@barbarmar22 That documentary is a must see. The cinematography is amazing and he left us with hope for the future. I recommend it to anyone in this group.
We're Back Baby! Climate science returns.
The new EPA Biden Administration head just made this statement : “Climate facts are back on the EPA’s website where they should be. Considering the urgency of this crisis, it’s critical that Americans have access to information and resources so that we can all play a role in protecting our environment, our health and vulnerable communities.”
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/mar/20/epa-climate-facts-joe-biden-trump-purge
@lovendures one of the most European and climate/green parties is now the 2nd party in the Netherlands (election happened last week). I have hopes that D66 (the green party) will push for a progressive climate agenda.
Let's hope this shift happens everywhere. There is one party in Europe called Volt. They are young and full of energy and part of several (local) governments all over Europe. Also green. I think the acceptance that climate change is real is there among a lot of young people. The older generation, not so much... not sure why though...
I read an article last week calling for banning 'old people' from voting because what they vote will impact the younger generation who still have a life to lead and not them (Brexit being a prime example - the effects of this turd will take years and won't impact the yes voters, since most of them are 60+). Not sure what to think about that one...
It does have upsides, as long as those who are no longer able to vote, aren't thrown in a bin of disposable citizens.
I did think about that, but I think as long as the social safety nets (medicare, social security), are permanently inviolable, it wouldn't be that much of an issue.
Even with social safety nets, you'd be putting older people "out to pasture": Basically saying their opinions are irrelevent and they are useless... and I don't think that's right or wise. I'm just a little over 60. When I look back and realize what a fool I was when I was 20, 30, 40, and even 50 compared to now, I can hardly believe it. (Yet by most standards I have had a very successful life.) Given my genetics I may well live another 40 years, and when I'm 100 I'm sure I will think I was stupid when I was 60. Older people have a lot to offer and many, if not most, actually do care about future generations.
Also note that older people are not necessarily completely set in their ways. My mom was a Republican for decades. She struggled a lot with her decision, but refused to vote for iT in 2016 and then changed her party affiliation and voted straight Democratic last fall. She's 93 and about as hard-core a fixed-energy Scorpio as you can get. (I'm proud of her decision.) And she worries a lot about her children and grandchildren.
@moonbeam I must be misunderstanding this proposal you have raised. It sounds like something that creates a new group of people for society to scapegoat, the elderly.
I have been fighting climate change my whole adult life, long before most of the young people I've know cared about the environment or the future.
Most of the elderly people I know have fought climate change because they care about their progeny and our earth. Caring about future generations in built into our DNA.
Preventing some people from voting assumes those people, simply because of their advanced age, do not care about the future and/or lack the wisdom to vote wisely. And it assumes that other people, simply because of their young age, will make good decisions when they vote, have an understanding of what is needed to save their futures, and won't be fooled by popular rhetoric or led by demigods.
The whole thought of such a proposal terrifies me because of the scapegoating aspect of it.
Back in the 1970's when the evidence was out that climate change was happening, everyone started focusing on alternative energy and ways to prevent the problem.The President (Jimmy Carter) put solar panels on the White House, we had Earth Day across the country, and we were all talking about changing laws and saving the planet.
We even had a good chance at that point.
The Koch Brothers, billionaires who were fully invested in fossil fuel, started a campaign of funding ultra right wing politicians, turning state governments to the Right, and discrediting climate scientists. They molded public opinion.
There have been volumes written about how they accomplished this. They got Ronald Reagan elected in 1980. Reagan took the solar panels off the White House, and the movement to stop climate change was squashed with the rise of the Republican Party.
It was not old people. It was right wing billionaire money that bought the airwaves, the legislatures, and the Congress.
And scapegoating the elderly is a big and very dangerous distraction.
Everyone must always be allowed to vote -- even White Supremists, and ex convicts and well everyone.
I do not mean to make any one who posted feel branded. I apologize to @moonbeam who brought up the topic and hasn't had a chance to defend herself.
Dear all,
In following of Jeanne's post I want to make sure that everybody understands that I never meant for anyone to feel hurt and should have posted the article it came from. Alas I cannot find it anymore.
Another article about it is here https://www.treehugger.com/should-people-over-years-old-lose-right-vote-4867622
None of this is my own idea/view, it was a discussion-point similar to 'should men make legislation about women's bodies'. As I already told Jeanne, I am very left leaning and liberal. Freedom and fairness to all. My family was in the resistance in WWII. I grew up with the stories and would never suggest anything vile concerning disregarding groups.
