Tag Archives: Global warming

Message of climate urgency

“I think it’s critical for the message of climate urgency to make its way out into the mainstream” 

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Filed under Ecological affairs, Quotations or Citations, World affairs

Climate justice & Rich people who do not want to share

2022 came to show once again what a huge gap there is between people who have next to nothing and people swimming in money. The latter have seen their wealth grow exceptionally this year as their energy shares soared.

This year, we could see how warfare brought a lot of damage to people and nature. Our earth also had a lot to endure because man did not do much to stop global warming.

Climate justice is about creating a better future for all of us. It’s about giving everyone the ability to live a life of dignity, joy and safety. This better world is possible, but only if we all fight for it.

We have to recognise that there is a very small percentage of extremely rich people whose interests side with and profit from our collective destruction. The fossil fuel execs, the billionaires, the Rishi Sunaks only make up an absolutely tiny percentage of the population. We cannot let them dictate whether we live or die. We cannot let them force millions of us in the UK and billions of us all over the world into struggle, multiple crises and instability just so they can continue to be outrageously rich as a result of the work being done by the many. We outnumber them.

We have to fight back and demand more. We have to support unions striking for better conditions for all of us.
The fight against the cost of living crisis and the climate crisis has to be connected. We have a whole world to win if we come together rather than letting those who don’t have our interests at heart divide us.


Enough is Enough is a campaign to fight the cost of living crisis.

We were founded by trade unions and community organisations determined to push back against the misery forced on millions by rising bills, low wages, food poverty, shoddy housing – and a society run only for a wealthy elite.

We can’t rely on the establishment to solve our problems. It’s up to us in every workplace and every community.

 

Green duotone photograph of General Secretary of the National Union of Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers (RMT) Mick Lynch. With the text: Mick Lynch says Enough is Enough! It's no good just being pissed off. You've got to say, I'm going to turn that into an organisation with a set of demands and a way to fight for them.

You can join the Enough Is Enough campaign here

You can find mutual aid groups to support here

A guide to finding a climate group here

A guide on why we need unions is here 

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Drought

Who knows, July and August will be recorded as the warmest and driest months in Europe since records began.

One can only hope that now, with all the fires and other natural disasters that are coming to our regions, there will be a greater awareness that something must be done to combat global warming.

Jewish Young Professional

Photo by Pixabay: https://www.pexels.com/photo/photo-of-brown-bare-tree-on-brown-surface-during-daytime-60013/

Grass grows patchy in bristling brown spikes
(if it grows at all).  The smooth-complexioned 
face of land now cracks 
under unrelenting heat.  Fields once flush
with fruits go barren, pleading

through parched throats and chapped lips 

that no kiss of water
or answered prayer
 
has yet come to soften,

for August doesn’t care 
about religion or rain dances.

***

FOWC, W3, dVerse. I took inspiration from Timothy Price.

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Filed under Ecological affairs, Headlines - News, Lifestyle, Nature, Poetry - Poems, Prayers, Re-Blogs and Great Blogs, Religious affairs, Welfare matters, World affairs

An Open Letter to the People Who Are Trying to Kill Us

Riya Dani, a 20-something homebody with a million ideas and a thousand things planned on her to-do list.

Please try to see past the ugly words by the young woman Riya Dani when reading this open letter. It is an open cry that testifies to the despair of young people about the reality that many government leaders do not want to see. The composer of the open letter wants to bring her cry for discussions of Society, Environment and Science

It is more than necessary that the call to action is spreading all over the world!

Since it is already a quarter past midnight, it is understandable that some people are losing their faith in the leaders and want to stamp their feet hard in order to get a more hopeful result in time.

Let us all stand up and raise our voices!

Riya Dani

The world grappling with the ruinous results of Climate Change, everyone is talking about adopting sustainable strategies, but,

Are we doing enough?

We had high expectations from COP26 – they met, some slept.

All they did was preach the same words we have been screaming for years!

It’s Doomsday! We need to change” “To preserve our future! We need to Change” “Rise above the politics! We need to Change!

They pledged and promised and pleaded with people to change.

All these talks of change paint a very optimistic picture but,

Are we doing enough?

The trash that we produce keeps mounting, much like your promises.

The coal isn’t going anywhere, and the emissions being released keep breaking records.

The heat is breaking records, the fires are breaking records, the rains and floods and droughts are breaking records.

So, are we doing enough?

We shift to metal straws and…

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Us and climate change – We can do much more than we think

Already some decades now, people are confronted with unpredictable weather situations and getting to see how glaciers melt, countries have to battle either droughts or floods. This year, Belgium and Germany got so hard hit, thousands of people have lost their houses and private goods. Also, this summer we could witness, with brutal clarity, a world of lush forests, bountiful croplands, liveable cities, and survivable coastlines under threat.

For sure we on our own can not change the situation in such a way that we can turn back the clock and get better weather again. The climate crisis is too big to tackle alone.

The problem with our society is that most leaders and citizens are more concerned about earning and saving as much money they can do.

Do you know, you too, even when you think you are just a tiny spot in the ocean, can get the stone rolling to bring the necessary changes to avoid further global warming. We cannot stay at the sideline. We should talk about the situation with as many people as we can and push our politicians in the right way so that they shall dare to act for the world, which can not speak for itself. Our leaders must have the courage to act now to limit climate change and protect nature.

Though there are still lots of people who do not want to see it, science is clear:

we are damaging our climate and destroying our biodiversity.

We not only have to see the signs, it is very important to respond to the signs and take action! Practical steps right now!

After the lockdown, we may face now shortages in the shops. This might be a blessing in disguise encouraging us to plan for an end of year celebration focused on people rather than lots of food and presents. Think about what you most enjoy about celebrating Christmas, are how you can contribute to the sustainment of our planet in the Holiday Season.

On Saturday 6th November there is the Global Day of Action. Midway through COP26 it is not a bad moment to let your voice be heard. The politicians coming together in Glasgow have to know citizens are concerned with what happens to our planet and how we want them to take the necessary measures now, to do something against global warming and the need to protect people from the disasters of nature, like droughts and floods. If we do not call that global warming to a halt, that climate change shall bring a lot of people to lose their habitat and being forced to find other places to live so that we shall have a huge increase of climate refugees.

Photo by Barbara Barbosa on Pexels.com

At home, you can contribute with sorting, buying local and ecological (bio) products, making an effort not to use chemicals and unnecessary products. It is already a first step in the right direction when you try to reduce the ecological footprint. When you love to eat meat, think about certain animals suffering needlessly in factory farming. Avoid buying meat of animals in cages. Also, remember that by reducing meat consumption, you can help to reduce methane gases in the air and animal waste in the environment.

Demand your politicians that we, the richer nations and businesses, should act justly in response to the climate crisis. They are the ones who can push the negotiators at the COP26 in the right direction to make it work this year, to come to the right decision protecting our planet and its citizens! Ask your politicians that they invest money into proven solutions, green jobs & clean, renewable energy for everyone.

Photo by Markus Spiske on Pexels.com

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Find also to read and to do

Cop26 presidency run from within the UK Cabinet Office

What Did We Do?

Support Climate Legislation

COP26 Petition

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Preceding

Health Ranger apocalypse warnings already given in 2012

The natural beauties of life

How to make sustainable, green habits second nature

Vatican meeting of mayors talking about global warming, human trafficking and modern-day slavery

Republican member of Congress from Arizona to boycott pope’s address over climate change

It’s a New Year!

Building a low-carbon world: the sixth industrial revolution

UK Politicians willing to tear up decades of environmental protections

Africa’s human existence and development under threat from the adverse impacts of climate change

A dangerous turning point – Earth facing the collapse of everything

155 million people across 55 territories suffering from severe food insecurity

Earth’s pandemic and T-shirts for young people

Four ways to tackle the climate and biodiversity crises simultaneously

Streams caused by temperature differences

Time for world to ‘grow up’ and tackle climate change, says Boris Johnson

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Additional reading

  1. Reducing effects of environmental disasters
  2. Going for sustainable development
  3. The Climate Crisis and the Need for Utopian Thinking
  4. Challenges of the Post-Pandemic period
  5. Today’s thought “Allowed to have dominion over the universe” (January 02)
  6. Bijbelvorsers Blogging annual report and 2015 in review
  7. Sign of the Times and the Last Days #2 Wars, natural disasters, famine and false Messiahs

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Related

  1. Can humanity solve climate change, and if so, how?
  2. #17_ Platforms vs. sustainability: The winners take all and everything is lost?
  3. Earth’s natural carbon sinks: #Climatechange
  4. Why Individual Actions Matter in the Climate CrisisThanks to Big Oil, Your Tax Dollars Are Spent Ruining the ClimateBolsonaro must be held criminally responsible for assault on the Amazon, say activists
  5. COVID Vaccine access should be on the COP26 Agenda
  6. COP26: Goal One – too little, too slowly
  7. COP26 Petition
  8. Call For National Climate Legislation
  9. Queen Deplores Climate Crisis Inaction, ‘Irritated’ At Global Leaders Ahead Of COP26
  10. COP26 Fundraiser
  11. A climate of exclusionOpinion: COP26: Can Boris Johnson and the Conservatives be trusted to act on climate change?
  12. Woman Who Worked at Africa Development Bank Leads G20 MDB Review Amid Pandemic, Climate CrisisComplicated, but clear, explanation of why coming winter likely to be toughDerrick Z. Jackson: ‘Code Red’ for Climate Means Reducing US Oil and Gas Production Now
    On the Racist Humanism of Climate Action
  13. Click thru for a visual guide to how far the globe is into the climate crisis
  14. Drought demands decisive action on climate crisis
  15. Net zero would not stop climate change
  16. Rethink Our Meat Intake
  17. William tells young people to ‘demand change’ at first Earthshot PrizeEcological Evil
  18. Eco Tips
  19. How to Save the World From a Climate Armageddon
  20. Blogging At The End Of Earth

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Filed under Activism and Peace Work, Announcement, Crimes & Atrocities, Ecological affairs, Health affairs, Lifestyle, Nature, Political affairs, Social affairs, Welfare matters, World affairs

A cry in the dark by scientists and medics

It is a well-known fact that nature influences people. From all sites of the world, scientists cried out loud to become aware of what we are doing with Planet Earth. Mother Earth also cries, but so many do not want to hear nor see.
More than 200 medical journals from around the world have written an open letter demanding that governments stop climate change.

They believe that a warming planet is the biggest threat to world health. Sound advice or over-reacting? Leave your comments.

More than 230 medical journals have put climate change at the top of the world’s health agenda as the November COP26 climate conference in Glasgow approaches. They have published the biggest joint editorial in history to warn everyone that the greatest threat to public health is failure to keep the global temperature rise below 1.5°C. The signatories include The BMJ, the NEJM, The Lancet and numerous other top journals (with the notable exception of JAMA).

