(7/24) CLIMATE CHANGE IN AN AGING SOCIETY

• Letter to Noah’s Wife (a poem)

• Data Centers

• Jane Goodall: Eco Elder

• The Fire This Time

• Where Can We Hide?

• Trump Talk

• Climate Action: What’s Cooking?

• Items of Interest

• A Little Laughter

• Coming Events

“In order to change an existing paradigm you do not struggle to try and change the problematic model. You create a new model and make the old one obsolete.”

-Buckminster Fuller

by Maya C. Popa

You are never mentioned on Ararat

or elsewhere, but I know a woman’s hand

in salvation when I see it. Lately,

I’m torn between despair and ignorance.

I’m not a vegetarian, shop plastic,

use an air conditioner. Is this what happens

before it all goes fluvial? Do the selfish

grow self-conscious by the withering

begonias? Lately, I worry every black dress

will have to be worn to a funeral.

New York a bouillon, eroded filigree.

Anything but illness, I beg the plagues,

but shiny crows or nuclear rain.

Not a drop in London May through June.

I bask in the wilt by golden hour light.

Lately, only lately, it is late. Tucking

our families into the safeties of the past.

My children, will they exist by the time

it’s irreversible? Will they live

astonished at the thought of ice

not pulled from the mouth of a machine?

Which parent will be the one to break

the myth; the Arctic wasn’t Sisyphus’s

snowy hill. Noah’s wife, I am wringing

my hands not knowing how to know

and move forward. Was it you

who gathered flowers once the earth

had dried? How did you explain the light

to all the animals?

Data Centers. What you need to know: “Data Centers are the Hidden Costs to Your Power Bill, Water, and Community”

See also: Big Tech = Big Costs. “How data centers may lead to higher electricity bills” The public is paying for the energy infrastructure used to power Big Tech.

New York is acting: “New York imposes first-in-the-nation statewide freeze on ‘hyperscale’ data centers”

This week I learned that they’re looking to build a data center in San Mateo, CA, just a few miles from where I live.

See also: “Generative AI Is an Engineering Disaster”

The Republican Governor of Texas called for banning data centers in rural areas.

Dame Jane Goodall (1934–2025) was a great English expert on primates. When I was with AARP, I was chief academic officer and a member of our Green Team. I had the great good fortune to meet her at the 2010 AARP National Conference, where I introduced her before she gave a major address. Speaking to thousands of elders she gave a message she repeated in the years since then: “I just know that if we carry on with business as usual, we’re going to destroy ourselves. It would be the end of us, as well as life on Earth as we know it,” warned Jane Goodall. She pointed to the role of zoonotic diseases that leap from animals to human, noting that biologists have long been predicting this. In Wuhan or Africa or the Amazon, we are chopping down the rainforest and coming into contact with animals. By eroding biodiversity, we end up creating environments where microorganisms can cross species, as COVID evidently did.

Since the time she spoke to the AARP conference, Jane Goodall traveled more than 300 days a year, bringing her warning to groups around the world. But she was much more than a prophetess. She created connections across the generations. In 1991 Goodall launched a program for young people known as Roots and Shoots. All over the world, she met young people who have lost hope in the future. In her eyes, it is the role of elders to recognize that “we have compromised their future and there was nothing they could do about it.” Jane Goodall’s answer was that it is not too late, that elders and young people can work together to slow down climate change and educate the world. Erik Erikson said that the last stage of life is framed by the struggle between ego-integrity and despair. Jane Goodall worked to overcome despair. This is the path of action and the path of healing. To the end of her life, as an Eco Elder, Jane Goodall never stopped working for that goal.

See also: “When Jane Goodall Destroyed Elon Musk”

And see The Book of Hope: A Survival Guide for Trying Times, by Jane Goodall (Celadon Books, 2021). I found this book inspirational.

No, NOT “the fire next time.” It’s here and “The Smoke Gets in Your Eyes” and worse: “Canada’s Forests Will Burn and Burn”

Once a wildfire starts, it can spread to an area too massive to control.

“Many people simply don’t grasp the sheer magnitude of the boreal forest or what it would take to manage fires across its enormous area, Jed Kaplan, a professor in the Department of Earth, Energy, and Environment at the University of Calgary, told me: “You can’t control these fires. You cannot put personnel, fire engines, over an area that is the size of the entire American South, or something like that. It’s just way too big of an area.” (The Atlantic, July 16, 2026, behind paywall)

CBS News reported, “Canadian officials openly blame human-caused climate change for the shifting warmth, snowpack and drought patterns that underpin its shifting wildfire seasons.”

Remember the Four Horsemen of the Climate Apocalypse: fire, flood, drought, and heat wave. It’s not in the future. It’s already here, but federal officials in the USA won’t admit it.

What To Do. The threat is real. But climate restoration is possible. Take a few minutes to learn what can be done, by us, now.

Smoke Gets In Your Eyes. “Living under smoke-filled skies” from “Talking Climate” with Katharine Heyhoe.