I just found it interesting that people came up with such an idea and connected it to the climate etc. Since a lot of people on this forum are 60+ I was interested in your opinion. I was naive in thinking this could be discussed objectively and did not think about the shock effect.
I think it best to close down the discussion. It was controversial, but even controversial ideas are interesting to talk about imo. However, I also do not wish to upset the safe bubble we have here.
Stay safe and happy. No harm intended.
Agreed. The "old people shouldn't vote" comments left a bad taste in my mouth last night. I had a composition in my head in case I came back here today and those ideas hadn't been called out. To be blunt, it's extremely illiberal to be considering such a thing; it's on the same spectrum as "black people shouldn't vote."
The truth is, everyone is responsible for change, and it will take all of us, no matter our age, to get to the desired future (it's not up to just woke millennials or Gen Z or whatever). As Native Americans understand, everyone living is also an ancestor; all people have a stake in the 7th generation to come.
(BTW, I think prisoners, not just ex-convicts, should be allowed to vote too).
@jeanne-mayell. I thought the post was meant to be sarcasm. I can’t imagine that anyone on this website would seriously think that elderly people should not vote.
When I was trying to figure it all out, I did a google search to see if anyone out there was writing about it and found something from Time Magazine that wrote about it in jest.
Why Old People Should not be Allowed to Vote: Aug.2016
Excerpt: ...When I ran this idea by my 76-year-old father, he partly agreed. “If a 90-year-old has what you can define as dementia, you can test for it,” he said. I explained that I was thinking more of 76. I also explained that the problem wasn’t that seniors forget things as much as they remember the world of 60 years ago and want to reproduce it. But one challenge of arguing with older people is that because of all the cable-news watching and Founding Father — book reading, they know more. My dad mentioned stare decisis, using Edmund Burke’s argument that society is so complex that radical change often has horrible unintended negative consequences such as Napoleon, communism and that horrible rap music...
Well, in order to solve the crisis, we must truly understand what is happening . Let's start with Alaska. The reality of what happened after the Exxon Valdez catastrophe and lasting effects 30 years later.
It is Earth Day!
While I don't know how we will help heal our earth, I do believe we will be moving more quickly and in earnest to care for her.
May we learn to live in respect and harmony with our beautiful home once again.
Please send you prayers and healing energy to our beautiful blue planet and all who inhabit her lands, dwell in her waters and fly through her air.
I am very happy about the proposals that have been pledged for cutting emissions and moving to cleaner energy. What a huge contrast Biden has set from Trump. Wow, I'm so happy.
Obviously more can and should be done, but having the US at the table again makes a huge difference.
Below is a part of article from The WP Magazine.
I will re-read again and again. I've been been pondering the messages a lot.
The Search For Environmental Hope- Climate news is relentlessly, objectively grim. Should we ever allow ourselves to feel optimism?
The week Texas froze -over, in mid-February, poet Naomi Shihab Nye couldn’t save one of the marvelous gray mourning doves that flock in her yard near the San Antonio River — but she was determined to save the others. The doomed one crashed into her office window and died on the frozen ground below. All week she watched the others exhibiting behaviors she had never seen. They crowded onto a patio table until there was no room left, huddling body-to-body for warmth, and they stayed until almost dark, devouring the seed she gave them.
“These birds do not know what is happening here,” Nye told me over the phone. “This is not what they’re used to facing. … [Officials] keep talking about the ‘grid,’ the infrastructure of the state. But also what we’re talking about is the natural infrastructure of our world, and how are we going to help maintain it?”
I’d called Nye in a quest to learn how to be hopeful in the face of despair over the fate of Earth. Among many subjects in her numerous books, she writes about nature and the environment, and I wondered how a poet, someone who thinks deeply about the planet, handles the steady stream of apocalyptic news. Now caught in a weather-induced civic collapse — arguably connected to climate change (because Arctic warming has disrupted the jet stream, allowing freakishly cold storms to push south) — could she still find hope? And if so, where?
She starts with saving the doves. As humans, she says, we have to ask ourselves, “ ‘What is within my reach? What could I help change myself?’ Because just to stew in a corner and worry about all this catastrophe overtaking us will not really help us in the big picture.”
@lovendures. Powerful article. So glad to have a chance to read it.
Meanwhile in Wyoming...they want to actually STAND UP FOR COAL and sue states who refuse to buy it.
(Thank you Wyoming for distracting the nation a bit from the never ending AZ Bamboo Voter-gate.)
I ask you, IS there a sane state left currently in our country??
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/may/07/wyoming-coal-threat-mining-republican-governor