The terms of the editorial are apocalyptic:

“The science is unequivocal; a global increase of 1.5°C above the pre-industrial average and the continued loss of biodiversity risk catastrophic harm to health that will be impossible to reverse.”

“Indeed,” they write, “no temperature rise is ‘safe’.”

The role of governments is fundamental, they say. “Governments must make fundamental changes to how our societies and economies are organised and how we live.” Everything has to change: “transport systems, cities, production and distribution of food, markets for financial investments, health systems, and much more”.

And it is going to be very expensive. “Many governments met the threat of the covid-19 pandemic with unprecedented funding. The environmental crisis demands a similar emergency response. Huge investment will be needed, beyond what is being considered or delivered anywhere in the world.”

Missing from the editorial are the nuts and bolts of how global temperatures will impact on health – or simply some guesstimates of how many people will die if the temperature rises 1.5°C.

Climate gadfly Bjorn Lomborg is sceptical of the claims in the letter. He points out that the number of climate-change related deaths has plummeted since 1920:

Over the past hundred years, annual climate-related deaths have declined by more than 96%. In the 1920s, the death count from climate-related disasters was 485,000 on average every year. In the last full decade, 2010-2019, the average was 18,362 dead per year, or 96.2% lower.

He concludes that “we are now much less vulnerable to climate impacts than at any time in the last 100 years. It is possible that climate change has made impacts worse over the last century … but resiliency from higher living standards has entirely swamped any potential climate impact.”

Chances are, this letter will have no impact whatsoever on climate change policy. But it might make people sicker. Experts recently warned of “an impending epidemic of mental health related disorders such as eco-anxiety, climate disaster-related post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and future-orientated despair.” Nothing makes people suffering from eco-anxiety more anxious than eco-doctors predicting an apocalypse.

Michael Cook  editor of BioEdge

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Filed under Ecological affairs, Headlines - News, Health affairs, Lifestyle, Nature, Science, World affairs

Time for world to ‘grow up’ and tackle climate change, says Boris Johnson

Boris Johnson might have had very strange ideas about CoViD and about global warming, sometimes stepping in the footsteps of Donald Trump. But it seems he might have changed after he himself was infected by the coronavirus.

Boris Johnson calls for the world to “grow up” and addresses the threat of climate change to the future of humanity. It looks like the British prime minister, at last, has become convinced mankind has behaved like a reckless teenager with planet Earth, trashing its home in the “infantile” belief it will not have to suffer the consequences.

The UN Cop26 climate change summit which the UK will host in Glasgow in November must be “the turning point for humanity”, when the world must show it can limit temperature rises and prevent the planet becoming uninhabitable.

 

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Streams caused by temperature differences

Andreas Kluth in The Day, a daily newspaper covering a 20-town region in eastern Connecticut, in his guest opinion piece writes about weather disasters spanning the globe this summer, looking at the many infernal fires in California and Greece, deadly floods from Germany to China, heat waves from Canada to Siberia that according to him

are really just nature’s shots across our bow.

That becomes clear if we absorb the recently published report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the body of the United Nations that assesses the state of science on global warming. He writes:

No matter what policies we adopt − and obviously we should aim for good ones – the weather will keep getting more catastrophic more often.

A lot of people would agree with the fact that even when we are so progressed in science, there is still what we do not know.

Part of what makes the overall problem of climate change so psychologically daunting is that there’s so much we know, but so much more that we know only partially, and even more that we have yet to understand at all.

We know perfectly well, for example, how coal-fired power plants pump carbon dioxide into the air – bad. We only partially understand how the thawing permafrost could release enough methane on top of the greenhouse gases we’ve emitted to cause additional, sudden and terrifying spikes in warming – really bad. And we have yet to figure out exactly how all this would affect the earth system as a whole, and in particular the massive currents of air and water that have made the world a familiar habitat to us.

One current of particular concern is the polar jet stream, a group of winds that whips at enormous speeds around the Arctic from west to east (owing to the earth’s rotation) at a height of six-to-10 miles up in the atmosphere. Another is the Gulf Stream, a vast oceanic conveyor belt that makes warm water from the tropics flow northward on the surface until it cools and, around Iceland, sinks down and heads back south.

One thing these streams have in common, with each other and the many other currents all around the world, is that they’re caused by temperature differences between the hot tropics and the cold poles. Another thing they share is that, in their own ways, they protect or nurture us humans.

The complex swirls of the jet streams tend to blow away pressure systems that could otherwise kill us on the ground with storms and floods and heat. If these streams blow less hard, or more weirdly, or not at all, those meteorological danger domes just hover in place without moving, until they discharge their payloads on us. Although the details aren’t clear yet, scientists believe this partially explains why the floods in Germany, the heat waves in North America and forest fires in Greece and Turkey turned into such doozies.

Changes in the Gulf Stream work more slowly but are just as consequential. It’s already known that the current is at its weakest in a millennium. There are many reasons, including torrents of freshwater pouring in from melting ice and bloated rivers (freshwater is lighter than saltwater and prevents cooling water from sinking) and shrinking temperature differentials between south and north as the Artic heats up. A new study in Nature suggests that the whole Atlantic circulation and convection system may “collapse” altogether.

Read more about it: If jet or gulf streams collapse, we’re in for it

A woman throws away flood damaged rubbish July 19 in the center of Bad Neuenahr-Ahrweiler, Germany. (Bram Janssen/AP Photo)

A woman throws away flood damaged rubbish July 19 in the center of Bad Neuenahr-Ahrweiler, Germany. (Bram Janssen/AP Photo)

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6 years after the Paris Agreement

Through the Paris Agreement in 2015, the international community agreed to keep global temperature rise this century well below 2.0°C degrees above pre-industrial levels, and to pursue efforts to limit temperature increase to 1.5°C. The 1.5°C threshold is important because beyond this, so-called “tipping points” – positive feedback loops where global warming causes a permanent shift in earth systems, locking in further warming – become more likely.

The IPCC climate change report brings forward when scientists expect to reach 1.5C to the mid-2030s, at which point tipping points such as lose of artic sea ice, larger-scale die-offs of coral reefs, and thawing of the methane-rich permafrost become much more likely.

Increased CO2 will have dire long-term effects

Another core concept in the IPCC report about climate change is the long-term effect of increased CO2 in the air. The Earth takes time to adjust to increases of CO2 in the air, and the Equilibrium Climate Sensitivity (ECS) estimates how much the earth will warm with a doubling of the amount of CO2 in the air. This is important because CO2 has increased from its pre-industrial level of around 280 parts per million (ppm) to an estimated 415 ppm today, with a predicted doubling of CO2 in the air around 2060.

Recent research predicts the increase in global average temperature with a doubling of CO2 in the air to between 2.6-4.5C. The difference between 1.5C short term, and between 2.6C and 4.5C longer term may seem small at first glance. However, the difference between 1.5C, 2C, and 3C is the difference between average droughts lasting two, four or 10 months per year, and the difference between 6%, 18% or 68% (for an increase to 4.5C) means invertebrates globally losing their habitat. These longer-term trends are in addition to the extreme weather we have witnessed across Europe and the US over the past two months.

> Read more about it: New climate change report shows need for urgent action – here’s how leaders can act

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Are the European floods linked to the climate crisis?

Almost certainly. Scientists have long predicted climate disruption will lead to more extreme weather, such as heatwaves, droughts and floods. Human emissions from engine exhaust fumes, forest burning and other activities are heating the planet. As the atmosphere gets warmer it holds more moisture which brings more rain. All the places that recently experienced flooding – Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands, London, Edinburgh, Tokyo and elsewhere – might have had heavy summer rain even without the climate crisis, but the deluges were unlikely to have been as intense.

There has not yet been an attribution study for the latest floods in Europe because the analysis takes several days.

Please continue reading: What is causing the floods in Europe?

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Investigating how climate affects intense rainstorms across Europe, climate experts have shown there will be a significant future increase in the occurrence of slow-moving intense rainstorms.

The scientists estimate that these slow-moving storms may be 14 times more frequent across land by the end of the century. It is these slow-moving storms that have the potential for very high precipitation accumulations, with devastating impacts, as we saw in Germany and Belgium.

Professor Lizzie Kendon, Science Fellow at the Met Office and Professor at Bristol University, said:

“This study shows that in addition to the intensification of rainfall with global warming, we can also expect a big increase in slow-moving storms which have the potential for high rainfall accumulations. This is very relevant to the recent flooding seen in Germany and Belgium, which highlights the devastating impacts of slow-moving storms.

“Our finding that slow-moving intense rainstorms could be 14 times more frequent by the end of the century under the high emissions RCP8.5 scenario, shows the serious impacts that we may expect across Europe if we do not curb our emissions of greenhouse gases.”

The study findings are relevant to climate mitigation and adaptation policy in Europe, with specific implications for future flooding impacts, the design of infrastructure systems, and the management of water resources.

Currently, almost stationary intense rainstorms are uncommon in Europe and happen rarely over parts of the Mediterranean Sea. Accurate predictions of future changes in intense rainfall events are key to putting effective adaptation and mitigation plans in place to limit the adverse impacts of climate change.

> Extreme Storms Will Be More Likely In Europe Research Shows

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Earth’s pandemic and T-shirts for young people

We at the Belgian Christadelphian office have passed a certain age, so that it would not be appropriate to walk on the street with a T-shirt. As elders, we tell the visitors in our churches about the task we as human beings have when living on this planet. We talk about our responsibility and the task God has given us. But we do know the majority of inhabitants of this planet are not believing in God and are mostly concerned about gaining as much money as possible, whatever the cost may be.

The last few months, lots of people were very worried about the Covid-pandemic, but for years there has been another big virus circling around us, which most people seem to ignore. Though for more than a decade, several of the Boom generation with the millennials and the Generation Z have been writing essays, articles and making posters for awareness about global warming and cried out into the world to save our planet. Because that planet is getting very ill. People have used and wasted earthly resources, if nothing. In our so-called ‘civilised’ countries most citizens were and are not concerned about the pollution they cause.

For us the time of publicly protesting and going on the streets, protesting for this and that, may be gone or not so appropriate.
But for young people, we would like to introduce some very interesting clothing and tote bags with a different angle. We are namely very concerned about the world where we and our children and grandchildren but also next generations have to live in. Therefore, we do find it five past twelve to call on all the responsible people to use their senses and to do something against the horrible state we have brought our planet. We cannot sit still and do if global warming does not exist.

Everybody can use his own voice to bring awareness to others. A T-shirt is a wearable message board that can pull the attention to our planet and to what we have to do about it. The world needs to change as we are currently hurtling towards climatic changes that will alter the way the planet is configured. This will certainly be to the detriment of humanity if not cause its extinction. Crazy you may say but 99.99% of all species that have ever lived have gone extinct so just because we can walk and talk and use a smart phone does not mean that we will not go the same way.

