Author: anoffgridlife

On February 25, 2019, the Sunrise Movement went to visit Senator Mitch McConnell’s office to ask him to support the Green New Deal.  Their message to him, “Mitch, look us in the eyes when you tell us that the $1.9 million you have taken from oil and gas CEOs is more important than our future.”

This is the message that needs to be driven home to all House and Senate members who have not signed on to support the Green New Deal.  Both sides of the aisle are taking money from the fossil fuel industry.  The future of humanity is at risk if we don’t stop using fossil fuels now.

Here is the link from the article from Common Dreams on February 25, 2019, “Kentucky Youth Lead 250+ with Sunrise in McConnell’s Office to Say, “Kentucky Needs a Green New Deal.”  About 42 protesters were arrested.  They were singing as they were handcuffed and arrested, which was very powerful.

https://www.commondreams.org/newswire/2019/02/25/kentucky-youth-lead-250-sunrise-mcconnells-office-say-kentucky-needs-green-new

 

Everywhere, the young people today are rising up to take on climate change and demand that the leaders, globally, do something about it.  Many have been inspired by Greta Thunberg.  Others have joined the Sunrise Movement to get the Green New Deal passed in the US.  The young people of our world will be impacted most from climate change.

Attached is their letter to the leaders of the world.  They are striking at their schools to get their message heard.  It is inspiring.  It is powerful.

I have lived my life.  Will they get to live theirs?  Who can look away from these young people and go on with business as usual?  We can create a new world where people are housed, fed, and clothed.  What more do we need?  We can live with much less . . . much less.

https://www.commondreams.org/news/2019/03/01/youth-climate-movement-world-leaders-we-will-change-fate-humanity-whether-you-it-or

At every corner, Greta is pushing the fact there is no action being taken to stop climate change in the faces of all leaders globally.  This is the moment where action can happen.  We hope it is not too late.  Attached is Greta’s TED talk.  If you have listened to her speech at the climate talks in Poland, many of her points are in there.  If you have not heard her yet, this is the message long overdue.  Please spread Greta’s message to your friends and family.  Thank you.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EAmmUIEsN9A

 

Since the International Panel on Climate Change declared we have 12 years to turn climate change around several months ago, there has been a torrential flow of urgency to do something about climate change . . . finally.  From the Sunrise Movement’s Green New Deal that Rep. Ocasio-Cortez has embraced with Sen. Markey in the form of a resolution to the House and Senate, Extinction Rebellion’s street blockades in the UK and now global organizing, Greta Thunberg’s speech at the climate talks in Poland inspiring students globally to strike, to David Wallace-Wells article, “Time to Panic,” in the New York Times, February 16, 2019, everyone has gotten on the bandwagon to demand that our leaders do something about climate change . . . more than merely acknowledging its existence.

Even with all this urgency, which has been alarmingly missing from the media for so long, there is still an element of what Wallace-Wells calls “complacency” in his article.

If we are not actually bombarded daily with the reality of catastrophic climate change . . . it is easy . . . once again . . . to forget it is actually happening.  We do not step out of our houses and scream, “There is climate change out there!  Get inside.”

Wallace-Wells says 73% of Americans believe climate change is happening but will not put any money into it in the form of, say, a carbon tax.  I found this to be true in some of my own circle of friends.  Everyone believes in climate change but I hear emphatic statements like, “I can’t live without a/c, I can’t give up my showers, too many blankets are heavy, I have to have meat, etc.”  And . . . I am thinking . . . while rolling my eyes, that we are talking about survival here . . . humanity’s extinction is in plain view to see.  “What will you give up?”  So, Wallace-Wells’ complacency is very evident.  We are doomed.

If the American people aren’t ready to do something serious about climate change, how can we expect the politicians to do anything, while paying homage to their corporate interests?  The Sunrise Movement and Rep. Ocasio-Cortez and Sen. Markey are not letting go of the Green New Deal . . . thankfully.

While Wallace-Wells states it’s very nice to follow your conscience and give up beef and dairy, collective efforts in the form of a national plan is what is needed.  Well . . . that goes without saying but what do we do in the meantime while waiting for that plan?  Greta Thunberg’s individual action got her name in more than a few households during the climate talks in Poland.  I say . . . don’t underestimate the power of individual action.  And, oh, by the way, the Chevy Bolt gets 238 miles on a charge.  The market sees where this is going, too.

Climate change is becoming more apparent.  News of declining insect species only tells us we are next, in case people think we are somehow exempt from the species pool.  The Arctic is melting, glaciers are disappearing, coral reefs are dying, and as fires raged in California, how many people died and homes burned?  I live in an area where the Kickapoo River flooding has been common throughout history . . . but not every year.  Let’s be reminded, too, that too much flooding or droughts affects the food we grow . . . or can’t grow.

