(7/3)CLIMATE CHANGE IN AN AGING SOCIETY

“Peace is the wholeness created by right relationships with oneself, other persons, other cultures, other life, Earth, and the larger whole of which all are a part.”

From Earth Charter

• Warned (a poem)

• Who Needs Quiet Green Places?

• Solar Success

• Can’t We Turn Down the Heat?

• Trump Talk

• The Gift of Simplicity

• Future Generations

• Items of Interest

• Coming Events

by Sylvia Stults

The sands of time have rendered fear

Blue skies on high no longer clear

Stars were bright whence they came

Now dimmed, obscured, pollution’s haze

Crystal clear our waters gleamed

Fish abundant, rivers streamed

Ocean floors sandy white

Now littered, brown, pollution’s plight

Trees towered high above

Trunks baring professed love

Birds chirping from sites unseen

Gone, paper joined pollution’s team

One can’t blame pollution alone

As they say, you reap what you’ve sown

So let us plant a better seed

Tear out old roots, cultivate, weed

Protect what has been given for free

Our waters, skies, wildlife and tree

For once they’re gone, don’t you say

Consider yourself warned of that fatal day

It’s great and it keeps getting better and better:

“Coal built the Industrial Revolution - now wind and solar are beating it. The UK, the birthplace of the Industrial Revolution, turned off its last coal-fired power plant in 2024 and now gets nearly half its power from sun and wind. China, long seen as the poster child for coal, now installs more wind and solar power annually than the rest of the world combined, and is hitting its renewable energy targets well ahead of schedule…

Solar is now the cheapest source of electricity in history, and the market knows it. In 2025, a new solar project was installed every 59 seconds.”

From “The Great Solar-coal Flip” by Katharine Hayhoe.

See also: “How about Free? Is that affordable enough for you?” from Bill McKibben.

See also: Success Story: “Solar Surge”

“High temperatures claim more older victims each year than floods, tornadoes, and hurricanes—combined.” (“Heat: The Silent Danger,” AARP Magazine. June/July, 2026).

I focus mainly on trends for climate action in the USA, but countries around the world are facing the same climate crisis we face here. Consider this:

Europe is Cooking. “UK and Switzerland record hottest ever June day as health emergencies surge in Europe”

“Europe Now Endures 3 to 4 times More Heatwaves”

“Heat Emergencies om London”

“The Heat in Europe” Temperatures in France have soared to record-breaking highs, reaching nearly 112 degrees Fahrenheit in certain parts of the country.

“Climate Change Intensified Europe’s Record-breaking June Heat”

“Why is Europe still not ready for extreme heat?

We could change the question slightly: Why is America still not ready for extreme heat? I wish I knew the answer to this question.

It’s Not Just Europe. “Lake Powell hits lowest summer level ever, raising risk of ‘dead pool’ “

Heat Dome in USA: “June to Early July” (2026) The heat wave is bringing temperatures from 90 to 100 degrees (F.) to 200 million Americans.

“America 250 events are being canceled, reshaped as heat dome grips US” (from Accu Weather)

Everyone’s Problem. “Extreme heat is everyone’s problem”

A Day at Trump’s Climate Repair Shop

That Reflecting Pool. “President Donald Trump’s troubled attempts to clean up the water in the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool in Washington, D.C., overlook two factors that contribute to algal blooms, The Washington Post reported this week: pollution and climate change.” (from Yale Climate Connections)

Preserving the Data. “A small group of former government workers has recreated a valuable climate-science website duplicating what was been shuttered last year under Trump. The new site, climate.us, is an effort by former staff members at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to present climate science previously housed at climate.gov, including data, reports, articles, and congressionally mandated national climate assessments.” (From NY Times)

Bad News. “Trump officials to slash public input on fossil fuel drilling on federal lands”

Cost of Trump’s War. “A top economist did the math. Here’s what the Iran war has cost US households” Still, the Iran war has prompted support for renewables.

Trump Working to Undermine Elections. Trump’s supporters must lose in November for us to fight climate change: “I’ve spent decades fighting for fair elections. Trump is setting the stage for a grim November”

We can win in November. The good news is that top Democratic leadership has solid plans prepared to stop the steal: that’s Trump’s own phrase for his false account of the 2020 election. Watch Rachel Maddow’s June 15 show, featuring an interview with Marc Elias (available on You Tube).