Scientists and philosophers don’t in general want to be celebrities but it is important that we listen to what they have to say because they offer the only way out of this current crisis. So enjoy our range and change the world at least in one tiny way, an environmentally friendly piece of clothing. {Scientist and Philosopher}

It is not bad to have a look at their products to make others aware of this dramatic situation.

Keep it cool V1BNo planet B design 1 V1B shopping bag

> A collection to highlight the need for us all to stop and think. > Think

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Find also to read

  1. Weather, climate-change and man-made global-warmingGlobal WARming: An Overlooked Pandemic
  2. Hot weather
  3. Global Warming
  4. Global Warming Was Explained in 1856. By a Woman
  5. Environment
  6. Climate explained: how the IPCC reaches scientific consensus on climate change
  7. Rapid Climate Change Makes It Hard for Butterflies and Moths to Adjust
  8. From CNN: Unprecedented heat, hundreds dead and a town destroyed. Climate change is frying the Northern Hemisphere
  9. Time to write again, getting the word out, climate change is a reality
  10. Too Dumb to SurviveThe Arctic’s last ice area
  11. Last Ice…
  12. Update on Climate Referendum in France
  13. Julia Conley: ‘This Is Our Future’ Without Climate Action, Advocates Warn After Pipeline Causes Fire in Gulf of Mexico
  14. IPBES/IPCC Report: Tackling the biodiversity and climate crises together
  15. The Climate Crisis Is Accelerating – Now What?
  16. An Actual Space Laser Shows How Devastating Sea Level Rise May Be
  17. Climate Change & Joshua Tree National Park
  18. Highest Ever Temperature Recorded In Finnish North
  19. Why Polar Bears are on The Verge of Extinction
  20. The monarch butterfly cab use our help to stay alive by Kalpana Sutaria, Austin American-Statesman
  21. Seabird Salvation
  22. Impeach Bolsonaro and Topic on Climate
  23. global participation…

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A dangerous turning point – Earth facing the collapse of everything

Despite so much evidence to the contrary, “experts” deny there is any threat to the world’s ecology.
Study Disputes That Earth is in a ‘Climate Emergency’

Brietbart 07-Feb-21 by Delingpole

“There is no “climate emergency”, according to a study for the Global Warming Policy Foundation by independent scientist Dr Indur Goklany.
Dr Goklany concludes:

“While climate may have changed for the warmer:  Most extreme weather phenomena have not become extreme, more deadly, or more destructive.  Empirical evidence directly contradicts claims that increased carbon dioxide has reduced human wellbeing. In fact, human wellbeing has never been higher.

Whatever detrimental effects warming and higher carbon dioxide may have had on terrestrial species and ecosystems, they have been swamped by the contribution of fossil fuels to increased biological activity. This has halted, and turned around, reductions in habitat loss”.

The report would make hugely depressing reading for all environmental activists — even the Pope – if it was
infallibly accurate – which it is not!
Dr Goklany says there is little to scare us:

Yes, there will be more hot days, but fewer cold days. Oh? Where?

In the Arctic and the Antarctic of course – silly!

*There will be less tornados – #in Great Britain?
* There will be less floods, less frequent and smaller!
# Perhaps Goklany slept through last year, but there were half a dozen cyclones causing death by floods, drowning, landslides and inundation from January to December 2020 throughout the Southern Hemisphere!
*There will be less droughts and less wildfires.

# When does this begin? So far so bad in California and many parts of Australia. In October 1917 intense, deadly fires killed 41 people in Spain and Portugal, and in 2020 fires affected Sweden and Northern France as well as Italy and Spain where wildfires are not indigenous!

In 2020 for months, Siberia has been experiencing extreme heat due to a combination of persistent sunny weather and human-caused climate change. In addition to producing Arctic temperatures that cracked 100 degrees in June, the heat has fueled an enormous outbreak of wildfires, including fires on Siberia’s tundra……

Breitbart News Desk February 16, 2021:

The deep freeze that knocked out power in Texas spread across the country this week. The agency that manages power in fourteen states from Texas through Oklahoma and all the way up to North Dakota declared a state of emergency and ordered utilities to initiate rolling blackouts to cut electrical demand and stabilize the grid.
Meanwhile, a lot of fracking for oil has been brought to a halt by the freeze. Twenty percent of the U.S. oil production has gone offline, and some of the biggest refineries have been shuttered. The big problem is that the Texas oil kits are not set up for arctic weather. Up in North Dakota the extraction process is winterized, but that’s not the case farther south. Even something as simple as picking up oil in a truck to move to a refinery can become impossible when your roads are iced over, there are no snow ploughs or road salt, and no one has snow tires.
Crude oil production is down by more than four million barrels a day, twice what was reported a day earlier. Prior to the cold crisis, the U.S. was producing around 11 million barrels a day.
The Permian Basin, America’s largest oil field, has been hard hit. Production in the area that straddles western Texas and
New Mexico is down between 65 percent and 80 percent.

The melting Arctic has been watched closely by countries like China and Russia who are looking to take advantage of the increasingly available shipping lanes. But scientists have lamented the latest milestone, and are sounding the alarm about further environmental degradation due to increased shipping activity.

It is a very dangerous turning point

says Associate Professor Nengye Liu, an expert in international polar law at Macquarie University.

In Revelation 6:8-9 we can see that “Global Warming” is the result of the 4th Vial of God’s Wrath

   8 And the fourth angel poured out his vial upon the sun; and power was given unto him to scorch men with fire. 9  And men were scorched with great heat, and blasphemed the name of God, which hath power over these plagues: and they repented not to give him glory.

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‘Too late’:

David Attenborough warns Earth faces ‘total collapse’

Nick Whigham ·Assistant News Editor | Yahoo News| 24.2.20-21

The world’s most famous naturalist has issued a dire proclamation about the state of the planet, warning Earth is facing “the collapse of everything” if we continue on our current path.

94-year-old Sir David Attenborough warned overnight that climate change is the biggest security threat modern humans have ever faced while addressing the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) session on climate, saying it was “already too late” to stem the diabolical impacts of global warming.

   “There is no going back, no matter what we do now, it’s too late to avoid climate change and the poorest, the most vulnerable, those with the least security, are now certain to suffer,”

he said.

“And if the natural world can no longer support the most basic of our needs, then much of the rest of civilisation will quickly break down.”

Arthur Wright, Kallangur, Brisbane

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Related

  1. Global Climate Change. Overstated or Understated?
  2. Earth Is In Serious Trouble If We Don’t Make Major Changes. Period.
  3. Stop the depletion of the earth
  4. Earth had its coolest February since 2014
  5. Climate Change Responsibility
  6. The Triple Crisis: Coronavirus is increasingly linked to global warming and remaking the economy, call it a socialist trifecta
  7. Sea-level rise caused by climate change> LTE Under Consideration: Re: March 1 Article, “Was climate change to blame?”
  8. Scientists stunned to discover plants beneath mile-deep Greenland ice
  9. New Permian Methane Leakage Study Confirms What We Already Knew
  10. Routine Gas Flaring Is Wasteful, Polluting and Undermeasured
  11. Rare Lizard’s Habitat May Open Up
  12. “Arctic air freezes Permian shale fields”… Fake news?
  13. Texas Oil Giant ExxonMobil Sells Some North Sea Drilling, Exploration Sites Amid Muted Oil Prices
  14. Clean Fuel Opens Door for Sustainability
  15. The two gravest threats to humanity
  16. 60,000 Belgians take government to court over alleged climate inaction

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Filed under Ecological affairs, World affairs

Wat is de Green Deal?

Europa wil tegen 2050 het eerste klimaatneutrale continent zijn. Dat is goed voor de volksgezondheid, onze levenskwaliteit en de economie. Hoe we dat gaan doen? Dat staat beschreven in de Green Deal die de Europese Commissie heeft uitgewerkt.

Routekaart voor een duurzame economie

In de Green Deal is de weg naar een duurzame Europese economie uitgestippeld. Het is een nieuwe groeistrategie waarin alle sectoren aan bod komen: vervoer, energie, landbouw en gebouwen, staal, textiel, chemie, …

In de Green Deal zijn verschillende maatregelen opgenomen:

  • Een Europese klimaatwet
  • Een biodiversiteitsstrategie voor 2030
  • Een actieplan voor een circulaire economie

Meer informatie hierover vind je op de website van de Europese Commissie.

Duurzame mobiliteit

Een belangrijk onderdeel van de Green Deal is duurzame mobiliteit. Europa moet de uitstoot van auto’s en andere vervoersmiddelen meer en sneller beperken. Een kwart van de broeikasemissies in de EU wordt veroorzaakt door vervoer. Tegen 2050 moet die uitstoot met 90 % dalen.

Hoe gaat Europa dat doen?

  • Verschillende vervoersmiddelen inzetten: meer vrachtvervoer met de trein of boot
  • Prijzen die in verhouding zijn met de milieu-impact: subsidies voor fossiele brandstoffen stopzetten, rekeningrijden in EU invoeren, …
  • Meer alternatieve brandstoffen: in 2025 zullen ongeveer 1 miljoen laad- en tankstations nodig zijn voor de 13 miljoen emissiearme en –vrije voertuigen op de Europese wegen

Wil jij ook je steentje bijdragen?

Elk van ons draagt mede de verantwoordelijkheid voor hoe het verder met ons klimaat verloopt.

Iedereen kan zelf bijdragen aan de besparing van energie en het verminderen van uitstoot van schadelijke stoffen.

Met de aankoop van producten kunnen wij er op toe zien zo weinig mogelijk vervuilende stoffen te gebruiken, zoals het verpakkingsmateriaal verminderen en plastiek te vermijden.

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Filed under Activisme & Vredeswerk, Ecologische aangelegenheden, Levensstijl, Natuur, Nederlandse teksten - Dutch writings, Wereld aangelegenheden

What Did We Do?

Source of Inspiration

deforestation

Not even night
brings relief from the heat.
What have we done
when pools boil
in lands where
forests have been slain?

Climates gone haywire
ice caps melting
waves of water wash
life away, pollution the norm.
What have we done?

Across the globe, people
gather to find solutions
to the destruction greed
has caused. Join their voice
start the change wherever you live.
Plant a tree, save water
stop buying that which
contributes to the loss
of this earth’s resources.
Each of us can make a difference.

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Filed under Ecological affairs, Lifestyle, Nature, Poetry - Poems, Re-Blogs and Great Blogs, World affairs

A Sequoia Adventure: The Captivating Forest of Dreams

When human beings keep denying global warming and shall not be willing to do something against the climate change, then lots of our world its beauty and grandeur, shall be lost for ever.

