Thank You

Thank you 4 Nov 2019, Little Village, Charlene Lange

It’s almost Thanksgiving and I want to shout out to all those I need to be thankful for in the past year.

Thank you, politicians such as city officials Mayor Jim Throgmorton and the Iowa City City Council; county officials like the Johnson County Board of Supervisors for supporting a moratorium on CAFOs; state legislators like Sen. Joe Bolkcom and Sen. Rob Hogg and all the presidential candidates for educating and planning to make our world better.

Thank you, groups such as: Sierra Club, CCI, Catholic Worker House, Clear4 and Center for Worker Justice; Oceana for educating others to stop polluting the waters and to start collecting trash in our waters; IARA and Sustainable Iowa Land Trust (SILT) for helping farmers become more sustainable; CCL and ICCA working on passage of the Energy Innovation and Carbon Dividend Act; and 100 Grannies, who are educating, advocating and agitating me and others to reduce plastics, stop poisoning our water through lawn chemicals, teaching children and adults through books, giving recipes and reasons to eat less meat and contacting politicians to enact laws for local control and a moratorium on CAFOs.

Thank you, businesses New Pioneer Co-op, Trumpet Blossom Cafe and Moxie Solar.

Thank you, firefighters, Red Cross workers and volunteers who are on the front line of the battle of climate change; the scientists, professors, business people, inventors and accountants working and teaching others about the world around us and offering solutions and hope.

Thank you, farmers who are becoming sustainable, rotating crops, planting cover crops, grazing animals on pasture, becoming CSAs and creating soil erosion barriers, conservation easements, contour buffer strips, filter strips. All this to reduce flooding, grow food for people in a sustainable way and protect our land and water.

Thank you, adults who are composting, recycling, riding the bus, no longer using lawn chemicals; switching their dual outdoor lights to just security to help the birds; contacting companies to request non-water-based products, less packaging and recyclable packaging; investing in new green technology like solar, electric cars, wind energy, etc.; helping the climate refugees; writing letters and signing petitions to protect our world; recycling the non-recyclable; updating websites to keep current with the issues; and learning and sharing through books, lectures and movies on why and how to change more.

And last of all, thank you to all the kids, Student Climate Strikers and Greta Thunberg for speaking up to demand a livable future from schools, universities, the city, the state and the countries.

For all those who are educating me; all those who are meeting the challenge of climate change; all those who are stepping up and doing what more to save me, our resources and our world, THANK YOU.

Keep up the great work. There are more people this year than last, but we need more of all to work together, as we are all interconnected. So thank you for all you do. Maybe next year I can add our governor, our president and all our senators.