When I looked back on the last twenty-five years, I started seeing patterns and escalations of patterns. I saw past mistakes being repeated, multiple epidemics and a pandemic, acts of aggression and terrorism, and a small group of people becoming incredibly wealthy while the rest of us struggled.
My observations led me down a rabbit-hole and fifty written pages later I came up for air, a little wiser, a bit discouraged, and filled with indignation that anyone with the financial, professional, or political means to make a difference would allow so much human suffering to continue.
Please read through my highlights of the years 2000 through 2024 in this issue. Keep in mind the hundreds and hundreds of events I highlighted are like a drop of water in the ocean compared with all the events that occurred
Natural disasters around the world escalated. Typhoons, wildfires, tornados, hurricanes, and earthquakes, caused volcanic eruptions, flooding, mudslides, massive loss of lives, injuries, death, and habitat disruption/destruction for many species of insects and animals, farms, homes, and businesses were damaged/destroyed. In addition to people losing their homes, they also lost their possessions, access to food and clean drinking water, and beloved pets. Pieces of history were destroyed; schools, books, libraries, hospitals, and museums damaged or destroyed along with roads, bridges, dams, farms, and businesses.
Imagine for a moment strong winds and raging water, a fire, lava, or rocks and mud rushing toward your home threatening your life and everything you hold dear. If you survive, where will you live? How will you get to work? Will you have a job to return to, clean water to drink, cook, clean with, and bathe in? Will you have access to uncontaminated food and a safe place to sleep? How do you rebuild and move forward?
Imagine the impact these events have on the quality of the air we breathe; the water we drink, use for cooking, cleaning, laundry, and bathing; or the land we use to raise livestock and grow crops.
It’s hard to deny the effects of climate change when you consider rising temperatures around the world, heat waves, droughts, and floods.
Believe the science, and do your part to help reduce greenhouse emissions.
Make your government listen to scientists instead of billionaires screaming “drill baby drill.”
Recycle, reuse, and repurpose. Make it your goal to keep as many items out of landfills as you can. Shop smart, read labels, and stop buying single-use plastics. Buy plant-based alternatives to plastic when you can, and learn the recycling guidelines for your community.
Boycott corporations and companies that refuse to implement green/greener operating practices. You don’t have to take part in demonstrations or flood the internet with posts. Let your wallet do the talking when you can.
World conflicts seem to be on an endless loop of skirmishes that become conflicts, battles, and wars until someone finds the right size bandage to apply. Eventually that bandage needs changed. Someone rips it off only to discover the infection has spread, and we need a bigger bandage. No one reaches for the medicine to cure the infection.
It’s time we recognized the causes of war and worked to eradicate them at the source. Misinformation, greed/economic gain, competition for limited land and resources, ethnocentrism, racism, religious extremism, nationalism, imperialism, and revenge all contribute to conflicts and wars.
I believe our best weapons are education and a truthful, unbiased, free media. Feed the hungry, heal the sick, clothe and house the needy, and educate them how to take care of themselves and pay it forward. Always offer a hand-up when you can.
According to a Chinese proverb:
“Give a man a fish, and he eats for a day. Teach a man how to fish, and you feed him for a lifetime.”
It’s a simplistic answer to an old problem, but completing the task is a bit more involved.
If a person is weak from hunger, you need to feed them before they can have the ability to concentrate and learn what you are teaching and the strength to perform the task. You also have to provide them with access to the materials needed to make a fishing pole or a fishing net and access to a body of water with fish in it. Teaching a person in the middle of the desert how to fish will not be as helpful as teaching someone who lives near water.
Years of education and progress can be undone in minutes by acts of violence and terrorism. Unresolved problems have a way of festering and creating an environment for greedy unscrupulous leaders to rise to power using violence and making promises they have no intention of keeping.
In the past twenty-five years we’ve seen epidemics and a pandemic, but researchers also developed vaccines for Ebola, COVID-19 and its many variants, malaria, Mpox (aka Monkeypox), Dengue, Hepatitis E, Non -small-cell-lung carcinoma, Herpes zoster, HPV, Argentine hemorrhagic fever, Nasal influenza vaccine, and Pneumococcal conjugate vaccine, enterovirus (hand, foot, and mouth disease), and RSV.
As we begin the next twenty-five years remember to do what you can to make a difference. Every gesture builds on what everyone else has done and continues to do.
Support people who will build a bigger table instead of a bigger wall.
Happy New Year!