Why am I going on the Freedom Flotilla II to Gaza? I ask myself this, even though the answer is: What else would I do?  I am in my sixty-seventh year, having lived already a long and fruitful life, one with which I am content.  It seems to me that during this period of eldering it is good to reap the harvest of one's understanding of what is important, and to share this, especially with the young.  How are they to learn, otherwise?

This week, the House voted to shut down the carbon regulation program at the Environmental Protection Agency, but the Senate rejected four different measures that would have stopped or delayed EPA action. The EPA, as mandated by the Supreme Court, has been moving forward with regulations that would require carbon polluters to apply for EPA permits and to use the best available method to start limiting carbon emissions.

The negative impacts of climate change are coming on more quickly than anyone expected. According to a new NASA study, ocean waters are creeping steadily upwards, at rates faster than predicted, Maureen Nandini Mitra reports at Earth Island Journal:

"That ice sheets will dominate future sea level rise is not surprising -- they hold a lot more ice mass than mountain glaciers," Eirc Rignot, the report's lead author said in a statement emailed by NASA yesterday. "What is surprising is this increased contribution by the ice sheets is already happening."