9/3/2021

My Dear Friend & POTUS, JRB,

            I will hold you in the Light as you put your Consoler in Chief hat on today. It has to be grueling to see mangled roofs & downed powerlines & know there’s only so much FEMA can do. Do you say “I’m sorry for your loss”? That’s not enough, but promising that we’ll put things back like new is too much. Finding that sweet spot of offering some help without over-doing it, must be tricky.

            It looks to me like Ida’s damage in NJ, NY & PA is much more widespread than the damage down South. The news says that the skies opened up in NYC at 8:50 PM with torrential rain. I saw a scary video of water gushing into the subway. I might have had a heart attack if I was stuck down there.

            I hope that NY’s new Gov, Kathy Hochul, is able to follow through on her pledge to anticipate these flash flood events & build more resiliency into the infrastructure. Perhaps she will persuade her colleagues to use some of the $1,400/citizen that will come to NY through the Infrastructure package to revamp the drainage systems of NYC.

Perhaps we need to read Kim Stanley Robinson’s book, New York 2140, where he imagines NYC buildings that are somehow floating. He’s my neighbor & is a genius at combining scientific knowledge with his optimistic bent to generate stories of the future revealing human’s resilience in dealing with climate change. His assumptions about what will happen to our warming planet are quite disturbing. You might consider launching a “Ministry of the Future” as he suggests in his latest book.

BYBS,

RCA

PS – Pray for Myanmar