Hurricane Ida, a trifling storm just a few days ago, is scheduled to make landfall in the U.S. as a possible Category 4 early Sunday, slamming into the Gulf Coast after crossing western Cuba and some alarmingly warm water in the Caribbean. Sixteen years after Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans is again in the bullseye, and began evacuations on Friday. It’s well accepted by now that storms, as well as droughts, heat waves, and extended fire seasons, are all fueled by climate change.
NOAA forecasts Ida to be a devastating major storm. As we all know, although the Gulf Coast will suffer, it won't be alone as the storm makes its way north. Devastating winds and rains are due to cross already deluged and flooded regions inland, notably along the Mississippi and into Kentucky, Tennessee, and points further north.
In last week’s Community Spotlight roundup, Besamé wrote about the urgent need to “link ‘extreme events’ with ‘climate change,” to connect weather-related catastrophes to the broader climate crisis. The week before, I featured Climate Brief, a new and very active Daily Kos group that publishes daily, reblogs other climate stories, and provides comprehensive resources about the climate crisis and ways to join the fight.
They’re not alone.
Agramante's new series 365 Days of Climate Awareness is a year-long endeavor to educate people about the science of climate. Many other writers—drawing from tech, science, and the arts—write every day to keep us abreast of what's happening, why it’s happening, and what we can do about it, and you can find them in Climate Brief’s stream or by following the tags #ClimateChange and #ClimateCrisis.
The climate crisis is the greatest single threat that the earth and all life on it faces, already causing environmental devastation as weather patterns shift, wildfires rage, populations are displaced, previously habitable places become deserts, and far more species than humans are imperiled, The effects of climate change are already with us, and the whole monolithic issue is so overwhelming, it can keep us from doing anything or demanding more from our elected representatives. But the fact is that the power is still ours to mitigate the worst that will come, and work to reverse it. There’s a surprising amount we can do right now, and more we can demand of our government, whether it’s on the local, state, regional, national, or international scale.
Community Spotlight’s mission is to ensure that the best stories from the Daily Kos Community aren’t overlooked. We encourage members who write excellent stories with original views to keep writing by promoting work that isn’t receiving enough attention.
Good news: You don’t have to search to find our rescued stories! The nightly News Roundup, an Open Thread published six days a week at 7:30 PM PDT, includes links to each day’s rescued stories.
Reminder: The numbers in parentheses after each author’s name indicate the year they joined Daily Kos, how many stories they’ve published, and how many we’ve rescued.
Biden nominates Nicholas Burns as ambassador to China by KoNko (2005-115-9)
KoNko sees the appointment of Nicholas Burns, a “diplomat’s diplomat,” as U.S. ambassador to China as more than a solid pick; it’s a bellwether heralding a shift to a more cooperative, less confrontational relationship between the U.S. and its greatest competitor. “In a break with the practice of making political appointments, this is a good and important choice for what is a critical foreign relations role of strategic importance to both countries and the world community.”
The crazy years by CinDan (2005-121-6)
CinDan applies Robert Heinlein’s formula about “The Crazy Years,” when American society “absorbed technological, demographic, and economic changes into the whole of our civilization,” to our current crazy years, with humorous and unsettling parallels.
Climate Brief: Politicians to discuss climate changes, again. Maybe by PalmFrond (2019-27-2)
Climate Brief earned a place in Spotlight with a warning not to trust the players in the UN’s 2021 COP26 conference in Glasgow in November. Cutting through the boilerplate bromides and looking at some of the participants and the industry players at the table, PalmFrond warns us not to expect the UN to save us. Greta Thunberg, who now plans to attend, may exercise more leverage than anyone.
It’s 1975 and the fall of Saigon is televised; A plea by saevans60 (2007-12-5)
“Fighting the war” takes on multiple meanings for a PTSD-afflicted veteran who remembers and still carries the trauma of what it is to be in-country and in-conflict, and who navigated a scarred road back to peace, in this message to veterans of one war from the veteran of another.
Bookchat: Deep reading makes us all creators by Brecht (2005-98-46)
Losing oneself in a book, collaborating with an author to create a world that’s real, even if it’s only in our minds, is a subject for celebration. “When I lose myself in a great novel, that is as close as I get to God. When I close the book and emerge at the end, I feel I have been wandering through a cathedral, not of stone but of trees, a forest of refreshing greens and dappled sunlight,” Brecht writes. Deep reading is more than an idle act, as Brecht outlines the ways that it changes brain function and deepens both empathy and intellectual ability.
The Daily Bucket: Swallows, 2021: A not so normal year by Appy (2016-19-3)
In a year when climate changes have delayed some seasons and accelerated others, Appy brings a keen photographer's eye and patient observation to the chronicle of familial arrangements in raising a batch of young swallows in the horse barn. Come for the photography, stay for the drama of raising a brood of feathered kids.
