A Good Way to Start the Year

Amazingly, there is quite a bit of good news to start the year, among all the doom and gloom (not that these aren’t also part of our reality). Here are a few things that are making me hopeful and giving me ideas for how to shape my year, in mixed order of importance:

• New York State has banned fracking.
• President Obama has promised that he will veto the Keystone XL pipeline if it passes Congress. Almost no one thought this was possible three years ago, when protests against the pipeline began.
• Pope Francis is expected to produce an encyclical on the environment early this year, with an emphasis on climate change as a moral issue.
• The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is expected to adopt regulations for limiting CO2 emissions from power plants by mid-year.
• As an example of what can be done state by state, California has a policy goal of cutting petroleum used in cars and trucks by 50 percent within the next 15 years.
• 400,000 people turned out to march in support of global action on climate change in September 2014. Pressure is ramping up for an international agreement at the United Nations Conference of the Parties (COP) in Paris at the end of 2015.

Quaker Earthcare Witness ended the year with a boost from all of you. Our discussion list-serve is livelier than ever: ideas and inspiration are shared daily. We are spinning off a book discussion group, and we have the capacity to host other idea-specific discussion/planning groups as they arise. As a result of our organizing for the Peoples’ Climate March, many new folks have joined our network; I often hear how much they appreciate finding kindred spirits among us and their new energy is reinvigorating longtime supporters. Friends are engaged at all levels and in growing numbers in their earthcare work and in recognition that earthcare, peace, and justice are interconnected. For more details about the 2013-14 fiscal year, our annual report is posted on our website at http://www.quakerearthcare.org/article/quaker-earthcare-witness-annual-report-nov-2013-oct-2014. Our end-of-year fundraising appeal—a vital means of support for any non-profit organization—has been bringing a good result, and we continue to accept donations online at https://secure.quakerearthcare.org/civicrm/contribute/transact?reset=1&id=1. Thank you, Friends!

My daily inspiration comes from this quote, framed and sitting above my desk:

“Make the impossible become feasible and the feasible become inevitable.” —Bob Massie