Dear friends,
Someone read a little passage from Thoreau’s Walden in meditation the other day, and it expresses an idea I really love.
It is something to be able to paint a particular picture, or to carve a statue, and so to make a few objects beautiful; but it is far more glorious to carve and paint the very atmosphere and medium through which we look, which morally we can do. To affect the quality of the day, that is the highest of arts.”
I hope to affect the quality of your day by delivering an impressive collection of good news. I will start with something small (because it involves fewer people) and move outward, the way a pebble sends ripples across a pond.
dressed as angels, raised huge fabric “wings” to shield queer marchers.
The angels created an effective buffer between the student group and the anti-gay protesters, both students and people outside the BYU community, who were calling the queer students ‘groomers’ and ‘pedophiles’ and creating a threatening situation.
They were meeting in a public place because clubs for LGBTQ+ people “are not permitted to gather on campus.” Yikes.
We need more angels. This is the work of upstanders, who step in to fraught situations — wings aloft — rather than standing by.
An analysis of child poverty in the US since 1993 shows a 59 percent decline.
Child poverty has fallen in every state, and it has fallen by about the same degree among children who are white, Black, Hispanic and Asian, living with one parent or two, and in native or immigrant households. Deep poverty, a form of especially severe deprivation, has fallen nearly as much.
More than one in ten American children still live in poverty, which is the sobering news. Still, the increase in subsidies for families with children along with federal expenditures on programs for children have made a difference.
Sign this petition from Moms Rising to demand that Congress pass paid family leave.
NYS child tax credit checks will arrive by the end of next month.
Some US cities are experimenting with guaranteed income!
A rule change to reverse the public-charge rule has been finalized. Although the Biden Administration stopped enforcing the rule, which said that immigrants could be denied permanent resident status if they had received or appeared likely to accept food assistance, Medicaid, housing assistance, or other public benefits. The change is now official.
Zelenskyy, clad in a khaki t-shirt with the slogan “Fight like Ukrainians,” gave a powerful speech, reporting on the progress of the war and declaring the determination of the Ukrainian people to liberate themselves:
Even through the impenetrable darkness, Ukraine and the civilized world clearly see these terrorist acts.
Deliberate and cynical missile strikes on civilian critical infrastructure. No military facilities. Kharkiv and Donetsk regions were cut off. In Zaporizhia, Dnipropetrovsk, and Sumy there are partial problems with power supply. Do you still think that we are “one people”?
Do you still think that you can scare us, break us, make us make concessions?
You really did not understand anything?
Don’t understand who we are? What are we for? What are we talking about?
Read my lips:
Without gas or without you? without you
Without light or without you? without you
Without water or without you? without you
Without food or without you? without you
Cold, hunger, darkness and thirst are not as scary and deadly for us as your “friendship and brotherhood”.
But history will put everything in its place. And we will be with gas, light, water and food … and WITHOUT you!
Wowza.
Adam Morton at the Guardian offers some hopeful climate news: In addition to a decline in China’s emissions of 8 percent in the last quarter, there are significant increases — 12 percent! — in global clean energy investment in the last two years.
Morton gives some credit to wealthy nations in which there has been public money spent and private money invested in sustainable energy.
Renewable energy, new grids and energy storage account for more than 80% of total power sector investment. The IEA estimates spending on solar, batteries and EVs is now growing at a rate consistent with reaching global net zero emissions by 2050.
In Europe, where Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has upturned the energy supply, there has been a significant swing towards renewable energy even while countries offer short-term support for fossil fuels to keep lights and heating on. The British thinktank Ember found a record northern summer of solar generation meant the continent was able to avoid spending €29 billion [a bit more in dollars!] on gas. Across the EU’s 27 countries, renewable energy provided 35% of electricity, compared to 16% from coal.
Here’s the part where we affect the quality of the day:
We haven’t given up our effort to stop the permitting legislation that Manchin was promised when he signed on to the Inflation Reduction Act. A wiffijista passed along this information from Indivisible Brooklyn:
After a long recess, Congress is back at work. One thing on the agenda is Schumer’s deal with Manchin to expand fossil fuel pipelines. Many NYC democrats have come out against the deal, but not Rep. [Hakim] Jeffries.
Call Congressman Jeffries and tell him not to support so-called permit reforms that will enable more fossil fuel infrastructure to be built in frontline communities. I wrote you a script.
Have a great day!
with love,
L