Hope

This girl/young woman is amazing and a beacon of hope, not least on the day after Trump made his first post-presidential speech in Florida. As things currently stand, the bottom third of Florida is likely to be under water by the end of this century. Here’s what the Climate Crisis means for The Sunshine State.

Few places on the planet are more at risk from the climate crisis than south Florida, where more than 8 million residents are affected by the convergence of almost every modern environmental challenge – from rising seas to contaminated drinking water, more frequent and powerful hurricanes, coastal erosion, flooding and vanishing wildlife and habitat.

The Guardian 21/4/20

I Am Greta

Nathan Grossman’s excellent and moving feature documentary I Am Greta is available now on BBC iPlayer and Hulu.

Combatting Corona Quotes

“It’s in your hands how you look at it. I still have hopes and dreams. I don’t know when we will get back to normal and I don’t really care because I’m living right now. I’m making the most of it. I’m going to do my best to have a better future and an even better day tomorrow.”

Nadia Nadim, footballer, Paris Saint-Germain (fled Afghanistan aged 12)

“Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms—to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.”

Viktor Frankl, Man’s Search for Meaning

Hope quote

Hope is the thing with feathers
That perches in the soul

Emily Dickinson

Hope is the thing with feathers
That perches in the soul,
And sings the tune without the words,
And never stops at all,

And sweetest in the gale is heard;
And sore must be the storm
That could abash the little bird
That kept so many warm.

I’ve heard it in the chillest land,
And on the strangest sea;
Yet, never, in extremity,
It asked a crumb of me.

Between starting this post and writing this last paragraph I was just outside with my neighbours clapping the NHS and frontline workers battling the coronavirus on our behalf. Someone down the street has taken to letting off a firework to mark this weekly occasion. When he fired off his rocket this evening a frightened sparrow flew over my head.

Day 1 – US / UK remix

A formula for the future:

US Optimism and Can-Do

+

British Pluck and Make-Do

Poster from WW2

= a +ve, progressive way forward

A good place to start (this side of the water): www.landshare.net