Items
topic_interest is exactly
climate
-
2021-02-21
Laura Larson Oral History, 2021/02/21
Self description: “My name is Laura, and I am in two bands right now. I am in a band called Scrunchies and a band called Kitten Forever. I play guitar, base, drums, and I sing in those two bands. I live in Minneapolis, Minnesota. For work, I work at a community cooperative grocery store, in an administrative position, but one that is community outreach based and have a lot to do with meeting and coordinating with our community partners, a lot of the work that I do is about mutual aid, and helping out the community with the resources that we have available to us. Besides that I am a visual artist, I like to paint, I like to draw, I like to read books, and I live in a little duplex with my partner and our cat Sissy.” Some of the things we spoke about included: - In addition to performing in the bands Scrunchies and Kitten Forever, working for a community grocer and its ties to health activism. - Income and racial disparities in Minnesota. - The fear that comes with being uninsured in the United States. - The national confusion around the values of masking and other safety precautions and the burden placed on individuals to make these decisions in the absence of clear and consistent messaging. - The significance of shutting down music events while keeping sporting events going. - Media representation of event cancelations, freezers of bodies, and overwhelmed hospitals. - Living less than a mile from where George Floyd was murdered and movements to defund the police. - How the ongoing destruction of the earth conditioned the pandemic and the enduring importance of climate change. - Grocery store workers being essential workers who still did not receive vaccination prioritization. - Collective trauma and that fear begets fear. - Making and consuming art as a form of self-care. - How new the internet still is as a technology. Cultural references: Save Our Stages, The Atlantic article “Cancel Everything”. See also: https://scrunchies.bandcamp.com/ https://kittenforever.bandcamp.com -
2021-08-10
Resilience, Hope, and Turbulent Waters: have we learned?
I’m torn. I see resilience and hope: Resilience of so many in societies across the world who reconfigured their everyday lives to attempt to keep the virus at bay and hope swept in largely by Biden and his competent army of experienced workers who believe in the power of government to be a positive and unifying agent of change. But, we have a troubled world with a geopolitical climate and an environmental climate pushing us into turbulent waters. I’m torn because I have seen the virus pull us together as a community of pods and isolate us from one another. My hope and dream? That we learn from this Covid journey to do better with the other crises bearing down on us. That each of us take up individually and as a community the challenge to address climate change now in our homes, in our daily tasks, in the way we function in our communities, and at the ballot box. -
2021-07-23
Lockdown in Southern Arizona
The nature of the lockdown experience varies according to many factors, including geographical location. In talking with friends and families in other parts of the country and the world, I’ve learned that going through lockdown in southern Arizona is different than going through lockdown in other places due to our unique climate. When we were first sent home in March 2020, I was thrilled because the spring in the desert is beautiful; during previous years, I was stuck in an office building. Now I could work outside! How great! This feeling of elation gradually changed to one of dread as the long Arizona summer came into being. In southern Arizona, we’re used to being in lockdown to a degree. When the temperatures are 100+ degrees outside during our long summer, many of us hibernate inside our houses. However, we do leave the house in the morning to go to work and are able to work in an air-conditioned building during the day, which mitigate some of the difficulties. Not so during the lockdown. I was basically chained to my house, a situation that was extremely difficult and detrimental to my mental health. I wasn’t going to the office, I couldn’t walk around the block, I couldn’t have an outside party with friends or neighbors. Cabin fever definitely set in. In addition, my internet access was disrupted by the heat and/or the torrential monsoon rains, which left me even more isolated. The spring, fall, and winter lockdown in southern Arizona were fabulous in that I was able to enjoy the outdoors more than when I was in the office; the summer lockdown (almost half the year) was a harsh lockdown. -
2020-09-17
Environmental effects of COVID-19 pandemic and potential strategies of sustainability
The article discusses the positive and negative effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on the environment and climate and proposes possible strategies for global environmental sustainability going forward. The open-access article is posted on the U.S. National Institutes of Health website. -
2021-03-07
Standouts/ scrap proposed changes to the Climate Bill
Park Ave /Chandler St Worcester 3/6/21: another in our series of standouts urging the State House to scrap #CharlieBakerMA 's proposed changes to the Climate Bill approved by the House and Senate. #buildbackbetter #climatecrisis #stopthemoneypipeline #keepitintheground #justrecovery #justtransitition #MassGovernor #CharlieBakerMA