NOAA forecasts Ida to be a devastating major storm. As we all know, although the Gulf Coast will suffer, it won't be alone as the storm makes its way north. Devastating winds and rains are due to cross already deluged and flooded regions inland, notably along the Mississippi and into Kentucky, Tennessee, and points further north.
In last week’s Community Spotlight roundup, Besamé wrote about the urgent need to “link ‘extreme events’ with ‘climate change,” to connect weather-related catastrophes to the broader climate crisis. The week before, I featured Climate Brief, a new and very active Daily Kos group that publishes daily, reblogs other climate stories, and provides comprehensive resources about the climate crisis and ways to join the fight.
They’re not alone.
Agramante's new series 365 Days of Climate Awareness is a year-long endeavor to educate people about the science of climate. Many other writers—drawing from tech, science, and the arts—write every day to keep us abreast of what's happening, why it’s happening, and what we can do about it, and you can find them in Climate Brief’s stream or by following the tags #ClimateChange and #ClimateCrisis.
The climate crisis is the greatest single threat that the earth and all life on it faces, already causing environmental devastation as weather patterns shift, wildfires rage, populations are displaced, previously habitable places become deserts, and far more species than humans are imperiled, The effects of climate change are already with us, and the whole monolithic issue is so overwhelming, it can keep us from doing anything or demanding more from our elected representatives. But the fact is that the power is still ours to mitigate the worst that will come, and work to reverse it. There’s a surprising amount we can do right now, and more we can demand of our government, whether it’s on the local, state, regional, national, or international scale.
SIX STORIES RESCUED FROM 1PM PDT FRIDAY, AUGUST 20, TO 1PM PDT FRIDAY, AUGUST 27, 2021
Community Spotlight’s mission is to ensure that the best stories from the Daily Kos Community aren’t overlooked. We encourage members who write excellent stories with original views to keep writing by promoting work that isn’t receiving enough attention.
Good news: You don’t have to search to find our rescued stories! The nightly News Roundup, an Open Thread published six days a week at 7:30 PM PDT, includes links to each day’s rescued stories.
Reminder: The numbers in parentheses after each author’s name indicate the year they joined Daily Kos, how many stories they’ve published, and how many we’ve rescued.
Biden nominates Nicholas Burns as ambassador to China by KoNko (2005-115-9)
KoNko sees the appointment of Nicholas Burns, a “diplomat’s diplomat,” as U.S. ambassador to China as more than a solid pick; it’s a bellwether heralding a shift to a more cooperative, less confrontational relationship between the U.S. and its greatest competitor. “In a break with the practice of making political appointments, this is a good and important choice for what is a critical foreign relations role of strategic importance to both countries and the world community.”
The crazy years by CinDan (2005-121-6)
CinDan applies Robert Heinlein’s formula about “The Crazy Years,” when American society “absorbed technological, demographic, and economic changes into the whole of our civilization,” to our current crazy years, with humorous and unsettling parallels.
Climate Brief: Politicians to discuss climate changes, again. Maybe by PalmFrond (2019-27-2)
Climate Brief earned a place in Spotlight with a warning not to trust the players in the UN’s 2021 COP26 conference in Glasgow in November. Cutting through the boilerplate bromides and looking at some of the participants and the industry players at the table, PalmFrond warns us not to expect the UN to save us. Greta Thunberg, who now plans to attend, may exercise more leverage than anyone.
It’s 1975 and the fall of Saigon is televised; A plea by saevans60 (2007-12-5)
“Fighting the war” takes on multiple meanings for a PTSD-afflicted veteran who remembers and still carries the trauma of what it is to be in-country and in-conflict, and who navigated a scarred road back to peace, in this message to veterans of one war from the veteran of another.
Bookchat: Deep reading makes us all creators by Brecht (2005-98-46)
Losing oneself in a book, collaborating with an author to create a world that’s real, even if it’s only in our minds, is a subject for celebration. “When I lose myself in a great novel, that is as close as I get to God. When I close the book and emerge at the end, I feel I have been wandering through a cathedral, not of stone but of trees, a forest of refreshing greens and dappled sunlight,” Brecht writes. Deep reading is more than an idle act, as Brecht outlines the ways that it changes brain function and deepens both empathy and intellectual ability.
The Daily Bucket: Swallows, 2021: A not so normal year by Appy (2016-19-3)
In a year when climate changes have delayed some seasons and accelerated others, Appy brings a keen photographer's eye and patient observation to the chronicle of familial arrangements in raising a batch of young swallows in the horse barn. Come for the photography, stay for the drama of raising a brood of feathered kids.
| COMMUNITY SPOTLIGHT is dedicated to finding great writing by community members that isn’t getting the visibility it deserves.
An edition of our rescue roundup publishes every Saturday at 6 p.m. ET (3 p.m. PT) to the Recent Community Stories section and to the front page at 9:30 p.m. ET (7:30 p.m. PT). |