The City Mouse in the Country

Recently I learned that nearly two out of every three Americans have been affected in some way by climate change.  That 62% of Americans think climate change is currently having some sort of effect on their local community and economy. I mention this because climate change is one of the several reasons we moved from Tampa, Florida to Northwestern Pennsylvania a few years ago.   My wife, Susan, likes to tell the story of when it was 90 degrees (32 C) on New Year's day, which is an exaggeration but the point remains.  It was hot and humid on a day that really should not have been. It got so bad that even the natives were saying "It's to hot." Migration is defined as " The movement of a person or people from one country, locality, place of residence, etc., to settle in another ."  Thus Sue and myself became, without even realizing it "Climate migrant's." Now I want to make it perfectly clear that I'm not comparing Susan and myself to any...

 I was on a bit of a side quest a few days ago and ended up eating dinner by myself at a cute 1950's style diner, complete with the music and red plastic chairs of the period.  I entered and had already resigned myself to a chicken or meat dinner; so imagine my surprise when I was able to order a vegetarian meal.   That's something that I've been trying to do for some time because I know that when I order a vegan/vegetarian dinner at a restaurant; I 'm doing my part to make these items a little bit more accessible to others, as well as helping my overall health and reducing my carbon footprint just a tiny bit more. The waitress and I started chatting about this and she stated she wanted to try more plant based items.  I mentioned one of my favorite companies Quorn .  Either due to luck or more likely the all powerful algorithm; what showed up in my news feed at the diner was that Ron DeSantis, current governor of Florida, was in the process of trying to ba...

It hasn't been reported much by the national news here in the States; that COP 28, or the 28th meeting of the United Nations Conference of the Parties (COP) to the United Nations Climate Change Conference is currently being held in Dubai, a major oil producing country (more on that in a bit).  It is open to  " Business leaders, young people, climate scientists, Indigenous Peoples, journalists, and various other experts and stakeholders" in the future of our planet.   It's meeting in a variety of ways current ongoing from November 30 through the 12 of December this year.  So as I'm writing this it's still ongoing and already simplifying complex and complimented decisions, creating empty promises, possibly committing or planning to commit fraud and full of controversy. It's been a failure on the environmental front for a variety of reasons. The idea of COP28 is a simple one according to the UN ; it is to allow the major players and countries in the world to...