Let us make sure that more people come to know the beauty we have to protect and safeguard for future generations.

*

To remember.

  • places in nature to captivate the soul
  • Sequoia National Park tucked high up in the Sierra Nevada mountains = a sacred, enchanted place > inflame the imagination in the most stoic of souls.
  • Giant Sequoias = mammoths of wood = most massive trees on our planet + many over 3,000 years old + standing steadfast + resilient through all problems between nations that came and went > cfr. Roman Empire > All of the power, dominance, influence, + hubris of a great empire rose + fell in a short span of this tree’s life
  • spiritual experience calls one to contemplate the meager existence of our own lives + to reflect on the nature of time + the circle of life.
  • to give us a great heaping dose of humility.
  • to turn our perspectives upward + outward, + to find peace in the giant flowing river of space & time.
  • Sequoia acorn = only about two inches by one inch + containing a little over 200 seeds => potential to become a giant forest in time, outliving many generations + entire civilizations of people.

Some places I wander into in nature captivate my soul in special ways, not just for their beauty and grandeur, but because they whisper into my very being and offer me something that we all need a heavy dose of from time to time, humility. Sequoia National Park was that special place that I recently visited. Tucked high up in the Sierra Nevada mountains, it is a sacred, enchanted place that can inflame the imagination in the most stoic of souls. It is a place of wonder and magic that can hardly be put into words, only quietly and humbly felt in the presence of these wondrous ancient giants, the Sequoia trees.

The Giant Sequoias are the most massive trees on our planet. They are almost incomprehensible to behold, staring up from the base of these mammoths of wood. They grow up to 40 feet in diameter, stretch up to…

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Filed under Activism and Peace Work, Crimes & Atrocities, Ecological affairs, Lifestyle, Pictures of the World, Re-Blogs and Great Blogs, World affairs

Just a thought for this month of Changing colours in Western Europe

The North and West of Belgium may look like a country full of bricks, full of houses with here and there some green trying to stay straight and alive. Where there can be found trees and fields the landscape is changing to red, yellow and golden colours. In the little gardens we may have mushrooms are the living proof we are in fall.

From the Schmidlin Family Farm we hear that at their place, in the Pacific Coast Range of Northern Oregon,

Fall seemed to only last a week this year in the Pacific Northwest.

the vibrant hues of the trees as the leaves turned from greens to wild splashes of color was only in full display a short while.

Trees with leaves ready to fallStorms that came in from the ocean sent wind and rain driving sideways at times. They lashed at the vegetation and ripped the tender stems of the leaves right off the trees that are drifting into slumber in preparation for the cold ahead. {From Vivid To Bare}

For the moment in Belgium we did not receive our portion of Autumn storms, but the temperature indicators do not seem to know where to go, one day cold the other day warm (? 17° C) for the time of year.

This year in Flemish Brabant the trees started already becoming brown in July (because of the water shortage for two years already), though in the South of France in September we could find lovely green colours and later in October them starting to give way to red, yellow and gold. They want to show the world they are strong and not yet willing to give away the crown they may be in the sky. Whilst mother earth cries unto them they sing their song in the wind, calling for memories and tricking us into lovely walks in nature.

At some places in Europe the birches are master of the surroundings. At the Muir of Dinnet National Nature Reserve it won’t be long until they lose their leaves, so the  park strongly advise to get out there now – or we’ll miss the best autumn colours!

Loch Kinord has been looking especially pretty with the yellow birches. There’s just something about reflections on water that makes things extra-beautiful. {Golden Autumn Days – Muir of Dinnet NNR}

How long did we looked forward to sunny and warm days, and how quickly they are gone. Though at for some years, at certain times in Belgium it looked like we only had two seasons, a wet one and a wetter (and colder) season. With global warming we are treated with more extremes, hotter days but also more heavy winds and rainstorms. Some parts in West Europe receive in a few hours the amount of water which would normally fall there in three months. Without any concession, the water takes everything it can grab and drags it along into the depths or miles further to throw it on one large scrap heap. Cleaning up is all what rests for those who could survive the sudden torrent.

Is it not water then there are the flames which love to lick the earth and get tourists flee their resorts of rest. That way the flames get those fleeing people thinking about the drought and how they too are responsible for what is going on with nature which seems to have lost its wheel.

Is it the slow speed by which this year wants to announce the coming Winter, that I may be feeling a little bit down? Or is it my awareness that mankind has not treated his surroundings very well? Is it me feeling like man has lost his connection with mother earth or not willing to take care of it any more?

Though Fall brings us such magnificent colours and when we look at the many blogs and at Instagram, we are treated with an incredible world of magic. But that magical colourful world is something which seems to be far away from the industrialised economical world of West Europe. Most people not receiving enough time to go to the parks and to enjoy the changing nature.

The trees call out and reach to the people down there. But they do not seem to hear or seem not wanting to see. Even when youngsters already for months call those in charge of governments to become aware that we should turn our way of life and have to make serious measure to protect our earth.

Let those voices on the streets in the big cities know that their honest cry is heard, by those who can live in that beautiful nature, which seems to be  strangled by industry and by profit-seeking investors. The trees may be leaning in close to encourage another and want to give the people who live around them the lovely sweets of a year of pride standing high above the earth and streaming water. Now

it’s as though
Heaven itself conjoins with Earth. {Encouragement}

Is it not that the youngsters of today could also need some encouragement? Or should they become the driving force to get those older people coming to change their attitude of life? Perhaps the roles have to be switched and in this age it have to be the younger ones to bring the older ones to the senses?

It is just my (feeling down) thought for today.

 

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Find some Autumn reflections and lovely pictures at

  1. Encouragement
  2. Golden Autumn Days – Muir of Dinnet NNR
  3. virginia hikes: Mount Pleasant loop, October 24 2019
  4. Fahnestock Flora
  5. Spectacular Color along the Parkway

++

Additional reading

  1. Temperatures rising
  2. Air-conditioning treath and HFCs extremely powerful heat-trappers
  3. Global watershortages and Worsening food security conditions
  4. June – July 2019
  5. Stepping forward with public commitments for Making different sectors carbon neutral by 2050
  6. Reducing effects of environmental disasters
  7. After the Summer-holiday thinking even more about God’s creation

+++

Related

  1. It’s getting hot in here!
  2. Global Warming
  3. Time to Care Before More Islands Disappear
  4. Global warming is no joke
  5. A Forecast for a Warming World: Learn to Live With Fire
  6. Industrial Carbon Storage/Removal
  7. The terrifying truth about Global warming
  8. What a Melting Arctic Circle Means for Us
  9. Concerns for the future of the Arctic
  10. New assessment related to Arctic Climate Argument
  11. Clear evidence the Pentagon has no idea how the global climate system functions
  12. Global Warming
  13. Arctic impact has showed our world is in danger
  14. Marianne Williamson: We Need ‘World War II Level Mass Mobilization’ to Fight Climate Change
  15. Tirol: Will Austria stand up for its environment and against Climate Change by refusing the Oetztal & Pitztal ski area merger?
  16. Caring for the Earth

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Filed under Activism and Peace Work, Being and Feeling, Ecological affairs, Lifestyle, Nature, Welfare matters, World affairs

From Guestwriters 2016 in review

English: The logo of the blogging software Wor...

Each day million articles are published, looking to find a reading eye. Every day thousands of new articles appear on WordPress. In 2016 one hundred seventeen billion nine hundred thirteen million one hundred forty-eight thousand three hundred fifty seven words got published on WordPress. {Automattic WordPress year-in-review-2016}

2016 in view

The year that David Bowie and Prince passed away, like several very well known figures of the arts world, it looked like some people who made it in their life did not want to stay here any longer. It was also the year of lots of terrorism and political correctness, where those who are different than the mainstream (disabled, transgender, refugees, extreme religious and non religious groups, jihad fighters,) got lots of attention.
In the United States of America Obama Care which at last had become a reality came back under threat. North America saw in Boston in November, the Disability Policy Consortium accepted proposals and held a Disability Intersectionality Summit. Presentations included topics on the intersections of being undocumented, being LGBTQ+, being a person of colour, having mental health disabilities, on #DisabilityTooWhite – the hashtag and movement around the the disability community’s failure to represent racially diverse voices – and more. Lots of things came on the American roller-coaster, having Michigan banned non-emergency restraint and seclusion for disabled students and Georgia’s governor speaking in favour of Employment First policies for disabled people in Georgia.

2016 Nice attack.png

Route of the attacker from west to east at the Promenade des Anglais, Nice

With the 15th anniversary of 9/11 the jihadi‘s made sure they would not be forgotten; ISIS/ISIL and BokoHaram being the new strongholders. In Europe the fear took so many people that politicians saw the opportunity to fuel the extreme right and come with absurd laws, like banning burkini‘s. All the fearmongering having fueled by the March 22 suicide bombings at Brussel’s Zaventem airport and Maelbeek metro station, leaving around 35 victims dead and 360 seriously injured, ISIS claiming responsibility.
America also got its portion of  ISIS-madness with a gunman claiming allegiance to the Islamic State opens fire at gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida, killing 49, injuring 53 – one of the bigger mass shootings in the U.S.A.. September 17 a terror bomb in Chelsea, New York injured 29 people. Lots of Americans got so frightened of Muslim people, looking at them if they all would be terrorist, though they under their own white Christian population had more victims by weapon violence this year than by terrorism. Several times the world could see how racism is still a big problem in the States and how police can not keep themselves in control when arresting black people. (African American Alton Sterling shot by Louisiana police in Baton Rouge and Philando Castile shot by police in St Paul Black on July 6; American Keith Lamont Scott September 20)
The Islamic militants for sure where very active all over the world. Some events called for more attention worldwide, having foreigners also under the victims or by being considered the country’s worse terror attack for the year, like at a cafe in Dhaka, Bangladesh, where a fighter killed 20 hostages and 2 police on July 1. The next day (July 2) a large lorry bomb in Baghdad killing at least 125 people and wounding 150, Islamic State claiming once more responsibility.  On December 11 a bombing at a chapel in Cairo, Egypt, killed 25 and wounded 45. December 19 again a truck was used to kill many people, like in Nice on the 14th of July now the target was a Christmas market in Berlin killing 12, injuring 48.

Terroranschlag-Berlin-Breitscheidplatz-2016 (2) (31731061626) (square crop).jpg

Aftermath of the 2016 Berlin attack

In the States of America on January 17 the Fourth Democratic presidential candidates debate showed how Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders clashed over healthcare and gun control in Charleston, South Carolina, and gave us an idea that though perhaps the best candidate of all Bernie Sanders would not going to make it to president elect. Two days later Sarah Palin officially endorsed Donald Trump‘s presidential bid at a Trump rally in Ames, Iowa. What nobody thought possible occurred when this man made it to the preselections, then to the selection to finally become what nobody would ever dreamed possible, him becoming president elect. November 8 Republican Donald Trump became elected President of The United States of America, defeating democrat Hillary Clinton despite Clinton winning 2.9 million more votes. Europe fell on its back for the second time, the first one having been the vote for the Brexit (June 23), who nobody had thought would come through. These two unexpected events show clearly how careful we must be when we think it not necessary to spend time on such personalities and situations.

