme weather, particularly heat,..."

Climate change threatens people's special, sacred places and practices

The places, cultural practices, and traditions that anchor many communities are also in flux because of climate change.

The fixes to climate change can make Americans' lives better

The fifth assessment lays out a stark picture of the climate challenges the U.S. faces. Keeping planetary warming to "well below" 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit), the goal of the international Paris Agreement, will require immediate, enormous cuts to fossil fuel emissions in the U.S and beyond.

Author's Note: On CBS national news, 11.14.23 One of the people contributing to this assessment said "We are the last generation that do anything about climate change.

And on the UN Day of Tolerance this was recorded. My friend Robertson Work gives some good insights to his approach to climate change, with compassion.

Doctors are trying to change Health care's massive carbon footprint

Part of NPR's climate Week:

(excerpts follow from NPR newsletter Oct 2, 2023)

Health care has a massive carbon footprint. These doctors are trying to change that

"Operating rooms are a pretty small part of the physical footprint of a hospital, but they produce an outsized amount of the waste," Noe Woods, an Ob-Gyn, said.

Hospitals are some of the biggest carbon polluters almost no one thinks about. The American health care system accounts for an estimated 8.5% of the country's carbon footprint. This sector emits climate warming pollution through a variety of sources including energy used to run facilities, transportation, products and what gets disposed of.

Woods struggled for years to get her colleagues to focus on human-driven climate change. "In the beginning it was just so slow, it was so weird and alternative," she said. "A lot of people gave me a pat on the back like, 'Oh, I'm so glad you're doing that.' "

Woods eventually burned out. But two years ago she found a handful of other doctors at UPMC also interested in climate change. They formed Clinicians for Climate Action, which quickly grew to over 500 doctors, nurses and others inside The University of Pittsburgh Medical Center UPMC's 40-hospital system.

"Everyone now, because the world is on fire, everybody's sort of looking at each other saying, OK, now we really do have to do something," Woods said.

The group's members recently got UPMC to phase out desflurane, an anesthetic gas that's 3,700 times more potent than carbon dioxide. They've also reduced cafeteria food waste and cut down on single-use items.

For example, UPMC Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh switched to reusable fingertip sensors to measure blood oxygen levels. That idea came from Isabela Angelelli, a pediatrician at Children's Hospital and a co-chair of the climate group.

Jodi Sherman, associate professor of anesthesiology and epidemiology at Yale School of Medicine, said unnecessary procedures are a part of the problem. She said they improve hospitals' bottom lines but not patient health.

An influential national hospital accrediting body, the Joint Commission, backed down from a proposal to mandate facilities count their emissions after hospitals complained. For the time being, the commission will offer a voluntary certification in sustainable health care.

UPMC signed a White House pledge to halve carbon emissions by 2030 after Noe Woods and her colleagues collected more than 200 signatures for a letter urging climate action.

The group also asked UPMC to establish a sustainability office to measure and then reduce its greenhouse gas footprint. Woods said she was surprised when UPMC agreed and then actually created the Center for Sustainability.

"It [the center] has names on the doors. It has employees," Woods said. "They are calculating things. It's unbelievable."

The office's latest hire is an energy engineer who will help figure out how to lower UPMC's energy use and source more of it from renewables.

Woods said the momentum to push for climate action has gained quickly among her peers.

"You don't find doctors very often volunteering their time for a cause consistently, persistently, meeting after meeting. Showing up with new ideas, and then another person who's interested (comes) and then another," Woods said. "Everybody cares."

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Not sure if this link will take you there, it's NPR's Good News about Tackling Climate Change.  I enjoyed reading some of these stories: increase in pink salmon run, new avocados, and "The Old Ladies Against Underwater Garbage on Cape Cod"...a group of older women who dive into the bottoms of ponds on Cape Cod to remove the garbage there!

I just love listening to NPR Classic music while reading my morning news (some good!)

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Links to NPR on Climate Change

I love streaming NPR classical radio here on my laptop...with a set of better speakers plugged in as well. But you may have noticed I sometimes share an article that they've posted...

These are links to audio files, pretty short, but since they all relate to the damage from the Climate Chaos to historic places and ways of life, it's a different approach for me to share. If you don't listen to links, I understand completely.

 NPR's Chloe Veltman is covering the connection between climate change and heritage. Her special series, Protecting Cultural Heritage in a Warming World, looks at communities threatened by wildfire, sea level rise and more. She says she wanted to explore both urban and indigenous communities. "Cultural heritage isn't just old buildings with plaques on them — it's ways of life," she says.

Take a look at the many ways the shifting climate has changed our world: 

 The canals that carry Venice's famous gondolas are putting the city at risk. UNESCO says Italian authorities aren't doing enough to protect the city's historic buildings from sea level rise, extreme weather and overtourism.
 In San Francisco, officials are considering raising the landmark Ferry Building by 7 feet to protect the city's waterfront from the sea.
 The Oak Fire that burned in California last summer devastated the Southern Sierra Miwuk Nation. They're fighting to keep their traditions — like cultural burning — alive.
 Paramount Ranch has been on the silver screen for almost a century in shows like Klondike Annie and Westworld. After the 2018 Woolsey Fire incinerated most structures, workers must decide what to save and what to let go as they rebuild.

