A Good Fight Against Climate Change Includes Dense Cities

   If you want to improve air quality, increase the density of our cities. Packing everyone tightly into the cities is one of the most meaningful ways we could fight climate change. A car that doesn't drive into work because the owner instead chooses to walk isn't going to do much polluting.
   So, bring the people close enough to their job sites that they don't need to drive.
   And that means employers should factor in where their new hires will be living when they hire them. Two candidates being reasonably equal, hire the one that lives the closest.
    The whole business permit/building license/business permit/zoning process should revolve around this matter.You want to build an office complex? Are there enough housing units within walking distance or are you willing to build them? You want a building permit to build 200 housing units? Is there a nearby employer to accommodate? If we designate an area for businesses, do we also designate accompanying land for residential development so those businesses can employ people who will walk to work?
   Cars account for a large share of greenhouse emissions. Our efforts to fight climate change would vastly improve if we, in a wise way, increased city density.

(Index -- Climate change info)

  

   

Let Them Work, Let Them Work, Let Them Work -- and the Crisis Will be Over

    Just let them work, if you don't want a humanitarian crisis. Read the opening couple of paragraphs from a New York Post article and decide what should be done. Tell me that giving them jobs is not the answer.
   "Hundreds of migrants trying to get back into the Big Apple's overwhelmed shelter system have been flooding an East Village block as Mayor Eric Adams warned the crisis would soon be more visible than ever, The Post has learned.
   "The scores of asylum seekers lining the sidewalk on East 7th Street near Tomkins Square Park are among the thousands forced to reapply for temporary housing after being booted under the administration's 30-day cap on shelter stays."
   Mayor Adams should be fuming. He should be upset that we can't give these people jobs. If you allow these immigrants to work, they wouldn't need to jam your shelters. Adams should be yelling at President Biden, shouting at Congress, and making all kinds of noise in the national media, demanding that the broken system be fixed and the immigrants be allowed to work.
   There is nothing wrong with these poor people coming to America. We can raise false alarms and say the sky is falling.  But, no, we will survive quite well if these poor people are allowed a spot in America.
   When they want to work and are willing to work, let them. Tell me why we do not allow this?
   If you want to be set in your ways and determined to deport them after their hearings, be such a jerk. But, in the meantime, let them work, let them pay their way, let them earn a living so they won't have to depend on a government handout. 

This Would Fight Human Trafficking as Much as Anything

   A great way to encourage human trafficking is to deport the undocumented among us. And, yes, I'm chiding you. I'm not joking, but I am chiding. I'm correcting you -- maybe even mocking you.
  When traffickers run across immigrants who are here illegally, they threaten to turn them in if they won't work for them at reduced rates. Yes, it does happen. A news story on the radio today discussed it. It suggested this is one of the most common forms of human trafficking in Utah -- making them work cheaply in exchange for not being turned in.
  The poor foreign laborer cannot reject the offer. If they say, No, thanks; I already have a job, the extorters simply tell them they will turn them in if they don't make a rapid change of employers.
   You want to do away with human trafficking in the United States? One of the most meaningful things you could do would be to legalize immigration and legalize their right to work. Globally, about 25 million people are subjected to human trafficking and forced labor. This need not be. We could wipe out one of the largest (if not the largest) causes of human trafficking if we would just let people live, just let them work. We are talking about some of the poorest people on earth. The traffickers haul away with an estimate $150 billion in illicit profits at their expense each year. We are responsible for this. We created this system. It is us who gave the predators the leverage to exploit these poor from other countries.
   We aren't too smart, but we sure are self-righteous. All the while we are accommodating the traffickers -- all the while we are making it so miserable on the immigrants -- we are calling them names, demeaning them and making sure they realize they don't belong here. 
   We treat them as criminals, but it is we who are better fit to the description.  

Some Say We Should not be Gardeners, but We Should

 

   "Nature does not need our help. We are not supposed to be getting involved tending it like a garden." So are the words of Chad Hanson, director of the John Muir Project, a group that contests the National Park Service's efforts to replant seedlings in the wake of the wildfires from 2020 and 2021 in the Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks.
   The Parks Service this fall announced plans for the seedling-planting project, saying it was concerned that the natural process might not be sufficient due to the unprecedented number of reproductive trees that were destroyed.
   I tend to side with the Parks Service. Humankind is affecting our planet. When we, as humans, cause harm, we should try to repair that harm. Left to themselves, the forests might go through cycles of regrowth in a productive manner. But the forests are not being left to themselves. Our actions are hurting them.
  You could look at this from a biblical approach, noting God instructed man to "have dominion over the fish of the seas, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth."
  The John Muir spokesperson compared the earth to a garden. "We are not supposed to be getting involved tending it like a garden," he said. Of interest, when Adam and Eve were created, their first heritage was a garden, the Garden of Eden, and they were told to till the land and to take care of it. It became a commandment to garden it. Humankind has always been gardeners for this planet. It has been a trust from the Lord to care for this world -- and that includes taking care of the trees in the Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks.

(Index -- Climate change info)

We License Lawlessness by not Punishing People Who Steal $100

   Scenario: Victim named Paige allows friend to use her cell phone. On the phone, there is an app where she places money. (I'm not good with understanding apps, but I am told it is called a cash app.) The friend gets into the app and steals $100.  Paige calls police. Police say there is nothing they can do: it's a civil matter.
   No, it's a crime. Stealing $100 is a crime. Call it petty theft or call it what you want, but it's a crime. Our courts might be so overloaded they cannot deal with such cases, but it is a crime.
   Hire more judges. 
   Hire more prosecutors.
   Hire more police officers.
   Whatever it takes, do something.
   When my friend Paige told me of the theft, I urged her to call the cops, I told her, yes, I wanted her to have justice with the lady who stole the money from her. But I also wanted to see what cops would do. I knew -- I knew they would file a report and that would be the end of it, but I wanted to see if that, indeed, would be all that came of it, just to verify what a deep hole our legal system has fallen  into.
   Taking $100 off of someone's cash app? It's called theft. Yes, officer, it is a crime. The idea behind having police officers in the first place is to protect us from crime. You aren't doing it; you aren't protecting us. If we allow elements of our society to go free when they commit crimes, we license lawlessness. We are not a third-world country; America should be a country where the law is enforced. 
   But a lot of the time, it isn't.

The Gambling House Called Antarctica

    "We absolutely need to act immediately." With those words, U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres pleads for the icy tundra of Antartica. In the age of climate warming, it is the fastest warming place on earth. "What happens in Antartica doesn't stay in Antartica," he says.
   In the fashion of Vegas, the we are gambling with the world's climate. The ice and the cold waters in the Antarctic Peninsula drive the oceans currents and regulate the world's climate.
   Draw your cards. Roll the dice. Pull the lever. Gamble with the world's fate, if you will. You can get rid of greenhouse gases, if you will. You can end the world's dependence on fossil fuels. Or you can gamble. You can play Russian roulette. Go ahead an take your pick and live with the consequences.

(Index -- Climate change info) 

For Rule not by Constitution, but by Hatred, Cast Your Vote for Trump

    Is he going to be satisfied with building a wall? No. Trump is threatening mass deportations, ending birthright citizenship, and banning Muslims. His measures will not be compassionate, but they will certainly be swift.
   Banning birthright citizenship is not even Constitutional -- but no matter. Trump won't let a paper document stand in his way.
   He stirs up animosity toward the immigrant -- hatred and contempt.
   If you want a nation ruled not by the Constitution, but by hatred, vote for Trump.