Hot, Hot, Hot...Climate Change Part 2

As many of you are sweating outside in these summer months, you may actually be thinking about climate change.  But when the A/C is going in your home, work place, gym, or car, the heat slips to the back of your mind. 

In Nicaragua, April and May were miserable, it was so hot.  In the last 137 years of recorded temperatures, the last 12 months worldwide...every single month has been the hottest on record.  What does that mean for Nicaraguans?

The vast majority of the population can never get away from the heat.  The buses are hot.  The work place - often outside - is hot.  Their little, tiny homes are hot...and at night homes are closed up and the heat builds with many sleeping in one room.*  

People are exhausted because the heat zaps their energy and hardly anyone can keep enough water in them.  They are also exhausted because they don't sleep well in the heat, rising several times to just go outside and try to cool off.  People are cranky and road rage is more common (Thank God that guns are banned!).  Children are irritable and parents are short-tempered.

Josefa, our clinic administrator, walked around the clinic with a wet towel on her head when our pitiful air conditioner was broken.  She was trying to lower her temperature to lower her blood pressure.  

As the humidity and the heat built, the air coming in and out of my and Mike's lungs got heavier and heavier...both of us then move to the air conditioned office.  Two years running I ended up in the hospital with asthma attacks during these hot, humid months...now I have the luxury of spending them in our bedroom or office with A/C.

We hear people from the North talk about how Nicaraguans have adapted to hotter weather -  and they have to some extent  - but when the heat and the humidity rises, it is dangerous for the body.  The advice given in the States of going into air conditioned areas OR getting in tubs of water does not work here.  Again, the vast majority do not have those options.

Climate change is ever-present for the poor.  The reason many in the States can deny climate change is that...well, they can.  It does not affect them now.  They can move within their climate controlled temperatures and stupidly stick their heads in their air-conditioned sand, but denying something does not make it untrue.

*Even most middle class families do not have air conditioning in their home because electricity here costs about 3 times more than it does in the States.

-Kathleen

Climate Change is No Picnic....part 1

From 1994 -2015, Nicaragua was the 4th most affected country due to climate change.

How so?  Since 1998 Nicaragua has experienced TWO category 5 hurricanes:  Hurricanes Mitch and Felix!  To help you understand...you have heard a great deal about Hurricane Katrina, seen the images, and probably know that volunteer work is still going on to repair its damages 11 years later.

Hurricane Mitch from space

Mudslide burying 1,911 Nicaraguans
10 villages completely lost

Hurricane Katrina (2005) was a category 3 that peaked at category 5...its final death toll was 1,836...as opposed to Hurricane Mitch (1998) that left 19,325 dead.  Mitch was the deadliest hurricane of the 20th century and the second deadliest Atlantic hurricane on record after the Great Hurricane of 1780.

Rain Forest trees leveled lying
like matchsticks

Hurricane Felix (in 2007) hit one of the least populated parts of Nicaragua...in just 4 hours it destroyed 30,000 homes and leveled 1,100 square miles of rain forest (704,000 acres)!  Nicaragua has the 2nd largest rain forest in the Americas with the Amazon being the first.

Until recently when the rains came  Nicaragua experienced the most severe drought in 44 years!  

One third of Nicaragua's economy is based on agriculture, fishing and timber all that are affected by too much or too little water.  Beans, the basic protein, has more than doubled their costs!  Because the government handed out food packets and continued to serve meals in schools, major starvation was stayed.

One would think that when the world leaders got together for the Paris climate summat (COP21) that Nicaragua would be one of the first to sign the agreement* ...but one would be wrong!  Why not?

Because the Agreement did not go far enough...the agreement was like taking baby steps in a 30 yard dash!  If a nation decides "nope, don't want to do that!" then the Agreement is voluntary with no serious penalties. 

The U.S. pumps 17 metric tons of carbon per person into the atmosphere while Nicaragua only pumps 0.8 metric tons per person.  The U.S. is second in carbon emissions in the world, after China.  

While the U.S. population is reluctant to give up their love of oil and gas and keep approving fracking and drilling in order to become "independent," Nicaragua is blazing ahead with renewable electricity.   As of a year ago, 54% of Nicaragua's electricity was renewable (wind, geothermal, hydroelectric power).  By 2017, the goal is 75% and to 90% by 2020!  