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Paris Agreement under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change

For that reason we should much more react on what is going on on ecological level. The Paris Agreement on climate change signed in New York (on April 22) binding 195 nations to an increase in the global average temperature to less than 2°C above pre-industrial levels and to pursue efforts to limit the increase to 1.5°C is only the beginning of a long road to run. Global warming is not only blamed the cause of many people having to flee for the rising water-level. On August 1 there was an anthrax outbreak in the Russian district Yamalo-Nenets, Siberia killing one and infecting 8 others, also killing 2,300 reindeer. Indian government declared levels of air pollution in Delhi an emergency situation, closing schools and construction sites on November 6.

Though 2016 seemed to be the year that people where more concerned about the whereabouts and the look of their friends on Facebook and Twitter. Social media being the major interest gainer of the year. Most people more concerned about their outfit, fashion, style and strangely enough books and films again.

Astronaut Scott Kelly

Astronaut Scott Kelly

Lots of people running with their heads in the skies did not notice that US astronauts Scott Kelly and Russian cosmonaut Mikhail Kornienko returned to earth, on March the 2nd, after nearly a year (340 days), setting an ISS record. For the earthly matters it became time that the U.S.A. did something positive to restore the relations between them and Cuba. March 20 Barack Obama became the first US President to visit Cuba since 1928, arriving for a 2 day tour.

The ‘Big Joke of the year’ (in April) was to see how many politicians who said something had to be done against fraud and how people had to pay honestly their taxes, their names could be found on the 11.5 million confidential documents from offshore law firm Mossack Fonseca , the Panama Papers exposing widespread illegal activities including fraud, kleptocracy, tax evasion and the violation of international sanctions by the world’s elite in the world’s largest ever data leak.

On April 11 UN-backed ceasefire came into effect in Yemen conflict between Iranian-backed Houthis rebels and government forces.

June 7 with a car bomb attack on a police bus in central Istanbul killing 11 was just a beginning of a whole series of bombings in Turkey of which there is no clarity if they are orchestrated by some political forces to have Erdogan in an even stronger dictatorial position. June 28 presented again a suicide bombings and gun attacks, at Istanbul’s Ataturk Airport killing 42 and wounding more than 200. We have no idea if the coup d’etat was something set up by Erdogan himself. It gave him way to hold a big clean up and to get rid of all those who stood in his way.

In Colombia more than 50 years of conflict came in its last stadium, the governement and Farc rebels signing a ceasefire agreement on June the  23rd, followed by many talks to have the rebels not being sued.

2016 for this platform

WordPress Administration

WordPress Administration (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Of the 595,795,035 posts written on WordPress we only presented a mere 358 articles, hoping our humble little site could catch some interest by the many people who are scanning the worldwide internet for something interesting to read. From our tiny country not having any funds, not having serious backing and not able to afford much money on writers, designers or even having our own publishing space, just using the private limited funds of the editor and responsible publisher Mr. Marcus Ampe, we sincerely try to find some interesting literature on the net and present it to our readers and visitors. Because not having much GBites we are limited in re-blogging because pictorial content eats our internet data space, but when a must read is found with lots of photos we still do hope to be able to discuss it or to present it in one of our articles.

English: Stats on Cross-ideological Blogging

Stats on Cross-ideological Blogging (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

We must confess that we did not catch many readers for the many work-hours we invest searching for additional and further reading material. Luckily this was the first year we did not very angry letters of people being onerous that we included their article in the listing. In 2016 for the first time we even got a letter thanking us for having brought 1000 readers to someone’s site. Though we put a lot of work in creating all the links in the articles and in the accompanying list of interesting articles, to our sense or liking not enough people make use of those links and referential titles. For that reason from now on we shall perhaps start putting less url-backgroundlinks to words or tags, but still shall continue to try to offer you a list of noteworthy article by other bloggers.

It is a pity we only could find 7 782 views of only 4 827 visitors coming along.
Officially opened to the public on 2014/03/2 we got 1 847 visitors the first year and 2 764 visitors in 2015, so we may be satisfied it is a line going upwards. Though published from Belgium in the European Union, our ‘home-country’ only delivered 269 views. The United States being at the top with giving us 3745 views, followed by the United Kingdom delivering 852 views and our northern neighbours the Netherlands offering us 532 views may encourage us to continue.

The home page caught 2 118 views, followed by 349 for the About page. Of the articles “Religious celebrations in May 2016” got the most views (only 103) and got only 4 likes.

People naturally have to find us. 1 437 do so by using search machines, whilst 783 use the WordPress facilities. 155 come along by Facebook. But we too are happy to find other WordPress users referring to us and bringing readers to our site. Naturally our own authors or own sites like our ecclesia site (9 views), the Belgian Biblestudents and the Bijbelvorsers (each 8) and Stepping Toes (7), but non connected writers like ridzerdvandijk.wordpress.com with 8 views and sneakytwistedlittlewildheart.wordpress.com (good for 6), entering the promissedland (5), discoveronething (5), eternalhunt (5) and some others bringing us each 4 or less viewers.

U.S. advertisement for the 11th edition from t...

U.S. advertisement for the 11th edition from the May 1913 issue of National Geographic Magazine (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The most used search terms were ‘hoopvolle slogans’ and ‘bezinningsteksten zelfkritiek’ with each 3 hits.
We ourselves brought 110 readers to our other site “Our World” and for for other sources Wikipedia got 56 readers from us, whilst the Collins dictionary got 21 and the very good Encyclopaedia Britannica only 18 views. Abortion and crime rates by wordlifeandlight managed to get 6 views from us and Lizaborstlap received also 6 visitors, as far as we can see from our statistics.

imageThis last person who has always been a person with a to-do list is also one of the people who wanted to share some writing on this platform. But there were many days when she became a slave to her lists and she had to face that things don’t always happen as planned and that she would feel like a failure if she wasn’t able to cross out all the tasks that she allocated to a specific day.{a goal should scare you a little and excite you a Lot!}

She may perhaps had to become, like us, more specific and to be realistic in what she can (and can’t) achieve in one day; but we did want to reach so much and sometimes got frustrated not seeing our accomplishment for the day.

We are still looking for authors who would not mind to write about lifestyle, interior design, fashion, cooking, family life, gardening, nature and ecological matters and some persons who would not mind tackling the history and people who would love to write about education and health. There are so many subjects not covered yet by people who can tell more about it than we can.

From the end of 2016 onwards we added two viewpoints, namely two comparators, on one site the Muslim world and on the other site the Judaic world and traditions.

English: Monkeys Blogging Español: Simios blog...

English: Monkeys Blogging Español: Simios bloggeando (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

We do know that certain subjects are not tackled here. Marcus Ampe would love to find some one talking about family matters, family life being one of the cornerstones of our society. To his regret he must also establish that in 2016 not enough regard was given to ecological matters. Man having to live in surroundings which are too polluted and which are filled with buildings and cars, but not given the freedom to have enough green to bring enlightenment and fresh air to people. It is really getting time that more people warn others about us, man, to take care of mother earth, before it is too late.

Whilst on WordPress in general 112 million posts were liked, we did not have many likes. 8 billion e-mails were send on WordPress, but in those there are not counted the very many e-mails we got in our own e-mail box, instead of reacting on the blog articles themselves. This is a pity, because other readers can not read the reactions and oh so often we have to reply to very similar questions, which is more time consuming than having a reply which can be read by thousands on the internet.

For 2017 may we hope that if there are even more articles written on the internet than the 595,795,035 posted on WordPress in 2016 and the huge amount of comments, making it up to 457,596,906 comments on WordPress, you shall be able to  find some very interesting articles and comments here too.

Donald Trump enters the Oscar De LA Renta Fash...

Donald Trump enters the Oscar De LA Renta Fashion Show, New York. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

In 2016 we saw that it is possible that those with the biggest mouth and do not mind trampling over many can get their cause. 2016 may have been a disastrous year on several issues and lots of important issues where not even mentioned or got not the right attention. For this new year we love to repeat our call to get more people daring to come out for the poor and the maltreated. We also once more want to ask people to wake up the majority of the population who still keeps their eyes closed for what is really going on in this world. There is a need of more people who are willing to stand up to preserve and encourage the progress of humanity while resisting the forces that threaten to turn it backwards.

We have to be very cautious for what certain people try to do with their nation but also with the world. As citizen we should be aware that politicians are nothing without their people and that folks if they really want can be much stronger than those politicians, who dare to look away from the citizen who needs help and encouragement. Those who call themselves Christian should be there to give a hand to all that need help, not forgetting nature, plants and animals who do not have a voice. therefore we do hope to find more blogs tackling their problem, and would love to have an author on ecology writing for us from this year onwards.

Without you reader we are nothing and can do nothing. We thank you for being here with us and for the followers we are grateful and do hope we can please you with a varied menu.

Wishing everyone a great 2017.