If everyone is not panicking by now, we should be.

 

It has been a winter . . . full of snow . . . and -40.  But, I made it and still feel it is a beautiful time of year.  Here, these trees majestically display their branches against the snow covered hills and fog.  Incredibly perfect!

On occasion, I have written about this feeling before.  Perhaps more so when I first moved into my little cabin.  But, every time I go out to gather kindling . . . I get the feeling again.

To me . . . it is something intrinsic to our nature.  It is primal.  And, we have lost it.  It has been replaced by fluorescent lighting, piped in music, and shelves upon shelves of fossil fuel laden food and products.

Yes, I still have to go into the big box grocery store and drive a car . . . the fossil fuel list goes on.  But, yesterday, as I was gathering kindling, that grocery store, etc., felt so unnatural . . . I am caught in between.

I carry on with my goal . . . to be as self sustaining as possible.  Even when I hear people say . . . there is no way you can grow all your own food . . . or it is so much work.  I say . . . the planet depends on me succeeding . . . and . . . my survival is at stake . . . not to mention the reconnecting of my inner being to what it knows is real . . . it is home.

With persistence, I will learn how to grow my food.  Last year, so much went wrong in that garden that will teach me what to do better this year.  Yes, the cabbage heads didn’t show up, the potatoes were tiny, the pole beans didn’t come up, onions were too small, carrots and beets are so much trouble, and let’s add broccoli and brussel sprouts to that list, too.

But . . . I got 19 pint jars of canned tomatoes . . . and . . . that meant everything to me.

So, kindling . . . it helps start my fires in the wood stove . . . so I can survive the -40 that Nature dishes out.  It is a hand to mouth thing.  It is not covered in plastic wrap that I need scissors to get into.

My boots sunk into the foot of snow, as I trudged through to an area of trees and . . . watched a rabbit scamper through the field to the other side of the woods . . . heard the snap of each dry branch as I added them to my pile . . . felt the falling snow on my face . . . wondered what kind of shelter I could build in the nook of some trees . . . heard the silence of the gray day . . . enveloped in a milky winter sky . . . felt the knowing eyes of the ancestors guiding me.

Kindling . . . it’s a primal thing.

I am watching the US backed coup in Venezuela . . .  and it is just maddening.  The media paints President Maduro, the current president of Venezuela, as the bad guy.  Perhaps he has done some things wrong . . . but the country is suffering because of US sanctions . . . and now the international banking community will not do business with Venezuela.  That hurts the people.  And the US has placed sanctions on Venezuela why?  Because it is a country based on socialism?  Heaven forbid a country take care of its people . . . or . . .  the bigger reason . . .  they have oil . . . and the US wants its grubby little hands on it.  Oh, and Venezuela has gold, too, among other resources.

At the start of the coup, I was thinking Venezuela had oil.  So I Googled it.  It not only has oil . . . it has the MOST oil in the world.  I thought it was Saudi Arabia, and it may have had the most oil at one time, but Venezuela now tops them.  And, as past US history shows, where there is oil . . . that is where the US goes.  To conduct a war . . . as in Iraq, or now . . . a coup in Venezuela.

Never mind that globally we need to keep the oil in the ground and replace it with renewable energy.  Has the US no conscience!  The US is running the country . . . and the whole world . . . into the ditch.

By the way, did you hear the insect population is in severe decline due to climate change?  You may not like insects but we need them . . . all of the web of life needs them.  Just like the phytoplankton in the ocean . . . which is at risk of going away . . . the whole web of life in the ocean depends on it for existence.

Do the corporate/political people who run things think we will be spared from going extinct, too?

Please help me out with a little survey:

• What do you think about climate change?
• Do you think we can do anything about it?
• Do you know about the Green New Deal?
• Do you support it if you know about it?
• How do you think we should solve climate change?
• Are you aware of any other issues besides climate change that we need to address that affect the planet?

Who is AOC?  The best representative to come to Congress in a long time.  Her name is Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.  She is a congressional representative in New York sworn in January 2019.  For the first time, climate change is front and center . . . and everyone in Congress knows about it . . . whether they like it or not.  I have been waiting for this moment for a long time.

But, let’s backtrack for a moment here.  Before AOC was even sworn in, she joined the Sunrise Movement when they paid Nancy Pelosi a visit and insisted that she make sure the Democrats do something about climate change.  The Sunrise Movement is a phenomenal group of young people . . . the people that climate change will affect most . . . who are demanding that our politicians address the climate change crisis.

And so . . . the Green New Deal was born.  Although there have been some forms of the Green New Deal put together in recent years . . . this one has captured everyone’s attention.

