Tag: environment

Categories
Writing

7 Things About 2016

Hats and Rags
Hats and Rags

It’s Christmas Eve in Big Grove, the ambient temperature is about freezing, and we’re ready to bunker in, finish decorating our Christmas tree and prepare a traditional supper of chili and cornbread.

My Christmas wish is for peace on earth.

Elusive as that may have been during 2016, we can’t give up hope. Not now. Not like this.

As winter solstice brought longer days — increasing light imperceptible in each day’s cycle — it is time again to fly with eagles, gain a broader perspective, and thank people who are always in these written words if rarely mentioned — my wife Jacque, our daughter, my parents and my maternal grandmother.

Reading

I continue to read more on my phone and computer than I do full-length books. Nonetheless I managed thirteen books in 2016, the most important of which were authored by people I know: Connie Mutel and Ari Berman.

Methland by Nick Reding had the biggest influence, by a distance.

Here’s the list of books, most recent first:

Diet for a Hot Planet: The Climate Crisis at the End of Your Fork and What You Can Do About It by Anna Lappé; My Life on the Road by Gloria Steinem; Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind by Yuval Noah Haran; Methland: The Death and Life of an American Small Town by Nick Reding; Give Us the Ballot: The Modern Struggle for Voting Rights in America by Ari Berman; A Sugar Creek Chronicle: Observing Climate Change from a Midwestern Woodland by Cornelia F. Mutel; Atlantic: Great Sea Battles, Heroic Discoveries, Titanic Storms, and a Vast Ocean of a Million Stories by Simon Winchester;  And Then All Hell Broke Loose: Two Decades in the Middle East by Richard Engel; Slavery in the Upper Mississippi Valley, 1787-1865: A History of Human Bondage in Illinois, Iowa, Minnesota and Wisconsin by Christopher P. Lehman; The Diary of a Napoleonic Foot Soldier by Jakob Walter; Old Man River: The Mississippi River in North American History by Paul Schneider; MiniFARMING: Self-Sufficiency on 1/4 Acre by Brett L. Markham; and Fast Food Nation: The Dark Side of the All-American Meal by Eric Schlosser.

Writing

I wrote 175 posts on On Our Own during 2016. I also sought increased readership by posting letters and articles outside my blog. Previous years’ posts garnered the most views. The most popular new posts (in descending order) were: We Like Amy Nielsen, Iowa Democrats Convene, Supervisor Race Update, Flesh Wound, and Living in the United States. Among my favorites were Into the Vanishing Point, Rural Door Knocking, and Palm Oil is Bad for Iowa.

For the fourth year I edited Blog for Iowa while Trish Nelson took a break, writing at least one post each weekday during August. My book review of Give Us the Ballot ran in The Prairie Progressive, a guest column ran in the Cedar Rapids Gazette, and I wrote two letters to the editor of the Solon Economist since the general election. I cross posted Next for Iowa Democrats on Bleeding Heartland, my first post there.

More outside publication is planned for 2017.

Working

Income from five jobs helped financially sustain us in 2016. Work at the home, farm and auto supply store provided health insurance and a regular, predictably low paycheck. In descending order of income were jobs at Wilson’s Orchard, Local Harvest CSA, Blog for Iowa and Wild Woods Farm.

Each of these jobs was good for a reason. Blog for Iowa encouraged me to write every day. Farm work helped me connect with others in the local food movement. The home, farm and auto supply store provided a venue for conversations with low-wage workers. I’ll seek additional income in 2017 and maintain relationships with each of these organizations.

The common denominator among these jobs is interaction with people. As I enter my last year of work before “full retirement,” I seek that as much as income.

Gardening

2016 was another improved year in our home garden. Among many experiments were growing root vegetables in containers (a success with carrots and daikon radishes), growing squash in the unused storage plot, and using sections of 4-inch drainage tile to protect young seedlings. Failures included bell pepper plants which succumbed to weed competition, and loss of tomato yield due to a lack of attention. The best crops included broccoli, celery, eggplant, tomatoes, Bangkok peppers, turnips, basil, sage, oregano and kale.

Ancillary activities included distribution of kale and a few other vegetables to local library workers and friends, and weekly posts about the garden on Facebook.

We raised adequate produce to serve the needs of our kitchen. I also learned a lot through collaboration with friends and neighbors.

Apples

I followed the 2016 apple season at the orchard and continued to develop our home apple culture. Our apple trees did not produce a crop this year.