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Preceding article

2014 in review

In 2015 finishing our first year: From Guestwriters 2015 in review

Pokémon craziness

2016 Wildlife Photographer of the Year

Children of Men

Max Lucado: I Had a Dream That Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump Reached a Truce

Leaders in disguise

Looking at man’s closest friend

Looking at an American nightmare

The twist of politics and expression

Tribes Redux

Darkest just before dawn

Bruxelles Ma Belle

Mountains of information, disinformation and breaking away

Women in France running with naked bosom all right but with covered bosom penalised

An American Embassy to the Eternal Capital of the Jewish people, Jerusalem

Humanity Quote for Pax Populi

When will it stop

Not limiting others but sharing peace with all

Not missing your appointment in 2017

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Additional reading

  1. EU’s European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP) asylum seekers and Eastern neighbours
  2. At the closing hours of 2016 #1 Looking down at terror
  3. At the closing hours of 2016 #2 Low but also highlights
  4. Suffering brothers and sisters in Malawi, Mozambique and surrounding areas
  5. Not much interest for English articles
  6. From Bibles and other religious writings and those who witness for Jehovah
  7. 2016 American Bible survey
  8. On April 21 brother Nelson, in the world better known as Prince was lost
  9. Social media, sympathy & shocks
  10. Foreign workers and immigrants
  11. A stain of shame for the European Union
  12. Voted against their system
  13. A sleeper cell of militants was said directing attackers sent back to France from Islamic State’s de-facto capital in Raqqa, Syria
  14. Daesh hits heart of Europe
  15. Islamism Rises from Europe’s Secularism
  16. March 22 2016, attacks in Brussels at airport and metro
  17. A Black day for Belgium – Brussels Airport ravage
  18. Knife-trust in democratic sore back
  19. For those who call the Brussels Airport attacks a fake or a conspiracy of the government
  20. Terrorist attacks in brussels
  21. Silence, devotion, Salafists, quietists, weaponry, bombings, books, writers and terrorists
  22. US President, Barack Obama Condemns The Outrageous Brussels Attacks
  23. What Associated Press released on Wednesday 23 March 2016
  24. Mediterranean bloodshed
  25. Nice attack, terror everywhere and coup attempt in Turkey
  26. Is Europe going to become a dictatorial bastion
  27. French showing to the whole world their fear and weakness
  28. On French beach French police forces woman to undress in public
  29. France and the Burkini
  30. Secularism in France becoming dangerous for freedom of religion
  31. Christians, secularism, morals and values
  32. Listening to the lessons of the Bible and looking for ways to please God
  33. Where’s the Outrage Over Nun Beachwear? – The Daily Beast
  34. You are what you wear
  35. Does Banning Face Veils Help Us Fight Terrorism?
  36. Jews the next scapegoat for Donald Trump
  37. The American clouds of Anti-Semitism
  38. Blinded crying blue murder having being made afraid by a bugaboo
  39. The clean sweeper of the whole caboodle
  40. Trump has been buffetted by accusations of miscunduct
  41. Fearmongering succeeded and got the bugaboo a victory
  42. Are United States of America citizens going to show their senses
  43. When so desperate to hold onto power
  44. Some quotes Americans should remember when going to the ballot office
  45. Brexit and British business
  46. Brexit No. 2 Blow-up
  47. Nigel Farage called Donald Trump’s victory ‘bigger than Brexit’
  48. A strong and wise fighter who keeps believing in America
  49. Bosphorus bloodshed
  50. Belgian aftershock from the Turkish coup d’état

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Other WordPress bloggers looking back at 2016

  1. 2016 Year In Review (by Hunter Bonner)
  2. 16 things i learned in 2016
  3. 2016 was lighting candles to mourn, but it was also carrying torches high
  4. 2016: Year in Review (by Angela Classen)
  5. Hasta La Vista 2016!
  6. Top 10 Moments of 2016
  7. 2016 in Review (by Pastor Zach)
  8. A year in review
  9. 2016 in Review: Your Favorites, My Favorites
  10. 2016 Review (by Pliable)
  11. Tater’s 2016 In Review
  12. Best and worst reads of 2016
  13. Reflections and Resolutions for 2017
  14. 2016 Year in review book tag
  15. V’s Reading Year in Review: 2016
  16. 2016 Recap and 2017 Goals
  17. A Look Back at 2016
  18. 2016 in Review (by amanda)
  19. 2016 in review (by Katrin Ilves)
  20. My 2016 Freelancing Report: 28 Pitches Disappeared into a Black Hole (but I’m okay with that)
  21. 2016 Year in Review (by Trip accomplice)
  22. Honorable Mentions 2016
  23. 16 in 2016: Results
  24. 2016 Year in Review (by Abby)
  25. Looking Back at 2016…
  26. 2016 in the books
  27. My 2016 in Books and Graphic Novels, Part 1 of 2
  28. 2016 in Review (by Sarah)
  29. Best and Worst of 2016
  30. Sara Reads No. 17
  31. Two Thousand and Sixteen
  32. So Long 2016!
  33. 2016: The Book Fight! Year in Review
  34. Year In Review: Variety Edition
  35. 216 of 2016
  36. 2016 Year in Review (by Becker)
  37. 2016 Year in Review: A Year in Outfits
  38. 2016 In Review (by Leigh)
  39. 2016; What a Year
  40. A Look Back at 2016 and a Peek Forward at 2017
  41. 2016: Year in Pictures
  42. 2016 Year in Review – The Five Most Thrilling Action Scenes
  43. Looking Back on 2016 (by sip of star)
  44. 2016: Year in Review (by James)
  45. 2016 Year In Review (by alex)
  46. My Top Ten Books from 2016
  47. Top Ten Blogs of 2016
  48. vCloud Air: 2016 Year in Review
  49. 2016: Running Year in Review
  50. 2016: My Year in Review (by lurking)
  51. Things that were not garbage even though 2016 was
  52. Adelaide Etc in 201
  53. Looking at 2016
  54. Blogging Lessons of 2016
  55. 2017 New Year’s Resolutions
  56. 2016 in Review (by dgobs)
  57. 2016 – A Year in Review (by comics)
  58. 2016 in Review (by the Cappucino traveler)
  59. Highlights from 2016
  60. Life of Lizzie: 2016 In Review
  61. Top 10 Tuesday: Best Books of 2016
  62. 2016 Year in Review (by Library cancuck)
  63. The 2017 Post
  64. The best 15 posts of 2016
  65. 2016 Year in Review – Book Stats
  66. 2016 by the Numbers (by Melissa)
  67. Five 2016 singles that I find myself enjoying in 2016
  68. Happy 2017 From Still Chasing Fireflies!
  69. The Best Albums of 2016
  70. My 2016 in Books and Graphic Novels, Part 2 of 2
  71. 2016: Year in Review (by Natalieinne)
  72. 2016 in Books (by Stories)
  73. Year In Review: Kpop Edition
  74. 16 Things I Learned In 2016
  75. My Year In Re(ar)view
  76. 2016: Year in Review (by Kai)
  77. Foursquare/Swarm Year in Review
  78. What i learnt in 2016
  79. My Top Five Blog Posts of 2016 (and other highlights)
  80. Dear 2017 (by Sophia van Gent)
  81. Top Posts of 2016
  82. 2016 Year in Review (by Styled by Summer)
  83. The End Of Year Survey For 2016
  84. 2016 Year in Review (by Angela Chau)
  85. 2016 Year in Review (by LJT Reads)
  86. 2016: A Year in Review (by Zaweebie)
  87. 2016: A Bookish Retrospective
  88. 2016: A Review (by Jazmin)
  89. Goodbye 2016
  90. The scariest post I’ve ever written: my favorite reads in 2016
  91. 2016 Year in Review
  92. The Ups and Downs of 2016 – The Year in Review
  93. 2016, A Year in Review: a yer of ups and downs
  94. My Year In Review. Mom Fashion Style
  95. One of My Favorite Things
  96. 2016 Year In Review (by Ashley)
  97. 2016, By the Numbers
  98. Alt-Right 2016: The Current Year in Review
  99. Year in review: 2016 Top Ten Conspiracies
  100. 7 Global Health Breakthroughs: A Year in Review
  101. ABC s of 2016
  102. 2016 #DiversityJC – Ian’s Year-End Review
  103. 2016 Year in Review-it was interesting
  104. “Reflecting on 2016” part 2 = My Biggest Disappointments
  105. 9 Reasons Why 2016 Was Pretty Great
  106. Top 6 of 2016
  107. 2016 in review (by BamBam)
  108. 2016 Year In Review: The Good, The Bad And The Deaths
  109. Breakaway 2016 – A Year In Review
  110. Trump, Prince, and Queen Elizabeth: 2016’s most-read Wikipedia articles
  111. 2016: Sustainable Nano Year in Review
  112. Quiz of the Year Response!
  113. Hello 2017! (by spina squared)
  114. 2016 in Review: A Year on Staff
  115. Looking Back on 2016 (by Melissa Burgess)
  116. 2016 – A Moment a Month
  117. My Blog in 2016 (by MS.L. Wheeler)
  118. 2016 Year in Review (by Ingrid Racine)
  119. My Year in Books 2016
  120. Best Books of 2016 (by Gwen)
  121. 2016 in Review by Ellie Pelto)
  122. 22: Books I read last year
  123. Comics Update: My Current Lineup and 2016 Pros & Cons
  124. 2016 #DiversityJC – Doctor_PMS’s Year End Review
  125. Top Ten Books of 2016
  126. Top 16 of 2016
  127. 2016 in Film
  128. Reader’s Room Winter Challenge
  129. My Tweets in 2016 #MTBoS
  130. 16 great things from 2016
  131. Jim Ryan: Looking Back At The Year in Music
  132. New Year : Noob Year
  133. My One Word for 2017: Onward
  134. New Year Blog – Revising 2016, and Looking Forward to 2017
  135. 2016 Year in Books
  136. 2016 Law Review
  137. 2016 – A Year in Review (by Rob P)
  138. Softimage mailing 2016 year in review
  139. Top 8 of 2016: Art Highlights
  140. Rowls- 2016 year in review
  141. Faves of 2016: Nonfiction
  142. 2016 My Year in Review:  My Top Ten Personal Lessons/Observations
  143. Goodbye 2016 (by Allison Anti Quotidian)
  144. 2016 Year in Review (by Kialtho)
  145. A Year In Review
  146. My goals for 2017
  147. Yeah, 2017!
  148. 2016 Year In Review (It Sucked But I Read A Lot)
  149. Tart ISBI: Year in Review, 2016
  150. 2017 A Year of Light in Action
  151. fifty things that made my year, 2016
  152. You are (20)16 going on (20)17
  153. 2016: Amazing Year in Review
  154. Goodbye 2016
  155. 2016 Book Archive
  156. 2016: Stronger Together
  157. a year in the life
  158. 2016 Was interesting
  159. 2016 Costuming Year in Review
  160. Learn How to Better Engage Your Child with a Year in Review Activity
  161. The Obsessive Viewer Podcast – Ep 199 – 2016 Year in Review – Best and Worst Movies of the Year and Viewing Stats
  162. Looking back at 2016
  163. 2016 in Music: Shock and Awe
  164. Look back, leap forward
  165. Were You Ready To Close Your Book?
  166. 2017 (by Andrew Reynolds)
  167. 2016 In Review (by Aaron Mallett)
  168. My 2016 at the Movies, Part 1 of 2: The Year’s Least Best
  169. Ten Moments in GH music: 2016
  170. Anime of the Year: CJ Hitchcock’s Top 5 Anime of 2016
  171. 2016 Reflections
  172. Year in Review/Shit for 2017
  173. 2016 Year in Review (by Dan Guido)
  174. January 9: Warmer Weather Ahead, Looking Back At 2016
  175. 2017 – a year in review
  176. Annual Statement of Goals, 2017 Edition
  177. 2016 Reading Challenge – final report
  178. New Year, New baby, new outlook
  179. 2016 Beer in Review
  180. Happy 2017
  181. NFL Year in Review
  182. Tag – Year-end Superlative Tag
  183. Yearly Wrap-Up! || 2016
  184. 2016 in Books
  185. End of Year Survey; 2016
  186. 2016 Year In Review (by Run Wright)
  187. 2016 Year in Review (a crazy year for bad literature)
  188. Some Days in 2016
  189. Twenty-sixteen: that’s a wrap
  190. 2016 in review (by Mara Thang)
  191. My 2016 at the Movies, Part 2 of 2: The Year’s Least Worst
  192. 2016: A Yer in review (all in one)
  193. My Writing Year – 2016 In Review
  194. Endings & Beginnings
  195. 2016 Year In Review! (by circling around the sun)
  196. The year of many firsts
  197. Goodbye 2016 – Hello 2017
  198. 2016 – A Year In Review
  199. Two Years Gone By
  200. translate.wordpress.com in 2016
  201. Welcoming the light
  202. My Bookish Year 2016
  203. 2016 Pop Culture Year in Review
  204. Short stories I read and loved in 2016
  205. Set It Off: My Writing Goals for 2017
  206. Goodbye 2016
  207. 2016 By The Numbers
  208. 2016 In review (the Mic is the message)
  209. 2016 in Review (by Cindy)
  210. Erin Blogs 2016 in Review
  211. High Five For 2016!
  212. 2016 Round up
  213. 2016: Year in Reading
  214. 2016: looking back
  215. So That Was 2016..Year in Review
  216. 2016
  217. Year In Review – 2016 (by atop the clouds)

