This essay also appeared in the local Oak Park newspaper Wednesday Journal. Here in Oak Park, Illinois, it can feel like we are insulated from the worst effects of climate change. Huge hurricanes, massive flooding, and horrible heat waves all intensified by the energy of a warming planet can seem like someone else’s problem. And…
Presidential politics and the detour of labels
My mom tells a story -- I don't remember it -- that she was driving somewhere with me during the election campaign of 1980 between Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan. I was 4 years old. She stopped at a light and a woman approached the car. The woman leaned down to my mom's open window…
System Warning
Listen to "System Warning" here. Refrain: Breakdown, Planetary system warning. Breakdown, Our society's in mourning. x2 Verse 1: Burning up the buried energy created over eons, Just to have the sparkly stuff that capitalism feeds on. Dumping all these gases in our atmospheric system, We've desensitized ourselves so we don't feel the fear of this…