CLIMATE CHANGE UPDATE

• It was hot here yesterday, a real scorcher.  Hit 89 degrees which for Maine at this time of the year is hot.  The humidity was high as well.  Felt like Florida and I dressed like I was back in the sunshine state too.  A friend told me that this spring was the hottest on record in Maine.  Still the climate change deniers will say that there is nothing to worry about. We've pared ourselves down from three cars to one at the Addams-Melman House to try in a small way to reduce our carbon footprint.  
• I had a call from a professor friend on the west coast yesterday who can't find work.  He is only 60 and is really worried about how he will be able to economically survive.  I suggested that he might consider getting a housemate which would help reduce his living costs.  We are just getting ready to add two more housemates at our place which will take us up to five people.  The old way of everyone living in their own house needs to change.  Share cars, washing machines, vacuum cleaners, etc and reduce your overall impact.  It also makes life more affordable when you share all the costs for food and utilities.  Gardening is easier the more people you get involved in pulling weeds.  I acknowledge that finding the right mix of folks is very important but so far it has worked well for us.
• On Friday night in Brunswick will be the next meeting of a network of folks we are calling Vital Connections.  We meet every other month and have a pot luck supper together and then ask three different people to speak for 10 minutes each about their work.  The idea is that we've all got to get out of our boxes by stretching our ability to connect the dots and begin to see that the progressive community will continue to be defeated on virtually every issue until we realize that we have to create a new organizing model that puts us into cooperative and collaborative situations with other people and groups that we have not traditionally worked with.  The Occupy movement has helped people see this a bit better but still even Occupy has been real slow to see the importance of linking the military issue into all their other articulations.  The Pentagon is obviously the enforcement arm of corporate globalization.  The growing militarization of our domestic culture, and the introduction of surveillance drones, is clear evidence that the corporate power structure sees the American people as the enemy.  I will be one of the three presenters on Friday night.  It will be held at the Brunswick Library with the pot luck supper starting at 6:00 pm.  Public is welcome.  Connect the dots and survive.