The last of the 2015 crop is peeled, sliced and frozen, or turned into applesauce and apple butter. We have enough frozen apples left for a Christmas Day dessert. This year’s orchard apples were mostly eaten fresh.

I made more apple cider vinegar. The process was simple: I added Jack’s heritage mother of vinegar to apple cider from the orchard in half-gallon ventilated jars and waited. This year I added an eighth-teaspoon of brewers yeast to each container at the beginning. The benefit was hastened alcohol production and a superior final product. I also learned that a cooler temperature slows alcohol production and this can produce a better result. Today there are two gallons of apple cider vinegar in the pantry and another gallon and a half in production.

Politics

The general election did not produce the result many people, including me, wanted.

At the same time, a lot of acquaintances seek to become active and “do something” during a Trump administration. There is plenty of work to resist the expected rollback of what we value in society. Specifically, work toward protecting the environment, reducing the number of nuclear weapons, and ensuring social justice.

My term as a township trustee ends Dec. 31, so regarding politics, I can be an unencumbered agent of change. The next step is to leverage the opportunity the general election brought with it.

Retirement

The time since my July 2009 retirement from CRST Logistics can be divided into clearly defined phases. First came a period of social activism characterized by work with community organizations. It lasted until the end of 2011. Next was the political year 2012. After that, life found me working low-wage jobs to support my writing. That’s where I am today. In 2016 came a realization that in order to spend more time writing, I have to get past the finish line to “full retirement” as defined by the Social Security Administration. For me that’s in December 2017. I took the first step by signing up for Medicare this month.

2016 was a time to learn, work on writing, and do things that matter. More than anything, I have been writing. Everything else provided a platform or material for it. If 2017 presents significant challenges, there should be plenty to write about.

Categories
Home Life

Retreat Into Memory of Trees

Sugar Cookies
Sugar Cookies

Anthony Sells built the first sawmill in Big Grove Township in 1839. There were a lot of nearby trees, hence the name. Things changed.

Farm fields, and eventually subdivisions, replaced the Oak-Hickory forest. Except for the state park and a few scattered parcels, the change has been decisive and permanent.

Memory of trees persists as a place to retreat during the end of year holidays.

Like during much of our lives, food is a holiday consideration — special menus using favorite recipes. We secured fresh cranberries, oranges, Gold Rush apples, sweet potatoes, broccoli, cookie ingredients, apple cider, and a frozen cherry pie from the orchard for the season. Yesterday’s purchases included dark roasted Sumatran coffee (Arabica beans), 64 fluid ounces of half and half for ice cream, special crackers and cream cheese. Planned recipes include cranberry sauce, shortbread cookies, apple crisp, and wild rice. It’s a lot of food for a special meal tomorrow. We’ll eat leftovers for days.

There is more to life than food.

That’s where the camera fades to black and a window into my life is obscured.

The idea of old trees now gone provides solace. Outside living memory, there is no going back to the time before Sells’ sawmill. For most who live here, it is already forgotten.

On this ground we make our own history. Because it lives today, it dominates our outlook and activities. The recipe is not specific and we challenge today what we did yesterday in hope of a better tomorrow.

There is something about the trees. Some linger as Sells’ lumber in structures in the nearby town. What matter more is the idea here was once a different ecosystem. One has to ask, “will what we replaced it with be sustainable?”

I’m working to make it so and so should we all.

Categories
Living in Society

Next Act: Protecting the Commons

First Snowfall
First Snowfall

The president-elect made stunning cabinet picks in the 30 days since the general election. I don’t like any of them.

As political institutions re-tool, it’s clear millionaires and billionaires will be the primary beneficiaries of Trump’s administration. He won the election so it’s his right to name a team and set an agenda.

As my colleagues at the home, farm and auto supply store said often in recent weeks, “the election is over.”

Who knew it would be the agenda of the Republican party of Warren G. Harding and his return to normalcy that elected Trump?

“America’s present need is not heroics, but healing,” Harding said during a speech in Boston May 14, 1920. “Not nostrums, but normalcy; not revolution, but restoration; not agitation, but adjustment; not surgery, but serenity; not the dramatic, but the dispassionate; not experiment, but equipoise; not submergence in internationality, but sustainment in triumphant nationality.”

Harding’s view was nothing was the matter with world civilization after World War I that couldn’t be fixed by returning to “normalcy.” Trump’s campaign slogan, “make America great again” is reminiscent, if not derived from this.

