While I’m an elder, I hadn’t given a lot of thought to dying, that is until my brother, who’s 20 months younger, announced in...
Climate Change
How I Became A Climate Activist
GUEST POST by MOLLY SCHEN I’m coming to climate activism pretty late in life, in my early sixties. I’m no Greta Thunberg. But I can’t stay on the sidelines any longer. I am dismayed by the frequency of severe weather events—floods, fires, droughts, and storms. And I cannot ignore my own lived experience of hotter summers, milder winters, [...]
Pat Taub
Rethinking Climate Change
GUEST POST by LINDA CREE Climate change is on everyone’s mind. The media, scientists, and policy-makers talk a great deal about it, and each day seems to bring a news story about melting glaciers or rising sea levels. Politicians are pushing solar, wind – even nuclear power – to reduce carbon dioxide emissions. Addressing climate [...]
Pat Taub
A Grandmother’s Agony
I gaze at my beautiful grandchildren, Jane and Max, taking in their vitality, humor, and intelligence. My loving admiration turns to grief when I consider the future that awaits them: an overheated planet, storms of Biblical proportions, polluted drinking waters, deadly viruses and more. As I sit with my grief for the world Jane and Max [...]
Pat Taub
Will We Stand with Our Young People?
GUEST POST by JANET WEIL The young faces, lined up in rows on the zoom screen, looked ready to get things done. I, on the other hand, had turned my video off and was almost melting from self-consciousness. “I’m so old, so NOT them. Should I be here?” went through my head as the organizers for Portland Youth Climate Strike led the group [...]
Pat Taub
Waking Up to Climate Change
I have to make a confession: I have been a bad climate citizen. While I have been moved to the core by this summer’s record smashing heat, wildfires and floods, in response, I have done little more than wring my hands and exchange feelings of despair with friends. This weekend I read the book, All We Can Save, which hit me like a ton of [...]
Pat Taub
Summer Heat, Climate Fears
GUEST POST by JANET WEIL Last week I was in the grip of a climate anxiety attack, stronger than anything I have felt thus far. After looking online at heat maps of the Pacific Northwest, where the temperature was predicted to rocket to well over 100 degrees F, I felt like screaming. I sat shuddering on my bed. Needing support, I called the [...]
Pat Taub
Celebrating Christmas in a Climate-Changed World
GUEST POST by JANET WEIL “Someday soon we all will be together If the fates allow Until then we’ll have to muddle through somehow So have yourself a merry little Christmas now…” — By Hugh Martin and Ralph Blane Judaism is my religion, but I do have a favorite (secular) Christmas song: “Have yourself a merry little Christmas.” [...]
Pat Taub