Cal Sues Big Oil, Duckbill Platypuses
History making developments and plain ol' cuteness
The next round of global climate change talks is scheduled to begin the end of this month. In advance of the meeting, the State of California has sued Big Oil in what may turn out to be a historic, tipping point case.
California claims the five biggest oil and gas companies knew that using their products led to climate change, but then spent decades lying to the public, and investing in misinformation campaigns all in an effort to keep their massive profits rolling in.
What’s unique about California’s legal approach is that it’s not about policy changes but rather holding the fossil fuel companies accountable for the damage they’ve already caused and for knowingly hurting people and lying about it. The suit calls for setting up an abatement fund that the oil industry would be required to pay into. The fund would be used for mitigating damages where possible as well as investing in resiliency measures to help protect against ongoing climate-related extreme weather events such as wildfire, drought, flooding, etc.
California Attorney General, Rob Bonta expresses confidence in the success of the lawsuit due in large part to damning evidence of internal studies and memos proving that oil execs knew the climate science and where things were headed yet intentionally lied about their findings and deliberately misled the public and policy makers. Bonta notes that the industry’s own documentation shows, “They, with terrifying accuracy, knew we would be exactly where we are today.”
I have a feeling about this case and will be monitoring it because I think it could mark a watershed development in the effort to chart a saner path forward. The approach of forcing accountability from industries that were knowingly causing harm and lying about it has been successful against the tobacco, lead paint, and opioid industries.
Here are two useful and brief news clips of interviews with Attorney General Bonta explaining this lawsuit.
· PBS News Hour interview (7 minutes)
· CBS News interview (7 minutes)
Worlds First Battery Powered Freight Train
One of my favorite running trails is near a railway line and when a train is idling there the diesel fumes are terrible. I’ve always felt sorry for the people who live near train tracks, and, in the case of my running route, for the marmot colony that has to deal with the noise and fumes.
In an interesting and hopeful development, the toxic belching could become a thing of the past. Wabtec Corp just unveiled the world’s first electric, heavy-haul freight train. If widely-adopted electric freight trains could cut the industry’s carbon emissions by more than half and greatly reduce the terrible health effects for neighborhoods near freight railway lines.
Of course, electrifying the railway system doesn’t help with the problem of all the destructive mining required to produce the batteries and in fact, the Wabtec battery train will be used to haul iron ore from means to ports in Western Australia. In addition, so far, only a minority of windmill-tilters like me, are talking about the need to stop making and shipping so much stuff in the first place. In the U.S. alone, trains haul approximately 20 billion tons of cargo each year and all that stuff takes a terrible toll on nature. However, until the major consumption reduction reset hits, cleaning up rail is a positive development for both the planet and the beings living near these lines.
Plain Ol’ Make Me Smile News – Duckbill Platypuses
After being absent for more than 50 years, duck-billed platypuses have been returned to Australia’s Royal National Park. After years of cleaning and landscape restoration the park is once again full of the insects, shellfish and worms platypus feed on. Ten of the goofy-looking, lovely creatures have been released there and are doing very well.
Here’s a short vid of the release. Just plain yay!
Putting Christ back in Christmas Class
Christ isn’t Jesus’ last name! What better time that during Christmas season to explore Christ consciousness? I’ll be teaching this course starting the end of the month. We’ll delve into the meaning, impact, and implications of Christ consciousness and how that relates to and differs from Jesus. Participants will experientially engage their personal beliefs about “Jesus Christ”, Christ consciousness and how intentionally examining and evolving our thinking about these powerful concepts can forward our own spiritual awakening and path through this human part of our journey.
Classes will take place Nov. 28, Dec. 5, Dec. 19, Dec. 26, Jan. 2, Jan. 9, 2023/4, 11am — 12:30pm Pacific time, ONLINE via Zoom.
Required Text: The Universal Christ, by Richard Rohr.
This class is a required Spiritual Education and Enrichment (SEE) class for Unity ministerial students but is open to everyone.
Registration link -- https://www.cylviahayes.net/product/the-christ-class/
And Finally … Life with Livvy and LottaDog.
After celebrating our one-year anniversary of agility competitions Olive and I took a month off. I couldn’t wait to get back at it this past weekend and Livvy Lane was amazing once again. Here’s a vid of our winning Jumpers event run.
Meanwhile, LottaDog Freya made great use of her new orthopedic dog bed.
These two really couldn’t be more different but they sure are great friends.
Peace Friends,
Cylvia
Also, great new Nature program on PBS re one man’s campaign to love those platypus and clean up their homes. Thanks!
It’s all good, but loved that agility trial! You go Livvy!