Re-Gain

God has given us this planet as a gift, to provide for our needs.  And the correct response to receiving such a magnificent gift is surely one of gratitude, love and respect. Pope Francis encyclical on the environment showed profound courage.  His warning of the impacts of climate change has amazing implications.  As a former chemist, Pope Francis acknowledges that humans are a major contributor to greenhouse emissions and global warming.  The  International Energy Agency's recently cited that the fossil fuel industry last year got subsidies totaling $510 billion dollars.  Leaders and experts of all walks have advocated a carbon tax to price greenhouse emissions or some sort of emissions trading system. The $8 billion Vatican Bank is divesting in fossil fuels and shrinking its carbon footprint.  The Pope urges us to seriously address the whole "technological paradigm" of climate change impacting those less fortunate and the economic impacts. ...

Housework in America reflects interesting patterns.  Liana Sayer at the University of Maryland documents that in 1965 the average American woman spent four hours a day on housework while the men just 30 minutes.  In 2012 this changed where the woman spent less than  two and half hours a day while the men and hour and half.  Woman in the U.S, still do about 1.7 times a much as men in 2012 but they also now are more into the workforce.  Thus men need to up their output by 70 percent to be as productive as the average woman at housework.  When there is a birth of a child then woman increase their work by three hours a day not including being with the child while men increase their total work by an hour and a half according to a 2015 Ohio State study by Dush and Schoppe-Sulllivan. Bottom-line is that there is inequalities in household labor. Before parenthood the average man's workweek was three hours longer than his partner's before birth (paid work and un...

  We must conceive of stewardship not simply as one individual's practice, but rather as the mutual and intimate relationship extending across generations, between the human community and its place on earth - John Elder, Inheriting Mount Tom, 1997 Just recently I was attending a memorial of a dear old friend in Woodstock, Vermont driving from another Woodstock in Virginia close to home.  We all return to our beloved earth in many ways. Both were I live in the Shenandoah valley and were I grew up in home Washington D.C. share the story of saving the land. For example, most American's did not know that George Washington was a revolutionary farmer as one of this country's first composter and who also did the land survey for my valley.  Low and behold, Woostock, Vermont is the birthplace of some major conservation champions planting seeds for the benefit of many generations. First this is where our nation's foremost environmental pioneer, George Perkins Marsh...

The recent Western and California drought forces us to explore new innovations because of the lack and need for water.  Water reuse is becoming more attractive mimicking just how water is recycled on this blue planet.  Also it reduces the disposal of wastewater and if properly managed improves our water’s quality.  Especially since how in the West improved water efficiency has many obstacles counter intuitively increasing both water consumption and its best allocation. The “use it or lose it,” allocation system is counterproductive. No better example of water conservation driven by economic growth than Las Vegas. 93% of water used indoors is treated and then used again either in irrigation or back to Lake Mead in Las Vegas   (Where the River Runs Dry, David Cohen, New Yorker, 5/29/15, pg 58) . Florida has been a state leader in recycling their water. The Sunshine State has nearly tripled this reuse in the last 20 years.   (*Getting Past the "Yuck" ...