Solar Action Is the Way: “Your Monthly Dose of Climate Hope: A Conversation with Cora Stryker of Bright Saver, Plug-In Solar Activist!”

The climate crisis is coming for us at home, where we live. It’s not “in the future.” It’s now, as seen in the image below that should reminds us all:

This iconic image of the climate crisis shows a member of the Namaygoosisagagun First Nation fleeing their ancestral home in northern Ontario, minutes ahead of a wall of fire that consumed an entire world. (Shared by Bill McKibben, of Third Act).

Remember that recent smokes from fires in Canada (and northern USA) has already reached the mid-West and East Coast states. There is no place to hide.

Multiple Crises. “How Trump and his administration have mired the US in multiple crises” Climate and fossil fuel is linked to many of the problems.

National Climate Assessment. “The National Climate Assessment is broken – appointing Matthew Wielicki to lead it won’t help”

Trump’s Attack on Climate Science. “Trump Attacks Nation’s Top Scientific Body Over Climate Chapter in Manual”

The president joined Republican officials who slammed the National Academies of Sciences for a chapter about climate science in an educational guide for judges. (NY Times, July 20, 2026)

Extreme Weather. “Majority of US voters link extreme weather to climate crisis”

Top Democrat says findings show public ‘way ahead of the politicians’ as Trump dismisses global heating as ‘hoax’ The weather is getting hotter for the Republicans. Midterms are coming in November.

See also: “New poll: Americans get it”

Maybe it’s you and me and all life-forms on planet Earth. OK, not in polar regions. They’re just melting instead of cooking. But there’s no place to hide.

Climate Denial. Climate Crisis or Climate Progress? Separating fact from fiction.

Plastic. “Counting the Economic Cost of the Plastic Pollution Crisis” Yes, plastics come from fossil fuels.

Climate Economics. “How to end poverty and protect Earth: inside the debate tearing up economics” The idea of prosperity without growth is gaining traction among researchers. So why are many economists skeptical?

Innovation. “Architects of Survival: Decades of quiet innovation are already helping us survive a hotter world.” (From The Progress Network)

Where Did all the Water Go? “Historically low water level in two crucial US reservoirs threatens water and power for millions” Drought is one of the Four Horsemen of the Climate Apocalypse:

“Eve of Destruction” We elders remember the old songs. Here’s one that was made in 1965, before climate became a big issue. Are we now living in “The Eve of Destruction?” You can hear the song again on YouTube.

Richard Heinberg: In Memoriam. We regret to announce the passing of Richard Heinberg, a great climate advocate and master of many fields. For more about his life and contributions, see https://richardheinberg.com/

WASHINGTON (The Borowitz Report)

Seeking relief from the latest tariffs slapped on his nation’s goods, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney told Donald J. Trump on Tuesday that the orange air blanketing regions of the United States was intended as a “spectacular tribute” to the US president.

“We Canadians were thinking of something special we could give you for your birthday, and this is what we came up with,” Carney said.

“We thought that turning the skies above Washington orange would be a spectacular tribute to you, much as the Reflecting Pool is an amazing tribute to Greenland,” he added.

After Trump agreed to drop the tariffs, Carney thanked him, adding, “I would urge you to go outside and breathe in as much of that beautiful orange air as you can.”

DATA CENTERS. “Data Centers & Regulation” (July 29, 2026, 6 pm, ET). About the need to enact responsible regulations before irreparable harm is done to the environment and the economy. Sponsored by Third Act, on Zoom:

SPIRITUALITY & HEALING: “Tending Our Future: Spirituality, Service, and the Art of Healing” (July 30, 2026, 9 to 10:15 am, PT). Former Surgeon General Vivek Murthy addresses this challenge. On Zoom, sponsored by the Commonweal New School. Donation asked but not required.

VIRTUAL FILM SCREENING: “VS. GOLIATH: Appalachia” (Aug. 4, 2026, 8 pm ET). Free national screening series of VS. GOLIATH—a new documentary series following everyday people across the United States as they stand up to the fossil fuel industry. On Zoom, sponsored by Third Act.

BILL MCKIBBEN: “Monthly Dose of Climate Hope! with Bill McKibben” (Aug. 12, 2026, 4 to 5 pm ET). Live Zoom event sponsored by Climate Action Now

EMBRACING ELDERHOOD. “Embracing Elderhood on Behalf of All Life” (Sept-Oct., 2026) This is not a free offering. It’s an on-line offering on a sliding scale and it is offered by someone I know personally: Constance Washburn. It is guided by the “Work That Reconnects” and inspired by the late Joana Macy. More information at: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfxjYeOj09w77cqFy6DlJZi0OI6122s7Nz87liR5KgbYnvFFA/viewform

For more background about the Spiral Process behind this work, see: https://us06web.zoom.us/meeting/register/l-WDYwz2Sh-H1tfg4-jB7w#/registration

More about Constance Washburn at: www.constancewashburn.com

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From Harry (Rick) Moody

For more about this book or other newsletters, contact H.R. Moody at hrmoody@yahoo.com