Naomi Klein counsels all of us NOT to succumb to “climate depression”, but to continue to act to reduce carbon emissions, AND to speak up. In her book, This Changes Everything, she says that little has happened to reduce carbon emissions because the actions that would do so, and benefit the vast majority of humankind, “are extremely threatening to an elite minority”.

Winter 2014 on Lake Ontario

She also writes that, “during the same years that our governments failed to enact a tough and binding legal architecture requiring carbon emissions, supposedly because cooperation was too complex, they managed to create the World Trade Organization – an intricate global system that regulates the flow of goods and services around the planet, under which the rules are clear and violations are harshly penalized.”

Is it any wonder that the agreement reached in Paris in December 2015 did not have legally binding provisions?

Addressing climate change cannot be relegated to governments, and the political elite. It is what all of us can do, both as individuals and as a part of grassroots communities that demonstrate that the power to do the right thing will not be taken away from us.

 

Michael Coren surprised me by writing that the real war on Christmas is being waged by those on one end of the political spectrum. I was surprised by his argument, but it is well supported.

 Coren writes that, “Santa is more Coke than Christ, we indulge and spend rather than reflect and give, and while a white Christmas is beautiful, Bethlehem is more used to the red of blood than the white of snow.”

For the full column, go to: http://www.thestar.com/opinion/commentary/2015/12/24/the-real-war-on-christmas-comes-from-the-right.html

The un-domesticated versions of Christianity, the Christianity that has managed not to be infiltrated by the culture of corporate consumerism, regards Jesus as a prophet. Jim Wallis appears to be one of these people. In his Christmas, 2015 message he writes:

“At least King Herod got the fact that his political power would indeed be undermined by the coming of Jesus and the new kingdom he would bring. It seems many of our presidential political candidates don’t have a clue as to what the coming of Christmas means for them, judging by the horrible things some of them are saying about the poor, vulnerable, homeless, and refugees all around us today.’

The whole message is available at: https://sojo.net/articles/why-jesus-was-and-political-threat

Merry Christmas.