GOD BLESS THE ABSENTEE

"Ruth Bader Ginsburg was 87 years old when she passed away on Friday night. If you were keeping cosmic score, it was the Jewish New Year and a day for hope and new beginnings." 
​Read Dalia Lithwick's remembrance in Slate.

“When a thoughtless or unkind word is spoken, best tune out. Reacting in anger or annoyance will not advance one’s ability to persuade." 
Read Ginsberg's own words, in the New York Times.

​What Fighting Coronavirus Teaches Us About Fighting Climate Change
“Climate scientists were probably the least surprised people in the world when the response to the coronavirus became politically polarized,” said Katharine Hayhoe, climate researcher at Texas Tech University. “Because that’s what we’ve been living through for 30 years.” According to Hayhoe, this moment in the climate crisis is roughly similar to the pandemic in early March, with some nations taking swift, decisive action while others descended into chaos and catastrophe. COVID death tolls, said Hayhoe, “provide feedback on a daily basis of what happens when you ignore science.”
Recent climate disasters, coupled with the pandemic, are causing many to think differently about science. About two thirds of Americans now believe the government is doing too little to protect air and water quality and should make the environment a top priority. Progress depends on meaningful conversations, but nobody wants to talk about it, due to apocalypse fatigue. Here’s how to change that.

The most important thing you can do to fight climate change: talk about it: TED Talk by Katharine Hayhoe
How to transform apocalypse fatigue into action on global warming: TED Talk by Per Espen Stoknes

—Karen McCann

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"The President's Climate change poilicy bears a striking resemblance to his Covid-19 policy..." See the cartoon by Drew Sheneman of The Star-Ledger (Newark, N.J.)

God Bless the Absentee
My Maine ballot arrived, in an email with a link to a page that unlocks with a personal code to direct me to a download which can be saved to my hard drive. I thought it would be a simple process, but I now see it as a minefield. There are document fields that are labeled one way and referred to as another in the instructions. The locking pdf ballot can be filled, locked, attached, and returned—and still be sent back blank if the voter does not take care to save the document first.

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Do not ask me how I know this.
A panicked phone call to the Bureau of Elections resolved the confusion, and the blank unsigned ballot was discarded. But PLEASE—read your absentee ballot instructions carefully! Include the extra sheets and covers as requested, check your signature, look up the correct address, and double check EVERYTHING.
—Kathy Sherretts

​Only one thing this week: Contact your senators. Find them here.

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Learn More About Candidates and Issues with
PAGE (Progressive Action, Global Exchange)
Americans of Conscience Checklist • ClimateRecovery.org
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