Nicaraguan wind farm

When this little, impoverished nation is making changes, then it is appropriate for the large, carbon belching nations be penalized, if they are not doing their part...and - I mean - a significant part...no, a drastic part...in slowing climate change.  

We are at crisis level regarding climate change...and yet, while the wealthier countries act like this is a picnic and will do their environmental part by picking up their trash,  the poorer countries are wondering how they will they feed their people and survive.  

Being a U.S. citizen but living in Nicaragua gives me a different perspective and this time I think it is time to pay attention to the little guy.  We can learn from Nicaragua and radically change course for the sake of the poor...and for the sake of all living beings!

*Nicaragua was the first to sign the UN's Universal Declaration on the Common Good of the Earth and Humanity.

-Kathleen

Hope...Family Values...Final Segment

We started over a month ago, talking about family values...and how the "family value" people don't seem to really value families at all.

With mass shootings, stockpiles of nuclear weapons, poverty, drug wars, high rates of incarcerations and war...where is the hope for families...for all of us?

Hope can move us...Pres. Obama won on a campaign on hope "Yes, We Can!"  But, then...no, we didn't.  It is easy to blame a divided administration and congress.  Racism played heavily into it, but the reality is that after the election, those with the hope went home and left it to politicians.

The Occupy Movement was a hopeful movement...drawing attention to the bankrupted soul of our flawed economic system.  People willing to sit and wait... but only so long, then reality set in and they went home and left it once again to the mega-banks.

We need hope to move and change things but if we don't get off our sweet tushes and do something about society's problems, there is no hope.  It's a Catch 22.

I understand this.  I go to bed every night with the hope of getting up, changing my routine and exercising this old body of mine, but morning comes and my sadness, grief, and depression sets in and I let another day go by...but I KNOW, I have to move beyond it or the body will give up whether or not each night I have hope.

I heard Michaelangelo Signorile, editor-at-large of the Huffington Post Gay Voices, respond to a question about where he found hope after the Orlando shooting.  He talked about how the LBGT movement could not let its guard down but had to keep pushing and pushing for equal rights like all citizens of the U.S.   In other words, the hope he found was in action.

It is hard to act without hope, but we have to.  We might find that in acting we give hope to others...and that hope might be catching maybe even acting like a boomerang and coming back to us. 

If we care about families, then let's not allow "family values" people the power of that title, let's claim it for ourselves and call "lies and nonsense" on what they call "family values;" and let's act.  Let's... 

• Fight for disarmament locally and nationally;
• Fight for the end of the war on drugs and the beginning of setting people free;
• Fight for our troops and families worldwide by ending wars;
• Fight for increased minimum wage and more government support of families; and   
• Vote, lobby, write letters, hit the streets, run for office, talk to anyone and everyone who will listen;
• End hatred and love...love will change minds.  

Yes, We Can...only IF we work.

-Kathleen

100 Nuclear Bombs can End Life...Family Values Part 6

In a recent blog I mentioned a conversation between our granddaughter and her mother about learning ALICE (Alert, Lockdown, Inform, Counter, and Evacuate) in kindergarten to address school shootings.

ALICE reminded me of the Duck and Cover drills, we did when we were kids.  We would climb under our desks and cover our heads to protect us from - wait for it - a nuclear blast!

I remember clearly when Daddy was a chaplain at Fort Benning, GA, practicing the drills over and over in school, especially during and after the Cuban missile crisis.  Like ALICE, Duck and Cover was a stupid way of dealing with very, very serious problems.

On the 12th of June, 1982, Sarah, Tiff, Jessica, Mike and I went to New York City along with a million others to protest the proliferation of nuclear weapons.  Since the Cold War ended in the early 1990s, many stopped thinking about the horrors of the nuclear weapons and frankly, so had I.

According to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, currently nine nations* possess 16,300 nuclear bombs.  Only 100 small bombs would cause a nuclear winter that can end life as we know it.  A massive volcano can spew ash and cause a winter of little sunlight, devastating droughts and cold temperatures but its ash would last in the atmosphere about a year.  100  nuclear bombs would cause even more serious damage and would last ten years!

Climate change predictions are frightening and horrifying but nuclear weapons?  They are even more terrifying and, unlike climate change, there is no denying it...we all know they are sitting there just waiting.

If we believe in family values, this is unacceptable...completely unacceptable.   