“The world needs to be reminded that all human ills are not curable by legislation,” Harding said, “and that quantity of statutory enactment and excess of government offer no substitute for quality of citizenship.”

There is a lot to unpack in the Harding – Coolidge – Hoover era, which we now know gave us four-term President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. It was an unintended consequence of Andrew Mellon’s execution of Harding’s plan for a prompt and thorough revision of the tax system, an emergency tariff act, readjustment of war taxes, and creation of a federal budget system. Mellon’s long tenure and contribution to policy resulted in the Great Depression. His failures gave us FDR.

Whether the stress on western civilization after World War II was more or less than after World War I is hard to say. Republicans sought to overturn everything FDR stood for and enacted into law, then and now. With Trump they see a chance to turn back progressive reforms dating back to that era.

“The people were demanding a return to ways of prewar living — Harding’s ‘normalcy,'” Herbert Hoover wrote in his memoir. “But in reality, after such a convulsion, there could be no complete return to the past. Moreover, the social sense of our people, livened by the war, was demanding change in many directions.”

Enter Trump’s cabinet, comprised of elite citizens, each of whom appears to have disdain for the office to which they were appointed. They intend to unravel government as we currently think of it, leaving the rest of us behind.

There will be no making America great again under President Donald Trump for reasons similar to what drove the failure of Republicans during the Harding – Coolidge – Hoover era.

Now, more than at any time in my lifetime, the resources and energy of citizens are needed to protect the commons from the new hoard of marauders until the worm turns and progressives gain power again.

That day will come. I hope it doesn’t take the same 12 years after World War I to produce a new, progressive era.

Categories
Environment

Letter to the Solon Economist

the-climate-reality-project-logoSome of us aren’t doing any soul searching after the 2016 general election.

Democrats lost, and as a Democrat that means something to me personally. Yet I know what I stand for and so do my friends and family.

Nothing about our beliefs was changed by the election of Donald Trump. If anything, we plan to work harder to advocate for what we believe is just.

Last week the president-elect and his daughter met with former Vice President Al Gore. Gore’s statement after the meeting was important as it pertains to mitigating the negative impact of man-made global warming and climate change on humans. It also applies more generally.

“Despair is just another form of denial. There is no time to despair. We don’t have time to lick our wounds, to hope for a different election outcome,” Gore wrote. “We have to win this struggle and we will win it; the only question is how fast we win.”

I share Gore’s optimism and so should people who care about leaving a better world for our descendants.

Categories
Environment

24 Hours of Reality — 2016 Edition


Who knows what President Trump’s impact on the environment will be?

To hold ground environmental advocates have claimed since the Nixon administration, we can’t ignore the renewed challenges presented by the mogul’s rise to power.

We don’t know what Trump will do, however, environmental advocates have been stroking against the current all along. The stakes are too high to give up now, nor will we.

We are stronger together so I plan to join with my colleagues at The Climate Reality Project for mutual support and direction. A perfectly timed kickoff is the 24 Hours of Reality webcast scheduled Dec. 5 and 6. I will tune in for at least part of it and encourage readers to do likewise.

Here’s what our chairman had to say after the election:

In every great struggle humanity has undertaken, the march towards progress has included both successes and setbacks. And the struggle to protect and save the Earth’s ecological system is no exception.

Today, I am as optimistic and resolved as ever that we will solve the climate crisis. Our collective efforts are dependent not on politics or ideology — or elections — but on our commitment to each other, to the health of our planet and to a sustainable future for all.
We must — and will — continue to find hope and joy in our work that will define humanity for generations.

Last night President-elect Trump said he wanted to be a president for all Americans. In that spirit, I hope that he will work with the overwhelming majority of us who believe that the climate crisis is the greatest threat we face as a nation.

I wish him well in these efforts and intend to do everything I can to work with him and his administration to ensure that our nation remains a leader in the global effort to meet this challenge. Moreover, there is reason to believe that it is not naive or Pollyannaish to hope for more than what we fear.

We have already made great strides to solve the climate crisis all around the world. The work that has been done by civil society, businesses, investors, and governments at all levels will continue to be driven by the fact that solutions to the climate crisis are not just vital to our planet, but are vital to our economy. The market forces driving the transition to a sustainable economy simply will not be slowed.

Less than a year ago, when the historic Paris Agreement was reached, we knew that our journey was only beginning. We knew this work would not be easy – indeed, more would be required. Now we know that our work must be redoubled.