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Filed under Activisme & Vredeswerk, Announcement, Crimes & Atrocities, Ecological affairs, Economical affairs, Headlines - News, History, Lifestyle, Political affairs, Re-Blogs and Great Blogs, Welfare matters, World affairs

From Guestwriters 2015 in review

From the start in 2014, April the 26th

On 2014 April 26 we started offering a readers digest to you. We wanted to have different writers presenting their selection of most interesting articles found on the net. We regret we did not find enough people interested in co-operating to create a free lifestyle magazine where people could find uplifting stories.

We started talking about the dreams we all have or have to have, because he who beams never walks in the dark, and looked at our position in this world and how positivism should enter this world more. Our invitation to you reader to share those read articles you liked is still counting. We would love to present more interesting articles people can find on the net. For this reason we started the Reblog section in 2014, when we looked if we or you have something to say or not.

At the opening of 2016 we would like to remind you that you too are invited to share with us. You too may be sharing your words with us and many more readers. You don’t have to stay in the shadow.

At this site we want to speak about feelings and started to look at the worst feeling, the one which pulls us down. Depression is when we can’t walk in the light of life any more. Our intention is to show that each of us matter in this world and that we can get fate in our change to positiveness. You and us we all can contribute and help to create a positive attitude. You have to get the right attitude of an unstoppable success, and once more we do bring a call to help to create a positive attitude.

You may consider your own journey in life but we dared to ask which kind of attitude you want to take. In 2014, when we started we asked our readers to begin their day by living their positive attitude and in started also to point out to look at the way to come to the truth. We went in defence of it. For that, we also started looking at Who should be your closest friend.

Though we may be lonely in the crowd we wanted to build up a place where many could find each other and could overcome hurt feelings. we do not ask people to be some one else, but would love to see you smiling and with a positive attitude or positive disposition.

Perhaps what we hope for is what you hope for. In September 2014 we repeated our call to come to write for us and to share what you think interesting. A year after our question what our readers are seeking we did not receive many answers. We expressed our love to find more contributors who could show ways of fulfilling our dreams. We do hope you could find inspiration here and follow your dreams.

In 2015 finishing our first year

On the first of January we, like many others looked back at the previous year and presented our first review: 2014 in review.

Our first year we got visitors from 71 countries in all. 13 countries were added in 2015 bringing the total to 84 countries in all, with most visitors again coming from The United States (2467). Netherlands (351) & United Kingdom (341) were not far behind. Based in Belgium we only could get the attention of 181 viewers in Belgium in 2015, which is not much, but which can be caused by not many writings being in Dutch, French or German. We are pleased we also got 141 viewers from Down Under.

Knowing that we need light on our path in life, near the end of 2015 we also started placing some reflections or meditations texts, which we shall continue to do. Because we did so often got questions why we referred to some ones website article, or got requests to take some listed article out of the list of “Further reading” we shall enter less references or note lesser further readings. Normally you would think people would be pleased when there is placed a link to their site, but at several of our websites we got an other impression, hearing people not being pleased they being mentioned on one of our sites. Not being appreciated we bringing others to their writings or commenting on their writings, plus they not understanding we are helping them to get more readers and to get higher on the Google ranking, whilst we take them away from our own website, we will not any more invest so much time in looking for appropriate articles worth mentioning. Therefore in the future you will find lesser links and we shall be pleased keeping you more to our own websites.

Treats, fear and discussions in 2015

2015 was again a year were many civil rights were tread under foot. The Syrian war continued for its fourth year and brought many war refugees into Europe, a region where many do not seem to know themselves very well because kindness to others seemed to be far off. Though we are born to shine, not to fear, lots of people got over-manned by fear. At a time where there is not much knowledge of the truth, but lots of doubt and/or blindness, we tried to convince that less is still enough.

While viral moments and trends or fads, that took up lots of people their time and their Twitter feeds included viral phenomenon The Dress, pizza rat, dad bods and adult coloring books we looked at the major refugee crisis in Europe as well as numerous instances of terrorism and mass shootings. Whilst July, Caitlyn Jenner made her big debut via a sexy and scantily clad Vanity Fair cover shot…and her new reality was officially underway we also look at how we human beings manage with birth, our being and our behaviour and acceptance or not of certain situations. Bringing articles around abortion and life we were pleased to have as our 5 most active commenter  Blackhorn33 who is Comanche – Irish and a half-breed that’s Full Blooded American, who with “Our Circle of Friends” met on Google and was willing to contribute about Child Abuse -The Facts, and show the world the importance of the unborn life.

A place for a Higher Being and for His Creation

Svenska: "Stockholmsfyrens" ungefärl...

“Stockholmsfyrens” ungefärliga utseende vid Ropsten med vy från hotell Forestas entréplan på Lidingö. Det runda 187 m höga tornet innehållande både bostäder och kontorslokaler är föreslaget att uppföras omkring 2014-2015. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

With less for more we looked at one of the major discussed issues of the year, bringing global warming and climate change at the second place and the refugees at the first place as major topics for 2015. Pointing out that it is important that we do know that we have to find the meaning of life and reach a state of peace, of old and new ideas to sustain power and to feel good by loving to be connected and worship something, we brought to the attention that we have our duties in this world and have to take our responsibility,making the right engagement in an actual two way conversation with your deities or more important to build up a good relationship with the Only One True God, the Divine Creator.

Throughout the year on this and our other sites we wanted to bring to understanding that we do have to come in a good relationship with others and with the Most High, even when we sometimes have to deal with the silence of God.

We asked not to forget that falsehood darkens the pure knowledge of God and that we should always turn to the Book of books, the Bible, to find the truth and Guidance. But to come to know the Creator and His creatures and creation, we do have to look with our eyes and to see with our heart. Some may think “God plays hide’n seek“, but He is always around us and sees everything we do.
The Almighty God above all other gods greater than all gods has given us His infallible Word, the Bible, helmet of salvation, God’s Words put in the mouth of prophets for perfecting, to reprove and correct. Searching or overlooking God’s presence more people do have to find His Word and take up that book that is Written by inspiration of God for our admonition, to whom it shall be imputed if they believe.

2015 once more showed to the world that human beings need a lot of correction. It was good to see that in France many nations also came to conclusion we have urgently to take care of mother earth. In this world were many have to learn that stuff is just stuff, it became time that man takes his position about materialistic desires.

The terrors which came over Europe should make those who call themselves Christian to think and have them remind and hear God’s voice, bringing them into the habit of dealing with God about everything.

Statistics for 2015

In 2015, there were 295 new posts, growing the total archive of this blog to 525 posts. On the 12th of January in total 534 articles have been published on this site. 

The busiest day of the year was October 19th with 175 views. The most popular post that day was Whoopi Goldberg commandments and abortion. But the most commented on post in 2015 was Bible, helmet of salvation, God’s Words put in the mouth of prophets for perfecting, to reprove and correct.

For 2016

We are thankful that you came along on this site and do hope to find you more than once at this and some other of our sites. We wish you all the best for 2016 and do hope you may be like a tree planted by streams of water.

Have faith in your faith…doubt your doubts and don’t throw a curtain across tomorrow… the star of its performance just may be you !

There still has to be done a lot before we shall have sustainable, green habits as a second nature, but at this site we do hope to bring incentives to work at it.

The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2015 annual report for this blog.

Here’s an excerpt:

A New York City subway train holds 1,200 people. This blog was viewed about 4,300 times in 2015. If it were a NYC subway train, it would take about 4 trips to carry that many people.

Click here to see the complete report.

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Preceding: 2014 in review

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Additional reading

  1. A look at materialism
  2. Our you taking a step back to think
  3. US must do more to protect its children
  4. A year coming to its end and our Spiritual Senses
  5. Summary for the year 2015 #1 Threat and fear
  6. Summary for the year 2015 # 2 Strewn with corpses and refugees
  7. 2015 In the Picture
  8. 2015 Human rights
  9. 2015 Health and Welfare
  10. 2015 Ecology
  11. Vatican against Opponents of immigration
  12. Greenpeace demands scale up of ecological farming
  13. Building a low-carbon world: the sixth industrial revolution
  14. Republican member of Congress from Arizona to boycott pope’s address over climate change
  15. Vatican meeting of mayors talking about global warming, human trafficking and modern-day slavery
  16. Paris World Summit of Conscience, International interfaith gathering #1
  17. Paris World Summit of Conscience, International interfaith gathering #2
  18. Paris World Summit of Conscience, International interfaith gathering #3
  19. 2015 Summit of Consciences for the Climate
  20. A Miracle of Unity at COP21
  21. Charlie Hebdo
  22. Belgian Bible Students review of 2015
  23. Bijbelvorsers Blogging annual report and 2015 in review
  24. Refugee crisis, terrorist attacks and created fear
  25. Before you blame All Muslims for the terrorist attack in Paris
  26. The first on the list of the concerns of the saint
  27. Clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience
  28. The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands
  29. Hidden potential for helping others
  30. Only one person who has the power to cast the deciding vote that will kill your dream
  31. Have faith in your faith…doubt your doubts
  32. The inspiring divine spark
  33. Healthy life can be found in sacred books
  34. No prophecy of the scripture is of any private interpretation
  35. A Bible Falling Apart Belongs to Someone who isn’t
  36. A heart in the right place and brightly burning faith
  37. For attractive lips, speak words of kindness
  38. If you want to go far in life
  39. Spread love everywhere you go
  40. Tenderness and kindness are not signs of weakness and despair
  41. The truest greatness lies in being kind
  42. Kindness
  43. Guard well within yourself that treasure, kindness
  44. Be kinder than necessary
  45. He who cannot forgive breaks the bridge over which he himself must pass
  46. Taking care of mother earth
  47. No curtain placed over tomorrow