Want more of Chloe's coverage? Keep an eye out for a bonus installment in the series during NPR's Climate Solutions Week, starting Oct. 2. 

You may have seen this photo before on a blog about Sepia Saturday. I still laugh when I see it, wondering what the song may have been...

Today's quote:

Gratitude will be the doorstop that keeps the door to your heart open. Peace and humility will be its gatekeeper. Cherish your heart, for it is from that place that you live.

NICKY MORRIS

 

The March for Removing Fossil Fuels

 "[This] march is piercingly clear about what needs to be done to actually solve climate," said Jean Su, energy justice director with the Center for Biological Diversity and one of the march organizers. "It's actually seeking the end of fossil fuels."

Protesters are calling on Biden to stop federal approvals of new fossil fuel projects, phase out oil and gas drilling on public lands, and declare climate change a national emergency. They want the U.S. to halt oil and gas exports, and transition to a reliance on renewable energy.

Burning fossil fuels like coal, oil and natural gas remains the primary driver of global warming.

Setting the stage for "Climate Ambition Summit"

Organizers hoped Sunday's march would be the biggest climate protest in the U.S. since the 2019 strike, which brought tens of thousands of people into the streets in Manhattan while millions more marched worldwide.

The march comes after a summer marked by extreme weather events exacerbated by climate change, from historic heat waves in the U.S., Europe and Asia, to the deadly wildfire in Maui and catastrophic flooding from Brazil to China to Libya.

And it comes just days before a "Climate Ambition Summit" hosted by United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres, aimed at pressuring world leaders to commit to more rapid emissions cuts. Guterres has said only countries that present credible new plans – including the phase-out of fossil fuels – will be invited to participate. Biden does not plan to attend.

Scientists say the world needs to limit warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial levels to avoid the most catastrophic impacts of climate change. To meet that goal, the U.N. says emissions must fall 43 percent by 2030, compared with 2019 levels, and eventually reach "net-zero" by 2050 – which means contributing no new greenhouse gasses to the atmosphere.

In a report this month, the U.N. found countries are falling far short of meeting their existing climate targets, and warned there is a "rapidly narrowing window" in which to act.

Activists hope the summit will shine a spotlight on the role of fossil fuels, Su said.

"This is a top down – from the U.N. – pressure point, and it's being met with grassroots pressure from the bottom up in the United States," she said.

Challenging Biden as 'climate president'

Organizers say they're especially disappointed Biden hasn't kept a campaign promise to halt new drilling on federal lands. The administration has allowed oil and gas projects to move forward, notably the Willow project, a major oil development in Alaska, and the Mountain Valley Pipeline, which will carry natural gas from West Virginia.

"I think the reality now is that Biden hasn't been the climate president that he had promised," said Alice Hu, senior climate campaigner at New York Communities for Change.

In a statement, the White House defended Biden's climate record, pointing to last year's Inflation Reduction Act, which directs hundreds of billions of dollars toward incentives for renewable energy and other low-carbon technologies.

"President Biden has treated climate change as an emergency – the existential threat of our time – since day one," a White House spokesperson said.

The administration has also designated millions of acres of public lands off-limits to oil and gas development, and recently canceled contentious oil and gas leases in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

But Hu says the administration must do more. She points out the U.S. remains one of the world's largest oil and gas producers. And she argues Biden is at risk of alienating younger voters.

"Does he want to be a candidate that enjoys high youth turnout in key swing states, or does he want to be a candidate that is not enjoying that?" Hu said.

'It's about our future'

Mancini agrees. Now a junior in high school, she's been organizing school strikes with the youth climate group Fridays for Future NYC since her freshman year. But she says she never got as much interest in her work from other students as when news of the Willow project approval went viral on TikTok.

"The Willow Project is something that Biden approved, and a lot of people in my generation know Biden approved it," Mancini said.

"That betrayal was so stark in that moment," said Keanu Arpels-Josiah, 18, also of Fridays for Future NYC.

Arpels-Josiah said he volunteered for the 2020 Biden campaign while still in middle school, because he believed Biden would be a "climate president." Now, he's marching to pressure that president.

In the days before the march, Arpels-Josiah has been busy. He traveled to Washington, D.C., for a rally on the Capitol steps, and met with U.N. officials. Balancing his senior year of high school and climate organizing is a challenge. He's behind on homework and stressed about when it will all get done. But, he said, he doesn't feel like he has a choice.

SOURCE:
Excerpts from:

NPR Thousands march in New York to demand that Biden "end fossil fuels"

ALSO THIS MORNING ON NPR...

U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres will host a new event, the Climate Ambition Summit, this week. He asked countries to come with credible commitments to get on track to slash greenhouse gas emissions. NPR’s Rachel Waldholz tells Up First that we've already "locked in" on a certain amount of warming, but we need to cut global emissions to zero to avoid things getting worse, and we're not currently on track to reach those targets.

AND...

Climate change is a top issue for young voters but lags behind other issues, according to polls. Here's why environmental activists think this is changing.