Inconvenient Lifestyle
I saw the new Al Gore movie An Inconvenient Sequel: Truth to Power and was moved to write. Mr. Gore’s movie was very well done and I am glad he showed the politics involved. We do need to strive for 100 percent renewable energies. I’m disappointed that he did not spend any time on the many simple things we can do right now as conscious consumers.
Eco-Cycle says 42 percent of our greenhouse gases come from how products are made, transported, used and gotten rid of. They go on to say striving for zero waste is one of the quickest and easiest ways to fight climate change.
I attended Mr. Gore’s Climate Reality Project training this past March. I left there with so much optimism as he assured us coal is not coming back and renewable energies and efficient cars are becoming more and more affordable. But consider each of our personal carbon footprints.
I read a recent article that shared some statistics released by the Yale Program on Climate Communication on public views of global warming gathered in 2016 showing 70 percent of Americans believe global warming is happening, but only 40 percent of Americans believe climate change will affect them personally.
If it’s not affecting me does that mean I can just sit back and do nothing? I don’t have children but I am very concerned about the future of the planet that we are leaving the next generations. Eat local food, bank local, turn lights off, hang-dry clothes, use less plastic bags, bottled water and single use plastic in general. Use a real coffee cup; take Tupperware for leftovers. We are so used to being a “disposable society” we don’t realize what we are doing!
Recycle and compost are good but reduce and reuse are so much more important.
Laurie Dameron/Boulder
White power
The White Supremacist element within Donald Trump’s “America First” catchphrase gained impetus with the election of Barrack Obama and the appearance of numerous brown-skinned faces in high positions of government. This augmented as well the growing, primarily white, libertarian, anti-government movement. On Conservative talk radio, all things Obama became evil incarnate. The acquittal of George Zimmerman in the confrontation and killing of Travon Martin as well as that of the armed occupiers of the Malheur Wildlife Refuge further emboldened the sense of white male superiority that propelled Trump, in a brazen show of power, into the presidency.
As has been said, “The past is never past.” America’s history of slavery and the genocide of Native America and the land grab that was the Mexican War is still alive and openly thriving today in Donald Trump and his followers. White Male Power is the truly definitive Trump catchphrase.
Robert Porath/Boulder
