[Vision2020] Column: Thanks to Thunberg, 101-year-old makes a stand against climate change

Sat Feb 1 10:40:55 PST 2020

Aside from the matter of the vote totals reporting being cattywampus, 
this is a nice little idea that can have a cumulative positive effect.

Ken

On 2/1/20 10:27 AM, Moscow Cares wrote:
> Courtesy of the /Los Angeles Times/ at:
>
> https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2020-02-01/retirement-home-seniors-fight-climate-change
>
> ———————————————
>
>
>   Column: Thanks to Thunberg, 101-year-old makes a stand against
>   climate change
>
> At first glance, it wasn’t a message that grabbed me.
>
> “I am seeking publicity,” began the email from Marian Sachs.
>
> She must have known I would roll my eyes.
>
> “Stop,” she wrote. “Don’t delete this … please.”
>
> I didn’t, fortunately.
>
> “I am 101 years old and live in an assisted living facility,” Sachs 
> wrote, saying that she was inspired by Swedish teenager Greta 
> Thunberg’s activism on climate change.
>
> “There is not much we seniors can do to help,” Sachs wrote. “However, 
> I have thought perhaps we could observe one meatless day a week in our 
> dining room. The proposal has met with remarkable acceptance by our 
> residents.”
>
> A little publicity might inspire other seniors to do their part, Sachs 
> wrote.
>
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>
> “Can you help?” she asked.
>
> Her timing couldn’t have been better, because I’d just met with two 
> climate change experts to talk about the specific threats in 
> California and what we can do about it. So before I tell you about my 
> trip to see Mrs. Sachs at her home in Pasadena, let me tell you about 
> my visit with the experts.
>
> Bill Patzert, a former climatologist at NASA’s Jet Propulson Lab, and 
> Steve LaDochy, a semi-retired meteorology and geosciences professor at 
> Cal State L.A, were both quoted in a Jan. 11 Los Angeles Times story 
> by Paul Duginski about the decreased prevalence of tule fog in the 
> midsection of the state.
>
> “In the dry Central Valley, plants, especially native plants, love the 
> extra water that this fog provides,” Patzert said in that story. And 
> LaDochy explained that warming temperatures and a decrease in air 
> pollution — which absorbs vapor — were to blame for the decrease in fog.
>
> Over a cup of coffee with me in Sierra Madre, Patzert and LaDochy had 
> a lot to say, and most of it was frightening.
>
> That’s not surprising when the news is filled with horror stories 
> about melting glaciers, rising sea levels, raging wildfires and killer 
> drought-deluge cycles. Global greenhouse-gas emissions reached a 
> record high in 2019, we just completed the hottest decade on record, 
> and heat stored in the upper levels of oceans is at a record high.
>
> With islands disappearing in the oceans and glaciers melting, it’s 
> easy to overlook the effects in a place like Southern California. But, 
> as Patzert and LaDochy explained, climate change is having a huge 
> effect here, where population explosions and increased emissions have 
> created so-called heat islands.
>
> While the average global temperature has risen about 1.7 degrees above 
> the 20th century average, Patzert said, it’s risen closer to 5 degrees 
> in downtown Los Angeles.
>
> “In August and September, it’s 8 to 9 degrees warmer than it used to 
> be,” Patzert said, noting that, since the 1950s, California’s 
> population has quadrupled while the nation’s has merely doubled.
>
> “As you build a great megalopolis … you tend to generate your own heat 
> with shopping centers, housing developments, blacktop,” Patzert said.
>
> And then there’s the obvious. More people means more vehicles.
>
> LaDochy drives a Prius. Patzert doesn’t fly as much as he used to. 
> Everyone can find a way to make a contribution, they said. But the 
> greatest tool for change, Patzert said — noting the unconscionable 
> policies of certain so-called leaders — is the ballot box.
>
> Marian Sachs isn’t waiting for an election to do her part. She had 
> left her door ajar and called for me to come on in when I knocked. She 
> did not look her age, and when she began speaking I wanted to check 
> her birth certificate.
>
> After more than a century on the planet, she’s still sharp, curious, 
> engaged. She worked in nursing and then architecture; she and her late 
> husband raised three kids, drove one of the first hybrid vehicles, 
> collected rocks and shared a love of nature. She now aims her 
> binoculars at nearby birds, follows the news closely, and is horrified 
> by growing evidence of an overheated planet.
>
> Her hero Thunberg, 84 years her junior, has stared down complacent 
> world leaders and exclaimed, “How dare you … entire ecosystems are 
> collapsing.” But Sachs — whose home is a gallery of the wildlife 
> painting she took up as a hobby — did not want to talk politics.
>
> “I’m rendered speechless,” Sachs said. “Don’t get me stirred up.”
>
> She told me she recognized that she and her fellow residents couldn’t 
> change the world on their own, but doing nothing is not an option. The 
> meat-free menu was all she could think of, and her neighbor and friend 
> Marion Marx embraced the idea.
>
> They wrote up their proposal and circulated a memo to the 130 
> residents of the Fair Oaks, telling them that Thunberg had raised the 
> consciousness of young people the world over, including “our 
> grandchildren and our great-grandchildren.”
>
> “As responsible seniors, we should give them our support in this 
> climate crisis. We feel we can do our part by observing a meatless day 
> once a week. It will be our opportunity to be of some help.”
>
> Residents were asked to say yay or nay. A week later, with 44 ballots 
> cast, the Fair Oaks climate change initiative won in a landslide, 44-6.
>
> One resident who voted against added a comment: “God controls climate.”
>
> Another resident wondered if the banned meats would include venison.
>
> “I don’t think they’ve ever even served venison,” said Mrs. Sachs.
>
> Sachs and Marx delivered the news to the chef, Rigo Arias, who said 
> the plan was for Meatless Mondays to begin soon — no beef, chicken or 
> pork for breakfast, lunch or dinner. Arias told me that, with tofu, 
> pasta, eggplant and the new lines of plant-based meat substitutes, 
> menus wouldn’t be hard to put together. And at the moment, fish has 
> not been banned.
>
> “I think it’s great idea,” Arias said. “I was really surprised, in a 
> good way, that in these kinds of places, there’s still an interest in 
> supporting a cause.”
>
> I followed Sachs to lunch — soup, tuna salad and ham sandwiches were 
> on the menu — and she sat with her pals Marx, Shelley Gutman and 
> Luretta Rideout, all of whom support the motion.
>
> “We have to do something,” said Marx, “or we’re going to be in dire 
> straits.”
>
> Less meat means lower methane emissions, said Sachs. And if we don’t 
> keep cutting down trees to clear space for grazing, that would help, 
> too, said Marx.
>
> A small weekly sacrifice at one retirement center won’t accomplish 
> much, the women conceded.
>
> But it’s better than doing nothing, Sachs said, and the idea might 
> catch on at other retirement centers. If a teenager was able to start 
> a movement, why can’t they?
>
>
> ———————
>
> Photo . . .
>
> http://www.tomandrodna.com/MoscowCares/Photos/LA_Times/LA_Times_020120.jpg
>
> Senior living residents Marion Marx, left, and Marian Sachs, 101, were 
> instrumental in getting meat removed from the menu one day a week at 
> the Fair Oaks Assisted Living facility in Pasadena.
>
>
> ———————————————
>
> She must have been one tough lady in decades gone by.
>
> Seeya 'round town, Moscow, because . . .
>
> "Moscow Cares" (the most fun you can have with your pants on)
> http://www.MoscowCares.com <http://www.moscowcares.com/>
> Tom Hansen
> Moscow, Idaho
>
>
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