Good News. The Supreme Court has allowed states to count mail-in ballots that arrive late, rejecting another Republican attempt to overturn democracy in America. (June 29, 2026)

That Pool is just a symptom of Trump’s whole damage to our country.

‘Tis a gift to be simple, ‘tis a gift to be free

‘Tis a gift to come down where you ought to be.

And when we find ourselves in the place just right,
‘Twill be in the valley of love and delight.

When true simplicity is gained,
To bow and to bend we shan’t be ashamed.
To turn, turn will be our delight,
‘Til by turning, turning we come round right. (Quaker Song)

Surprise: Simplicity Is Good. Trump’s Iran War: The Midwife to a Renewable Energy Future. Complex systems can engender the opposite outcome of intentions. A surprising result, featured by in Noema Magazine: newsletter@noemamag.com

See this from visionary thinker Vaclav Smil: “To save the biosphere, curb upstream consumption — not just downstream emissions:”

https://www.noemamag.com/want-not-waste-not/

A reminder Small Is Beautiful (1973) by E.F. Schumacher, which made such a big on me, and many others.

Can we hope to “come round right” on climate questions? Time will tell.

People who just don’t care about anything that happens after they’re dead are very, very few in numbers, as the life insurance industry understands well. The importance of generativity as individual motivation needs to be connected to our collective response for future generations. When we speak to people about their children or grandchildren, we’re likely to get a more receptive response. The question we should be asking is, What kind of legacy are leaving to our children and grandchildren? (From Climate Change in an Aging Society, Routledge, 2025)

Politics and Children. “Climate change doesn’t care about our politics, but we all care about our children

See: John Kotre, Outliving the Self: How We Live on in Future Generations, W.W. Norton & Company, 1996.

See also: James Hansen, Storms of My Grandchildren: The Truth About the Coming Climate Catastrophe and Our Last Chance to Save Humanity (2010).

Larry Rasmussen, The Planet You Inherit: Letters to My Grandchildren when Uncertainty’s a Sure Thing (2022).

Revisioning Where We Live. See “These Urban Design Ideas Are Changing City Life Forever”

False Promises. The “Solution” to the Climate Crisis That Won’t Work.

Beyond Denial. “How Oil Execs Shaped a Landmark Climate Study”

AI and Environment. “How bad is AI for the environment?”

Long-term Thinking. Can human beings learn to think about the long-term?

Climate action may depend on it.

Project Cosmos. It’s the world’s largest database of climate change research. It’s been launched by CarbonBrief, a terrific group working on climate change.

Some Billionaires Can Help. “Michael Bloomberg, former New York City Mayor and founder of Bloomberg L.P., has announced $ 590 million in new environmental commitments” (New York Times)

Also venture capitalist John Doerr donated $ 1.1 billion to Stanford University to fund a climate school.

CLIMATE ACTION. “Fifteen Minutes for Our Future” (July 6, 2026, 9 am ET) Countdown to Midterm Elections. Sponsored by Third Act Massachusetts.

For more about Fifteen Minutes for Our Future visit: https://900seconds.org/

DEMOCRACY: “July Defend Democracy Campaign Meeting” (July 6, 2026, 5 pm PT). Grassroots efforts for transformational advocacy. From Third Act Bay Area.

ECOLOGY. “Full Ecology Deep Dive” (July 14, 2026, 6 pm MDT). Health well-being, and climate. Zoom event at no cost.

For more about this event, see: https://fullecology.com/

See also: Full Ecology: Repairing Our Relationship with the Natural World

by Gary Ferguson and Mary M. Clare

CLIMATE AND AGING: Interest Group Meeting (July 23, 2026, 11 to 12 noon, ET) . Hosted by the Gerontological Society of America.

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

If you want more background about the Spiral Process behind this work, see:

More about Constance Washburn at: www.constancewashburn.com

Thanks for reading. If you found this helpful, please leave a comment below.

From Harry (Rick) Moody

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