Now what? Five things you can work on immediately.

After Tuesday’s election, a whole lot of Americans are fretting, even afraid. Understandably. What will Trump do to immigrants? Women? Journalists? Activists? College professors?

Trump’s revenge-tour list could be quite long.

I like what Bill McKibben wrote this week: “Can things get worse? I think they can, and I think we will find out, here and around the world. But I don’t think it will last either, because the promises on which this new MAGA order are built are mostly nonsense.”

That’s the mix of honesty and optimism we need. In the coming weeks and months, my talk-show guests and I will have a lot to say about the risks that lie ahead — and what we can do to address them.

The question I’d like to address today is, regardless of where a Trump presidency might take us, what can we do right now to protect ourselves and strengthen our communities?

Here are five positive things I challenge each of us to do to build resilience as we move forward toward an uncertain future. Continue Reading →

Paper or Plastic? Neither!

Think about each plastic item you use, and do away with as many as possible. Think about what might work instead of that hunk of reconstituted petroleum. What you put in the recycling bin may well end up in Kenya or some other poor country. … Or it may end up in the ocean, in those two massive circles of floating plastic trash called the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. That abomination covers over 617,000 square miles and weighs more than 43,000 cars. I do not use the word abomination lightly. … Our governments can do better. Each of us can do better. It starts by saying “no” to both paper and plastic — but especially to plastic. Continue Reading →