Today, without regard to last night’s outcome, we must turn our focus to making the promises of the Paris Agreement a reality by embracing the forces that are already working to grow our economy and transform our energy future.

A sustainable future is in sight – but we cannot take it for granted. We must fight for the future we all believe in. Now, more than ever, our planet needs us – and I’m inspired by the knowledge that we’ll take the path forward together.

Al Gore
Founder and Chairman
The Climate Reality Project

Closer to home, I’ve long followed State Senator Rob Hogg who is an advocate for protecting the environment and a member of The Climate Reality Project. Recently elected minority leader in the Iowa Senate, Hogg offered this advice:

Continue to speak up with elected officials. A Doubting Thomas today can be a leader for climate action tomorrow. Remind Republicans of their successes including the Clean Air Act, the Montreal Protocol, and solar energy investment tax credits. Do not let them off the hook by ignoring them.

Midway through my seventh decade of life it is time to get more active. I am ready for what lies ahead and the road forward.

Categories
Environment

Sustaining Saturday

Harvest Soup
Harvest Soup

The weekend began with a trip to the COSTCO bakery where I bought 2.2 pounds of cookies after my shift at the home, farm and auto supply store.

I am celebrating my first Saturday without a work shift since July 26 with, that’s right, cookies!

Saturday morning I made harvest soup from bits and pieces in the ice box, pantry and counter. With a sandwich it made a hearty lunch with three leftover quarts of soup for later in the week.

Hot peppers and kale
Hot peppers and kale

Gleaning the garden yielded sage, oregano, chives, kale, hot peppers, cucumbers and tomatoes.

After cleaning the vegetables there are bags of herbs and kale in the ice box, Bangkok peppers in the dehydrator, and a big bowl of Serrano and Jalapeno peppers in the ice box. More Bangkok peppers are ripening on the counter. Cucumber salad is in the works for Sunday as is an appetizer for the work dinner later in the evening. It is weird to be harvesting cucumbers and tomatoes in November.

I don’t fully understand the El Niño/La Niña cycle but the weather has been warm. Saturday’s harvest weeks after the normal first hard frost stands as evidence. Climate change is not about the weather per se but warming temperatures in the equatorial Pacific Ocean impact Iowa.

Assorted kale leaves
Assorted kale leaves

Photos of fresh produce compliment each day and help us forget about the impacts of changing climate. There is something to be said for a warm Iowa winter. It would be welcomed by most people I know.

The hard frost is coming and with it the end of the gardening season.

In the meanwhile we harvest what we can and make a life for ourselves on the Iowa prairie.

Categories
Environment

To the Finish Line

Fall Colors
Fall Colors

Heading into the general election, public life is converging into a melee with an uncertain outcome.

Worklife had me circling the wagons, inner focus broken only by work, social media, and news feeds on my hand-held computer. I engaged with thousands of people, yet remained focused on sustaining a life midst social turbulence.

The streams of politics, environmentalism, justice, and conflict seem heading for an apocalyptic finish line.

Where to begin?

Environmental activism is off track with opposition to the Keystone XL and Dakota Access pipelines. Mode of transportation will never be as important an issue as reducing global greenhouse gas emissions. Oil and natural gas production is predicated on economic models — models that can change dramatically as solar, wind and other forms of renewable power generation continue to be developed and deployed. The same economic, governmental, technology and health factors driving the decline in coal extraction and use can and should be at the forefront of environmental activism regarding oil and natural gas production, distribution and use.

Environmental advocates are distracted by development of the Dakota Access pipeline by Energy Transfer Partners. The pipeline is nearly complete in North Dakota, nearly complete in South Dakota, two-thirds complete in Iowa, and 75 percent complete overall as of earlier this month. The pipeline is not finished but clearly will be despite heartfelt protests.

The issue of land rights has taken prominence among advocates against the pipeline. That fight would more properly be fought in the United States Supreme Court by overturning the June 23, 2005 5-4 decision in Kelo v. City of New London which granted private developers the right to transfer ownership of property as a permissible public use under the Takings Clause of the Fifth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Use of eminent domain by Energy Transfer Partners to gain easements for their pipeline may be wrong, however, it is legal. Even if the U.S. Senate confirms a Democratic President’s appointment to the high court, there is no guarantee eminent domain would be taken up nor that Kelo would be overturned. Land rights issues activate people who would not normally be a part of environmental actions. The long-term value of such engagement to the environmental movement is an open question.

