What EOC3 annual meeting meant to me....

Other people will want to add their two cents, so I'll just concentrate on putting out some of the valuable web resources that Colleen and her board put together.  In one word it was....

Inspiring.

http://umatillaclimate.org/   (That's their web site.  It's pretty.)

eoclimatechange@gmail.com (and that's their email.  Send 'em $20 if you like what you see...or just send them $20.)

Who are they?  No less that the breaking wave of climate change public education for Umatilla County and the surrounding area.  They have an ongoing gig at the Prodigal Son every 3rd Tuesday at 12 PM.  Call ahead if you want lunch ready for you when you get there!

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The national climate reports have finally been released this year...and if you REALLY want to get deep into climate science:

https://science2017.globalchange.gov  (Fourth Annual Climate Assessment, Volume I)

https://nca2018.globalchange.gov   (Fourth Annual Climate Assessment, Volume II)

..will give you all you ever wanted to know.

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Karen Wagner did an excellent job of, yes, inspiring all of us.  Karen's spiel on sustainability was dense and very enjoyable....you can just start here:

www.sustainabilityillustrated.com

...to get a good idea of our head space, there.

The concerned scientific community's consensus is that:

• the extraction of resources (things Nature can't easily replenish at all)
• the accumulation of wastes (things to difficult for Nature to recycle quickly)
• inhibition of natural processes (disruption of systems that keep things in balance)
• and barriers to basic human needs (as opposed to fabricated ones)

...are going to be the death of all of us.

'The planet doesn't give a shit about us.  It can survive this stupidity, but we can't.' - George Carlin

'Stupidity got us into this.  Why can't it get us out?' - Will Rogers

Meanwhile...the United Nations 'Sustainable Development Goals' page is here:

https://www.un.org/development/desa/disabilities/envision2030.html

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The USDA has published a great book if you want the local story on things:

Climate Change Vulnerability and Adaption in the Blue Mountain Region

Click on the link and you can download it; it's 334 pages but chock full of the REAL deal.

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On a lighter and gratifying note, for those of you who grew up here or just plain love the place, Prof. Robert Carson of Whitman College (my semi-alma-mater) has written a 'natural history of the Blues' called, of all things, The Blues...it is available at local bookstores and, ughh, Amazon, if you really must patronize that evil and fornicating establishment. A link to a review is below:

https://bmlt.org/news2/2018/11/28/the-blues-natural-history-of-the-blue-mountains-of-northeastern-oregon-and-southeastern-washington

He will be speaking (I think?  You guys know how I am about dates and things...) at Fort Walla Walla on Thursday January 31st at 4PM.

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Unless we just enjoy talking to ourselves, we will always, in our daily lives of hysterical activism, have a communications problem.  This late age of noise and chaos and anti-intellectual FauxNews gibberish is giving our fellow citizens a bad case of reason-deafness, so it's great to have resources we can use for fact-checking and touching ground occasionally; we can't all live safely in the choir, we gotta get out there and preach a little our own damn selves...

Karen's talk got the conversation about one thing we are only now realizing we have to make central; the justice of these causes of ours...in addition to the basic human physical needs, every person on the Earth has a wired in sense of fairness...and it can be taken apart into a list of guarantees, just like the physical needs:

• Satisfaction
• Affection
• Participation
• Leisure
• Freedom (that might need defining, but...)
• Protection
• Understanding
• Identity
• Creation

These things are what people need to not just to survive, but survive with style and dignity.