The Green New Deal is not a step by step approach to addressing climate change.  It is a broad reaching scope of what needs to be addressed and some of the things it can accomplish along the way, like replacing our fossil fuel energy system with a renewable energy one, insuring everyone has a job and healthcare, creating a better mass transit system, making every house and building more energy efficient, etc., all within 10 years.

How would we pay for this?  Well, it seems there is some dancing around this issue.  But . . . I say . . .  take all of the subsidies from Big Oil, Big Natural Gas, Big Coal, Big Ag, Big Pharma . . . I am sure I am forgetting some other subsidies . . . that’s a start right there.  Let’s not forget about our military budget . . . so overly bloated . . . there is money to be had to accomplish this.

The whole Green New Deal will look like something from FDR’s New Deal in size and scope.

Below are some links to the Green New Deal that AOC and Sen. Ed Markey have put together, along with an explanation with how it can work.  Included is a link to the Sunrise Movement.

As I throw another log in the wood stove . . . somehow . . . climate change is in everyone’s face . . . and . . . I feel happy.

https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2019/2/7/18203910/alexandria-ocasio-cortez-green-new-deal-2020

https://www.sunrisemovement.org/

https://www.cnbc.com/2019/02/07/aoc-just-updated-her-massive-green-new-deal–heres-whats-in-it.html

There it was on the forecast . . . ever looming . . . -25 and then -30.  Those were the nighttime temperatures coming down the pike.  The Polar Vortex was headed our way.  In the valley, it can go even lower.  That is where I live. And . . . while I chose to live off grid with my wood stove and no backup heat source, I was not looking forward to this.

We started the week off with 10” of snow.  That I can handle.  There was a lifeline of text messages from friends and family almost constantly throughout the whole ordeal.  The first night of -30, I set my alarm for 3 hour intervals to add wood to the stove.  Had I planned this off grid life really well, I would have been in a passive solar home instead of an Amish cabin on cement piers . . . letting every biting bit of the -40 under my cabin . . . penetrating every inch of my floor inside.  Oh, well, that’s life.  Yes, live and learn.

I had recently purchased a new wood stove, which is cast iron and has a little soapstone in it.  It is an awesome stove.  The inside box is just a little bigger so I can add more wood.  There is an ash pan, which has its own advantages besides catching the ash.  It lets air in which helps the fire.  Even though I have experienced a winter burning wood in a wood stove, I am still learning so much more about burning wood and the wood stove itself.

Yes, it was just a number on my little temperature gauge on the kitchen table . . . but I was glued to it.  It was -24 the week before.  I survived that.  So -30 couldn’t be that bad . . . but if the valley reached -40 . . . what would that be like?  How do people in Canada and Alaska deal with this every day during the winter?  Not for me!

Then there is the creosote issue.  Creosote buildup can start a chimney fire.  I started hearing something falling down in the stove pipe.  Could that be creosote?  I Googled it, and sure enough, creosote can fall down onto the top plate, which can alter the airflow.  Alter airflow with -30 coming?  I didn’t need that hanging over my head.  I had to make sure there wasn’t a huge pile of creosote sitting there.  A friend suggested I call a friend of his to help.  Fortunately, he was able to come by that day.  It was a struggle to get the stove pipe disconnected.  But when we did, there was a minimal amount of creosote there and scooped it out.  One less thing to worry about.

I prepared for the coming subzero temps.  I pumped extra water because my hand pump says ‘no way’ when it goes below zero.  My camping stove on the porch does not do well with subzero temps either.  I got it to work a few times . . . but this time . . . the knob didn’t want to move . . . and the flame came out of the knob instead of out of the burner.  That was scary!  I closed that knob really fast and pushed the tank knob to close.  I found things to eat.  Heated some soup on top of the stove.  It was doable.  Next time, I will plan meals better.

The first night, I started at 67 in the cabin . . . and by morning . . . it creeped to 56 . . . that was with adding wood during the night, too, at -31.  I considered myself lucky.  By the second night, on the other side of the door . . . when I got up at 5 a.m. it was -40.  It was 50 inside the cabin.  There was something like a 90-degree difference between the inside and the outside that morning. Adding the wood during the night was a necessary chore to keep up with the severe subzero temps.  It is survival.  We have no idea what real survival is these days.  How did the Native people do it?

The same subzero temps were hitting Illinois where I moved from.  Each morning friends and family would text in what the temperature was . . . and to make sure I was ok.  New friends in my area made sure I was ok, too. Most everyone is on a wood stove here . . . but some have backup heat, too.  Well, and I am by myself, too.

So, I now have some patch of honor . . . if only in my head . . . that I made it through the -40 polar vortex.

I hope it doesn’t come back!