climate change – Caminobleu

August 23, 2026

I was happy to see that today the Albuquerque Journal saw fit to publish my letter in support of Gail Evans’ column last week on her analysis of New Mexico’s energy situation.

If you click and scroll through this link you will find my letter, and if you click here you can read Gail Evans’ column.

Hi Suzanne, here you go. Not sure why I didn’t copy the letter in the first place. If you scroll down in the link, you should be able to find the letter there and also Gail Evans’ article to which I was responoding.

Oil profits should go to solar and wind power development

Thank you for publishing Gail Evans’ column on New Mexico’s energy policies. She is absolutely right. New Mexico and the gas and oil companies are making billions in profits from New Mexico’s gas and oil reserves. The state is raking in money in taxes, but the people of New Mexico are paying through the nose because the carbon produced by oil and gas extraction is ruining our climate and our health. Global warming has never been more evident than this summer, not only in New Mexico, but around the country and around the world. This is the first time in more than 40 years in New Mexico that I have seen the Rio Grande and our irrigation ditches completely dry.

We should not be subsidizing the oil companies. Our governor’s $250 proposed payback to the people of New Mexico is an insult. We are paying a lot for gas for our cars, our homes and our electricity. We should be putting oil company profits into building solar and wind power and stop killing ourselves and all other living things by encouraging increased fossil fuel extraction. And we should be charging oil and gas companies for the cost of the ecological disasters they are causing.

Linnea Hendrickson

Albuquerque

Below is a rainbow, a sign of hope for our parched land, taken on one of my early morning walks (they have to be early because otherwise it is too hot). I cannot imagine how difficult it is for people whose work requires them to be doing physical labor outside during this summer of endless 90-100 degree days.

Thanks to Esther Jantzen, who founded our little group of Elder Activist Readers (EAR), for bringing Evans’ column to my attention and encouraging me to write a letter.

I will update our reading list soon.

https://www.abqjournal.com/opinion/opinion-talk-of-the-town/3105472

Elder Activist Readers (EAR): re-written August 10, 2023

Who are we?

We are a small group who began reading books on climate change and the environment in the fall of 2020, spurred by Esther Jantzen (author of Walk: Jamie Bacon’s Secret Mission on the Camino de Santiago) who introduced us to All We Can Save, the first book we all read together. Over the past couple of years, we have read many books, all of which have shaped my perceptions and stirred me to action, although what I’ve done is very little. I am still a long way from living a simple life. However, I’ve gone from ignoring climate change and thinking, “What can I do?” to realizing that learning about the issues and doing what I can is at least a start. We have read of many instances when one person’s actions have inspired others, often resulting in making an important difference. This summer’s heat and the disasters including forest fires (even in Hawaii!), flooding, failed crops, and the deaths of humans and animals have driven home the importance of changing our ways..

This morning we drove around Denver, that jewel of the Rockies, from south to north, facing bumper-to-bumper traffic and slow-downs in all directions. The mountains with remains of the winter’s snow were hazy in the distance. Where there was once farmland or grazing land where the buffalo roamed were now acres of new houses. As we poked along in halting traffic, our vehicle also contributed to the pollution, congestion and wasteful use of fossil fuels. I thought, “Look what progress has brought!” We were trapped in an unpleasant, unhealthy, unsustainable environment created in the past one-hundred years by our love for and reliance on the automobile. I’m as guilty as anyone. I love my car and my comfortable life, and I’m taking a non-essential trip for pleasure in my air-conditioned car, while people are lying on sidewalks, dying in the heat. That’s not fair, is it?

There are currently five of us who read one book every two or three months and meet via Zoom to discuss our reading. We also send each other links to articles, websites, books, films, speakers, and petitions to sign. We choose the books together and take turns leading the discussions. We have had other readers participate occasionally, and we welcome new readers, or I urge you to form your own reading group. All We Can Save, includes suggestions and guidelines

We five are all retired teachers who have lived in other countries. We include former Peace Corps volunteers, a Vista worker, and three pilgrims who have walked the Camino de Santiago more than once. Esther divides her time between Albuquerque and Mérida in Mexico when she is not traveling elsewhere; Marty Corley, Kent Kedl (author of We Ran Away to Sea, which was inspired partly by his Peace Corps experiences and Small is Beautiful), and I all live in Albuquerque. Anne Roberts faithfully joins us from her home in Longboat Key, Florida. Our current book is U.S. Poet Laureate Joy Harjo’s Poet Warrier: A Memoir which we will discuss on August 16.

Have any of you read books that you’d like to recommend? Books that have changed your life or your thinking?

Complete book list in order of reading:

Ayana Elizabeth Johnson and Katharine K. Wilkerson (eds). All We Can Save: Truth, Courage, and Solutions for the Climate Crisis, 2020 (read Jan 2021)

Shalanda H. Baker. Revolutionary Power: An Activist’s Guide to the Energy Transition, 2021 (read Mar-Apr 2021)

Arlie Hochschild. Strangers in Their Own Land: Anger and Mourning on the American Right, 2016 (read June 2021)

Kate Haworth. Doughnut Economics: Seven Ways to Think Like a 21st Century Economist, pub 2017 (read Jul/Aug 2021)

Lydia Millet. A Children’s Bible (a novel), 2020 (read Jan 2022)

Paul Hawken. Regeneration: Ending the Climate Crisis in One Generation, 2021 (read Feb/Mar 2022)

Kristen Olsen. The Soil Will Save Us, 2014 (read Apr/May 2022)

Robin Wall Kimmerer. Braiding Sweetgrass, 2013 (read June 2022)

Plus, we watched: Kiss the Ground (video)

Imbolo Mbue. How Beautiful We Were: A Novel, 2021 (read August 2022)

Vanessa Machado de Oliveira. Hospicing Modernity Facing Humanity’s Wrongs and the Implications for Social Activism, 2021. (read September-October 2022)

E. F. Schumacher. Small is Beautiful: A Study of Economics As If People Mattered, 1973 (read December 2022)

Amitai Ghosh. The Nutmeg’s Curse: Parables for a Plant in Crisis, 2021 (read March 2023)

Sarah Augustine: The Land is Not Empty: Following Jesus in Dismantling the Doctrine of Discover, 2021 (read June 2023

Joy Harjo. Poet Warrior: A Memoir, 2021 (reading August 2023)