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Further about what happened in 2015

  1. MSN 2015 in review
  2. 2015 in review: Memorable Journeys on EP
  3. 2015 Wrap Up!
  4. My most difficult travel moments of 2015
  5. The 2015 Eternal Hunt Awards, pt. 2: The Hobbyists
  6. Stay within the lines – or not!
  7. coloring to de-stress; I’ve joined the craze!
  8. Art and the Holidays
  9. Whatever Is Lovely
  10. Intuitive Coaching 101–Zen & The Art of Coloring Books
  11. Adults Coloring Kaleidoscopic Creatures
  12. Unique Sugar Gliders Chinchillas Reptile Adult Coloring Books
  13. Adult Coloring Worldwide & Tangle With Jessica Palmers Hidden Treasures
  14. What Amazon’s 2015 Bestsellers Say About Us
  15. Winter 2015: The rest of the field…
  16. Grandad, I can smell you …
  17. Kaleidoscope of 2015
  18. Reflecting on 2015
  19. My 2015 In Year Review
  20. 2015 In Review… (adventuretimealpacamybag)
  21. 2015 In Review (ingridandjimmy)
  22. 50 Things that made me smile in 2015
  23. The Year That Was…2015
  24. Favorite-est things from #2015
  25. Be Looking at 2015 in review
  26. 2015 in Review: Paradise River, Dusk
  27. The Obsessive Viewer Podcast – Ep 148 – 2015 in Review – Best and Worst Movies of the Year and Viewing Stats
  28. Looking Back at 2015
  29. Year in Review
  30. New Zealand’s 2015: the year we hid from a world in need
  31. End of the Year Survey 2015!
  32. 2015 in transit
  33. A New Year: 2015 In Review and Plans for 2016!
  34. Bye bye 2015 and welcome 2016
  35. Start 2016 with a Backwards Slide
  36. Let’s Commence to Coordinate our Sights
  37. Flee from Idolatry

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14 Comments

Filed under Aankondiging & Introductie, Announcement, History, Introduction, Knowledge & Wisdom, Lifestyle, Nature, Re-Blogs and Great Blogs, Religious affairs, Social affairs, Spiritual affairs, Welfare matters, World affairs

First man’s task still counting today

Today many people do forget their role to play in our society and which position of responsibility they have to take in this universe of living creatures. Too many years human beings have found themselves superior to all other beings and did not have much interest for their well being, neither for the safeguarding of the environment.

Today we are faced with the consequences of human beings their selfish attitude and have to find a solution for the global warming of which we are a victim because of our “own stupidity”.

oil on wood panel

oil on wood panel (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

We may not forget that when this universe was created the Maker of it had a purpose for the created elements. At that time of the beginning the first man and mannin (Adam and Eve) received a task. Though they went into rebellion against their Maker and were expelled from the Garden of Eden, their given task still counts for us. Our job and our identity as human beings is still to make sense of the world around us.

It is interesting to realize that in so many ways we are still striving to create a language to make order of the chaos of our experience of the world. {Naming the Naming Project: A Deep Look at Adam and the Human Project}

For centuries man has been looking for his purpose and for more insight in all the things around him. Several ideas were uttered and many sciences found their light.

It seems Adam’s job is hard-wired into who we are as human beings. We just need to name it that in a very deep way Adam is who we are striving to become. {Naming the Naming Project: A Deep Look at Adam and the Human Project}

writes Rabbi Avi Katz Orlow who wants to make the world a better place.

In arts and science man has always looked at man’s surroundings and the existence of things.

Children have the delight of discovery. As adults, we acquire a more organized way of learning and studying, but also lose the feel of the freshness of things. Because of that, most adults are – almost by definition – slightly dull. Creative ability is only found in those who retain a part of their childhood. The artist and the scientist both have this freshness of view. An apple falls from a tree: the child asks – why does it fall and not fly? –and such questions are the beginning of science. {What is the Purpose of Childhood}

Growing older lots of people do loose the innocence of the child and also loose the interest to ‘look beyond’. those who call themselves Christian should remember the one who they say they are following, rabbi Jeshua, and should also to take on that innocence that man had as an unselfish attitude. He went even so far that he gave up his only life for the betterment of all people. All people can learn a lot from him, who did not want to do his own will but always did the Will of his heavenly Father, the Only One true God, Hashem Jehovah.

Most of us should get red cheeks and be ashamed that they often do not manage to take on such an attitude as their master teacher. But every day we should work on it and go for it. Not one moment should be lost by not trying. As long as we do our best, it is not bad.

Lots of people do place themselves in the centre of the universe. Part of growing up and becoming older is that we should become wiser and be able to set ourselves more at the site and be forgiving for bad things that happened in the past. We can always look back at one of the best examples in the Holy Scriptures, though having had to face several bad years he opened his heart for his brothers and welcomed them again.

Yosef has matured. Looking into the pit Yosef sees how far he has come in his life. He no longer sees himself at the center of the universe. Yosef responds:Have no fear! Am I a substitute for God? Besides, although you intended me harm, God intended it for good, so as to bring about the present result–the survival of many people. (50:19-20) {What, Too Soon?}

Every day in our life we have to learn and to grow further. Some may think that learning is difficult or that

Learning should be hard, but not to hard and definitely not out of reach. {Getting Past the “How” of Torah: For the Love of Learning}

Being made in the image of God, we all inherited from the Source of Life, the inability to think and to use our brains and limbs to act and to create in the right way. There are people living in regions were it is also very easy to get a good education. Others live in regions where not such ideal conditions exist and where not many are helping others to get the right and good education.

In a certain way god provided enough material to get the right ideas and to make the best out of life. It is all there for everybody everywhere in the world. But many do not see it or want to be blind for it.

We can read about the reception of the Torah.

For this commandment which I command you this day, it is not too hard for you, neither is it far off. It is not in heaven, that you should say: ‘Who shall go up for us to heaven, and bring it unto us, and make us to hear it, that we may do it?’ Neither is it beyond the sea, that you should say: ‘Who shall go over the sea for us, and bring it to us, and make us to hear it, that we may do it?’ (Deuteronomy 30:11–13)

For rabbi Avi Katz Orlow learning should not to hard and definitely not out of reach.

Here we see learning Torah depicted as some elaborate scavenger hunt. What zeal would we bring to trying to learn Torah if it was in fact hidden in the heaven or on the other side of the ocean? {Getting Past the “How” of Torah: For the Love of Learning}In our community there are many efforts to make Torah more accessible, but still people feel alienated. What are we missing? Perhaps we have made Torah too accessible? We have lost our zeal. Would we try harder if it was in heaven or across the sea? But I do not think that is all of it.We fail because we have not done a good job expressing the “why”? Yes I am Hassid of Simon Sinek.  And if you have not seen this TED talk please stop everything and watch it now. {Getting Past the “How” of Torah: For the Love of Learning}

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Simon Sinek discusses the principal behind every successful person and business. A simple but powerful model for how leaders inspire action, starting with a golden circle and the question “Why?”

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Why is learning valuable? I have my thoughts on this, but for now I just want to put the question out there. In Sinek’s words,

People don’t buy what you do; they buy why you do it. And if you talk about what you believe, you will attract those who believe what you believe.

As we prepare for the High Holidays it is interesting to think about your own “why”. And once we figure out our “why” it will not matter if learning Torah is in heaven or across the sea, that is just a “how”. {Getting Past the “How” of Torah: For the Love of Learning}

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Preceding article: A little ray of sunshine.

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Additional reading:

  1. Necessary to be known all over the earth
  2. Christian values, traditions, real or false stories, pure and upright belief
  3. Being Religious and Spiritual 4 Philosophical, religious and spiritual people
  4. An unbridgeable gap
  5. Without God no purpose, no goal, no hope
  6. Atonement And Fellowship 7/8
  7. Shared inheritance plus integral and integrating vision
  8. Not many coming out with their community name
  9. To find ways of Godly understanding
  10. We are ourselves responsible
  11. A Living Faith #10: Our manner of Life #2
  12. What part of the Body am I?
  13. If we, in our prosperity, neglect religious instruction and authority
  14. With the gift of Jesus comes an awesome responsibility
  15. Training for the kingdom
  16. From pain to purpose
  17. My 2 Words
  18. Teach children the Bible
  19. Beautiful feet of those who announce the good news
  20. The Greatest of These is Love

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Vatican meeting of mayors talking about global warming, human trafficking and modern-day slavery

65 mayors and top representatives from some of the world’s most prominent cities — including New York, Paris, Stockholm, and Tehran came to the Vatican, whilst the London major send his cat.

Both Tuesday’s workshop, titled “Modern Slavery and Climate Change: The Commitment of the Cities,” and a Wednesday symposium on “Prosperity, People, and Planet: Achieving Sustainable Development in Our Cities,” will be hosted by the Vatican’s Academies of Sciences and Social Sciences and underwritten by an Italian donor.

The meetings are cosponsored by the United Nations.

Francis told the mayors at a Vatican summit on climate change and human trafficking that he placed great trust in the United Nations to bring about a good agreement.

Pope Francis said he has “a lot of hope” that negotiators at Paris climate talks will reach an ambitious agreement to reduce global warming.

But he also wants U.N. nations to prioritize fighting both human trafficking and the exploitation of the world’s most vulnerable people.

The Vatican is angling to make sure the U.N.’s new Sustainable Development Goals, to be finalized in September, address the problems of human trafficking and modern-day slavery.

Trafficking In Persons Report Map 2010

Trafficking In Persons Report Map 2010 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

English: (Green) Italy. (Light-green) The Euro...

(Green) Italy. (Light-green) The European Union (EU). (Grey) Europe. (Light-grey) The surrounding region. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio did express his discontentment concerning the European Union leaving Italy in the cold. That country can impossibly deal on its own with waves of immigrants coming from North Africa. The EU must come up with a Europe-wide immigration policy.

De Blasio, whose grandparents emigrated from Italy to New York, said he was

“deeply troubled by the lack of action by the European Union and the way that Italy has been left to fend for itself very unfairly.”

The African-American Birmingham Mayor William Bell had a very personal reason for being at the Vatican’s conference on climate change and human slavery.

Today, he told his fellow mayors from around the world:

“At the time of my birth, I was born into a society in Birmingham, Alabama, that existed as a close cousin of slavery called segregation.”

and continued:

“Segregation was designed to exploit individuals and groups based on race and race alone. It was for the economic purpose of cheap labour. It was to control society. It was to control human beings.”

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