I support the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe’s resistance to land acquisition for the Dakota Access Pipeline. A web site No  DAPL Solidarity calls for people to take action in support of tribal goals, including going to the site, organizing solidarity actions in our own communities, and sending money. I could do more to support the effort.

Election of anyone other than Hillary Clinton as president would be a setback for efforts to stop the Dakota Access Pipeline, and for environmental issues generally. Clinton may not be the champion for the environment we want, however, election of her main opponent would undo the environmental progress of the last 40 years. Melee may be too mild a word for what may happen after the Nov. 8 election.

Categories
Environment Work Life

Hay Feeder Rings

Photo Credit - Tarter Farm and Ranch Equipment
Hay Feeder Ring Photo Credit – Tarter Farm and Ranch Equipment

Something is wrong when the garden produces tomatoes, cucumbers and peppers in Iowa the fourth week in October.

I’ll dice tomatoes for breakfast tacos later this week, Bangkok peppers are in the dehydrator, and cucumbers and jalapeno peppers in the icebox waiting to be used. There is chard and kale, oregano and chives. Those leafy green vegetables usually survive until November, but tomatoes and cucumbers?

Call it what you want but something is happening and we know exactly what it is.

I spent most of Friday working with hay feeder rings.

After re-resurfacing the outside lot where farm equipment is displayed at the home, farm and auto supply store, I assembled and re-merchandised the stock of feeder rings.

I don’t know if it was a day’s work, but spent a day doing it, working slowly and as safely as possible. I was tired after the shift with a hankering to leave everything and head west to work on a ranch — day dreams of a low-wage worker.

The garage was cluttered after a summer of intermittent work.

I checked off each item on the to-do list on my handheld device before heading to the orchard for a shift. I disassembled the grass catcher and stored it; re-mixed bird seed and filled the feeder; checked the air pressure on our auto tires; brought in salt and paper products from the car; stored 40 pounds of coarse salt in tubs for winter ice melting; cleared a work space on the bench; and swept the entire floor. It took about two hours. I wanted more, but time ran out.

Yesterday’s political events had me thinking of Gettysburg, Penn. My parents, brother and sister went there before Dad died. I remember reading President Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address on a placard near where he read it himself. With deep roots in rural Virginia, and ancestors fighting on both sides of the Civil War, it was a seminal experience for me. It began the process of turning me from being a descendant of southerners enamored of romantic notions about plantation life to being an American eschewing the peculiar institution and those who stood for it. To my mother’s probable dismay, I brought home a Confederate flag and hung it in my bedroom. Visiting Gettysburg helped me understand the reality of the Civil War and those who fought and lived through it. I was coming of age.

My parents pointed out the house and farm where Dwight and Mamie Eisenhower lived after his presidency. Eisenhower hosted world leaders there, including Nikita Khrushchev, Charles de Gaulle and Winston Churchill. He also raised Angus cattle. We thought favorably of Eisenhower even if he was a Republican. As Supreme Commander of the Allied Forces in Europe during World War II he was a well known part of our culture. Seeing his farm enabled us to touch reality in his celebrity.

My life is here in Big Grove. I’m not heading west to work on a ranch. I don’t display the Confederate battle flag or think about it much any more. I will re-read the Gettysburg Address as I did this morning and wonder how my ancestors got along with each other after fighting in the Civil War. Perhaps there are lessons for the United States in 2016. I’m certain there are.

Categories
Environment

Letter to the Des Moines Register

(EDITOR’S NOTE: I send more letters to the Des Moines Register than get printed. This topic has been well covered in the news, so I doubt they will run it. Will post a link if they do).

There’s a bitter irony in the letter Iowa’s two U.S. Senators sent the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Sept. 27 regarding $73 million in funding for a Cedar River project for flood risk management authorized but not funded by Congress in 2014.

The tough, clear message from Senators Grassley and Ernst to the Corps is find the money for the project in your budget. The irony is there will be no specific appropriation by the Congress to meet the needs of Iowa’s second largest city.

The Iowa Department of Natural Resources indicates on its website that eastern Iowa can expect increased frequency of precipitation extremes that lead to flooding. The need for the project is real.

While Iowa’s Senators have taken the Corps of Engineers to task for not prioritizing the Cedar River project, their effort to tie the Corps to the whipping post are transparent in this election year.

The letter is what austerity policy looks like. It’s not good for the people of Cedar Rapids or for other flood impacted areas in Iowa.

