(Job One News Blog editors note: I had several larger photos of Dan. Some beardless, some not, some with a tie and some not. But this photo is the one that captures the sweet spirit that we all knew as "Dan"... :) )

A good name is better than fine perfume,
    and the day of death better than the day of birth.
 It is better to go to a house of mourning
    than to go to a house of feasting,
for death is the destiny of everyone;
    the living should take this to heart...

In a hopeful sign that most nations of the world are taking global warming seriously, there are more than 1,200 laws on the books attempting to combat the problem. Two decades ago, that number stood at 20.

Time for a few short-shorts on what's going on from the positive side of the global warming crisis and Climageddon.

Snow pack in the Sierra Mountains is at depths not seen in those parts in a couple of decades. That means that millions of Californians who've been laboring under severe drought conditions have re-built most of their reserves, which bodes well for the entire world since California's Central Valley is the "salad basket of the world." Check out this article from the New York Times for some great graphics depicting the 2017 situation.

Several major U.S. corporations have signaled or outright told the Trump Regime that it's wrong on climate change and indicated plans to pursue climate-protecting activities in the absence of government regulations requiring them to do so. Tech giants Google, Microsoft, Apple and Amazon are among those companies, as are Nestle & General Electric.

In New York, a couple of neighborhoods are experimenting with something called the TransActive Grid that could turn into one of those viral things that has an impact far beyond its borders....

While it is clearly true that no single solution to global warming is likely to solve the problem without implementing the Job One for Humanity Plan, it's also true that technological innovation may be able to buy us more time or smooth the path to this crisis being resolved by removing some obstacles along the path.

I ran across two stories in my news read this morning that I thought I would share with you.

There seems to be a significant uptick lately in the amount of news about space exploration and possible colonization. This is an area I watch out of a life-long interest in science and science-fiction. In recent days, two news items have come up time and again.

I find my interest in these items shifting from a sort of "gee-whiz" kind of gadget-obsession more appropriate to someone 40 or 50 years younger than me who might actually live to see these kinds of things happen -- to a more philosophical aspect: what if this is a good alternative to the imminent extinction of humanity thanks to the global warming Climageddon we are facing?

The impending climate catastrophe is overwhelming. It doesn’t just seem that way; it really is. No single effort by any individual, group or company (or government) will be enough in itself to stave off the devastating effects of global warming. The problem is just too big, too far along in its cycles, and too global in scope.

That does not, however, mean that we should simply give up taking individual action where we see it being a potential help, however slight.

According to this article, new jobs in the solar industry are on a serious upswing while jobs in the legacy energy field such as coal are in rapid decline. In fact more than twice as many people today are employed in the United States in the solar business than in coal. One in 50 of all new jobs in the nation were created last year as solar companies installed more than 14,000 megawatts of power. And the trend is definitely up...exponentially, or nearly so.

At last year’s major international TED conference, former U.S. Vice-President Al Gore offered up some positive thoughts about the fight against global warming in which we are all engaged. Some of what he said I found extremely encouraging. But it’s important to keep in mind that his talk predates two events of potentially monumental import:

• the election of Donald J. Trump, an avowed climate change skeptic who is utterly uninformed on the subject, as President of the United States; and,

• the forthcoming book, Climageddon, by our esteemed Executive Director Lawrence Wollersheim, including his new modeling strategy.

Hi.

My name is Dan Shafer. I’m the (volunteer) Director of Strategic Communications for Job One for Humanity and a long-time blogger and writer. I’ve driven a stake into the ground in this little corner of the website to put up a sign that says, “It’s Awfully Dire...But Not Hopeless!” And I plan to emphasize the second point.

Mainly you’ll find two kinds of posts here.