Happy Thursday, dear friends. Ice Ice Baby! My driveway decided to morph into a glacier over the last few nights. It lays in the sun during the day. While it was mostly cleared of snow, the surrounding piles melt, seep onto the black top and freeze in the arctic night air.
I tried to walk to the mailbox gingerly, and realized the situation was entirely unsafe. Having made the recent tumble, I choose to interact with the frozen water elemental as safely as possible, and so I decided to scrape away the ice.
Here on Paumanok, after experiencing many ice storms in the late 70’s, everyone has what we call an ice scraper. The rest of the world calls it a flat hoe. It is a dull flat iron blade on a long stick. One places the blade up against the ice and pushes. The hope is that the ice will give way and be easily scraped off the black top.
I set out valiantly to scrape the whole driveway. Chip chip chip, and after 30 minutes my hands were numb with the constant pounding. I surveyed my progress, and realized I was not going to accomplish what I had set about to do.
I had to re-evaluate my goal, and set about chipping a narrow path down the drive, so that people could safely navigate the distance on foot. I asked the elementals to assist me, and they led me to the parts of the ice that were softest. While the pathway meanders, it was relatively easy to accomplish once I set my mind to it.
I am finding my spiritual path to be similar in some ways. We all set goals for ourselves as humans, and sometimes those goals are not attainable in one fell swoop. Being gentle with ourselves, and allowing for the re-evaluation of goals is so important. When we initially set goals, we do not always have all the necessary information to be realistic. It is only in the doing, moving, and being towards a goal, that we can gain this information and apply it to a revised outcome.
Chipping away, within our means, at a steady pace leaves us with energy to accomplish the day-to-day tasks of life. Small steps are just as important as quantum leaps. Small paths, can accomplish the same goal as highways. They lead us forward. It’s up to us to treat ourselves kindly along the way.
Dubai is first city to fuel all municipal vehicles on local waste cooking oil.
The United Arab Emirates joined OPEC in 1967. About 40% of their gross national product comes from the production of oil and gas. In a country where gasoline would be extremely easy to come by, why would the capital convert its entire municipal vehicle fleet to recycled biodiesel?
The UAE has set about to become more environmentally friendly and sustainable. HH Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, the ruler of the UAE, has laid out a very progressive plan in the UAE Vision 2021 and the Dubai Integrated Energy Strategy 2030.
The country seeks to move from almost 0 to 24% renewable energy, doubling air quality and treated waste, increasing water efficiency and replacing internal infrastructure with more efficient platforms. The first step in this process is a partnership between the city of Dubai and Neutral Fuels, LLC, which is a supplier of reclaimed and recycled local cooking oils.
The oil is collected from area restaurant vendors, such as McDonald’s, and it is treated for use in diesel engines. The cost of the process is no more expensive than using regular diesel and the fleet needs very little adjustment to run on the bio-fuel. In fact, many older vehicles run on biodiesel without any modification. It is only the newer vehicles, which have been designed not to run on this reclaimed fuel. The good news is that all engines can be modified to accept this sustainable and cleaner fuel form.
In fact, using bio-fuel means that the amount of carbon monoxide released from the engines is decreased and the carbon footprint of the city will be reduced significantly.
I believe this move can show, world wide, that decisions to support sustainability and the environment are not taken off the table when a fossil fuel can be obtained cheaply. To take care of the earth is not an action that should rejected for the cheapest means. As the price of oil tumbles, many politicians in the US are mumbling about eliminating renewable energy subsidies, just as they did in the late 10970’s after the oil crisis. This action set sustainable energy back decades. Thankfully, the current dynamic is much different than in the past, as most consumers and many businesses realize that being kind to the environment has far reaching benefits on all levels.
In the long run, sustainable and renewable platforms are the cheapest means because they leave much less mess to clean up for the world community. I honor Dubai for making this step and becoming a benchmark for every industrialized city to follow.
Another internet-based viral act of kindness.
I spoke about the overwhelming outpouring of support for an under-served New York City neighborhood, in the last two editions of Feel Good News. It appears that the energy of support, spread through social media, has struck again in another big US city.
James Robertson lives in the Detroit area. He walked 20 miles to work daily for the last nine years. It took him 4 hours each way because his car broke down a number of years ago. Since he worked in a factory, with an $11/hour wage, he was unable to replace his vehicle.
The municipality of Detroit is struggling financially, and the city bus system has been reduced tremendously. For James, he couldn’t get there from here. He patched together a series of short bus rides with walking, in the dead of winter, the heat of summer and in the middle of the night through tough neighborhoods. In all that time, he never missed a day of work.
One day, Blake Pollock, a businessman with an office along Robertson’s route, went out to ask him what he was doing. Robertson told him his story, and the two became friends. Sometimes they would share lunch and talk about life. Occasionally Pollock would offer James a ride.
Pollock decided to share James’ story with the local newspaper, and they did a write up about him. Evan Leedy, a local college student, read the article and decided to do something about it. He started a crowdfunding campaign for James, with the intention of raising enough money to get him a car. He shared the story with his friends on social media and it lit an international fire through the internet.
The campaign went viral, as everyone wanted to support this hard working man, with the never-give-up attitude. Not only did the campaign raise over $330,000, to date, for Robertson, but a local Ford dealership donated a Taurus automobile to James.
While James is overwhelmed by the outpouring of love and support for his situation, he also sees this as an opportunity to bring the current disjointed public transportation system, in Detroit, up for discussion. He believes that if individuals had a safe and direct bus transportation system, more would be willing to work at a distance from their homes. They would feel comfortable traveling to where the employment is, instead of feeling they have no choice but to remain under- or unemployed.
I am again overjoyed, and in awe of the power of the internet and social media to create dynamic support for individuals in need. It is so exciting to see regular people stepping out of old paradigm ways of doing things and into empowering new platforms. This is the way towards a world that works for everyone, even and especially, those who fall through the traditional nets of public service and are simply carrying on without asking for help. Congratulations James!
And finally…
Another awesome surrogate mother.
Recently, a newly born pit bull puppy was abandoned, and turned in to an animal rescue in Cleveland, OH. The puppy’s eyes were still closed and he would require 24-hour care in order to have a chance for survival.
The shelter staff put their heads together and decided to try an experiment. They had a cat named Lurlene, who had just had a litter of kittens at the shelter. They brought the puppy to her. She took one sniff and adopted him, as her own. The overwhelming mothering instinct kicked in and she began to nurse and tend to him. I love inter-species friendships, as you all know, but mothering babies in need takes the cake for me and brings tears of joy to my eyes!
Mother cat surrogates an abandoned puppy on YouTube
That’s the news for today. Have a lovely day. I hope to see you back here tomorrow for more news.
Be Well. Be Joy. Be Love!