Instead of drafting terse letters, show us how Cedar Rapids gets funding for the Cedar River project.

Categories
Environment

After the Latest Flood

Cedar River at Iowa Highway One Sept. 27, 11:36 a.m.
Cedar River at Iowa Highway One on Sept. 27, 2016 at 11:36 a.m.

The Cedar River crested in Cedar Rapids at 21.91 feet at 11 a.m. yesterday.

As the river recedes over the next few days the temporary flood wall and earthen berms built over the weekend will be monitored for breaches.

They held during the crest, protecting people and property from damage. Here’s a link to a news story about the flood.

State Senator Rob Hogg announced a “Flood Relief, Recovery and Resilience Tour” of  Cedar Falls, Waverly, Clarksville, Shell Rock, Charles City, Vinton and Palo today and tomorrow. Hogg hopes to learn about the damage done, what kind of help people need, what worked and what didn’t work, and how we can do more together to reduce future flood damage, including better flood mitigation infrastructure and better watershed and floodplain management according to the event page on Facebook.

The City of Cedar Rapids knew what to do when flooding was predicted after heavy precipitation events upstream. Over the weekend officials executed a plan to build a temporary flood wall, evacuated low-lying areas and ramped up emergency services to prevent large-scale damage to homes, property and people living in Iowa’s second largest city. News media stories focused on the human drama of reaction to the impending flood. There has been little coverage of the causes of the heavy precipitation events that produced rain that caused the flooding in northeastern Iowa.

“Iowa is already experiencing the effects of climate change,” according to the Iowa Department of Natural Resources website. This includes “increased frequency of precipitation extremes that lead to flooding.”

Flooded Farm Near the Cedar River, Sept. 27, 2016
Flooded Farm Near the Cedar River, Sept. 27, 2016

Because this is the second major flood in Cedar Rapids since 2008, solutions to protecting people and assets going forward have been discussed and are clear.

Senator Hogg outlined three essential strategies: get Congress to help fund permanent flood protection that has already received state and local funding; better upstream watershed and floodplain management to reduce peak flooding; and action on climate change to stop extreme precipitation events from getting worse.

U.S. Senators Chuck Grassley and Joni Ernst sent a letter to the Army Corps of Engineers “demanding answers on why they have neglected to complete flood mitigation projects in the Cedar Rapids region and have put the public’s safety at risk.”

They wrote:

With all due respect, it is no longer sufficient to say that your hands are tied and that nothing short of a congressional earmark can help communities like Cedar Rapids that have lower property values. You have some discretion to help and have simply made the decision to forego the assistance even though the community endured a 500-year flood event in 2008, worked with the Corps to develop a project to address that flood risk, and worked with Congress to get it authorized. Due to your refusal to budget for this project, Cedar Rapids is now facing another major flood event without the needed levee improvements.

Hidden in this tough language is a bitter irony. Congress won’t appropriate money for the project, yet the senators expect the Corps of Engineers to find it somewhere else in their budget. This is what austerity policies look like and they are not good for the people of Cedar Rapids and other flood impacted areas.

While Iowans impacted by flooding are concerned, in the upper atmosphere carbon dioxide levels maintained a level above 400 part per million according to monitors in Hawaii. Atmospheric carbon dioxide level is a key contributor to global warming which increases the intensity of precipitation events that have led to Iowa flooding.

“September is usually the month when carbon dioxide is at its lowest after a summer of plants growing and sucking it up in the northern hemisphere,” Brian Kahn wrote in an article on Climate Central. “As fall wears on, those plants lose their leaves, which in turn decompose, releasing the stored carbon dioxide back into the atmosphere. At Mauna Loa Observatory, the world’s marquee site for monitoring carbon dioxide, there are signs that the process has begun but levels have remained above 400 ppm.”

Why is 400 ppm important? The lower limit of the safe operating zone boundary for carbon dioxide on Earth is 350 ppm. We passed that level in 1986.

The United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s fifth Assessment Report notes that, “continued emission of greenhouse gases will cause further warming and long-lasting changes in all components of the climate system, increasing the likelihood of severe, pervasive and irreversible impacts for people and ecosystems.”

That means more flooding in Iowa similar to this week’s event. While politicians like Senator Hogg are well-attuned to the urgency of this climate crisis, too many politicians and public officials are dismissive of climate change.

Governmental action to mitigate the effects of climate change is needed. If our current crop of politicians isn’t willing to take action, we should replace them with people who will.