There is such disconnect in our society. A family member, who was a strong opponent of abortions and called himself a Right to Life advocate, also worked for Strategic Air Command.  In other words he kept the plane going in order to launch a nuclear attack if need be.  I asked him once if he ever thought of all the unborn babies that would die if a nuclear bomb was dropped (not to mention all God's creatures).  

We always hear about the deterrent of mutually assured destruction and how such-and-such nation should not have nuclear capabilities; but, the reality is that nuclear weapons have only been used twice as weapons, both times by the United States, killing 135,000 people.  

Sure, we all have heard the arguments that those bombs stopped WWII, "saved lives" and  were "a necessary evil" , but there is also evidence that the war was ending, the bombs didn't save lives, and were unnecessary. BUT necessary or not, dropping atomic bombs was...and is...evil.

Keeping these weapons of mass destruction (so nicely referred to as "WMDs") is insane.  Having these weapons means we or someone are willing to use them.  Having them means they can be stolen.  Having them also costs lots and lots of money to try and keep them "safe"...so "we never have to use them."

Why do we move forth on this path of death?  Why do we not try to protect our families... truly and honestly?  Where are the  so-called common sense people?  And why do we let people who fight against nuclear disarmament call themselves "family value" people...They.  Are.  Not.

*The United States, Russia, China, the United Kingdom, France, Israel, India, Pakistan, and North Korea.  Nine nations hold the life of the planet and little nations like Nicaragua in their blasting hands. 

-Kathleen

Orlando shooting..."an act of terror, an act of hate"

Listening to Pres. Obama react to the shooting in Florida and describe it as an act of terror and an act of hate brought many conflicting feelings inside of me.

The second part of his statement is the first to address "an act of hate."  In other words, an act motivated by hatred.

This bar was a center of social action and a place where people with different sexual and gender orientation than most of us could let go and be themselves...a place of fun, socialization, relaxation.  It followed Gay Pride parades all over the country and the world. 

That sanctity was shattered as bullets flew and mostly Latinos went down.

On 28th of June, 1968, in New York City the LBGT community held its first march...it was a parade full of joy to celebrate their differences instead of anger.  Though full of joy, pride parades are also full of danger.  These are brave people.

For example: an Indiana man - not Muslim - was arrested on Sunday with guns, ammo, and explosive materials headed to the Los Angeles gay pride parade.

Hatred comes from many places...powerlessness, ignorance, fear, anger and sometimes just plain meanness.  Hate is wrong.  It is evil.  It is dangerous for all of us.  And our nation, our world, is moving toward adding more hatred to the ever growing pile of evil....a growing hatred of Muslims.

The shooting in Orlando was called "an act of terror" as well as an act of hate.  Why was this an "act of terror" when many other mass shootings are just "tragic"?  Because a U.S. born...meaning an "American"....non-religious Muslim (testified by his parents and ex-wife, whom he beat) went berserk, called 911 and pledge allegiance to ISIS (obviously for the first time) and started shooting.

I used to regularly watch Real Time with Bill Maher,"  but I have stopped because I am tired of his rant against Islam, and his blaming of religion for all things bad in the world. *

ISIS is another evil organization, but the Islamic leaders of the world have declared them heretics, not Islamic.  In fact, many Muslim scholars explain that it is the West in its continual description of ISIS as Muslim that gives them validity, despite the fact that the Islamic leaders have named them heretics.

There are horrific acts done by people, who call themselves Muslims, as there are horrific acts done by people who call themselves Christians, Jews, Hindus, etc.  There are also atheists and agnostics who have done horrible things, as have people of science...think of all the Nazi scientists.

Selfishness, myopic views, greed, power and poverty...these are the real problems and - I'll admit - religion can contribute to those evils.  When religion only exists to perpetuate itself it appeals to the lowest common denominator.

Religion must evolve or it will stagnate, festering and breeding hatred.  People of any religion have to grow up and not act as scared children, who either retreat in their own worlds and ignore what goes on around them, blame all bad things on someone else, or act like bullies. Religious leaders have to challenge the norm, call for better, and model goodness and love and peace.

Malala Yousafzai

Tawakel Karman

As much as I find that being an apologist for religion (as opposed to faith) is odd for me, I also find that those who take the best of any faith and truly live it are people I look up to, people I admire.

Whether we believe in a Deity or not, hatred has got to go.

---------------

*I always found Bill Maher conflicted, because when he interviews people of faith who love and work for justice, he is always respectful, but those...especially Christians...who do not follow the principles of Jesus, he is dismissive and condescending.  

-Kathleen