Carol Follett
Total number of comments: 96
Recent Comments by Carol Follett
It is critical that we get the support people need to fill out these papers. This is an "information gathering tool...answering the human, social, cultural and economic pieces of what to do about a climate change watershed." It also will help generate funding to protect and enhance vulnerable areas.We do not want to shortchange all of the future stakeholders by following what Council Member Elenbaas is suggesting, i.e. a settlement.
How can we support getting help for folks to fill out the paperwork?
When the objective is to increase profits over delivering the best service, process, or product, we as consumers can assume we will have less value and be valued less as individuals; we may even be considered disposable by the insurers (not by our doctors).
We should encourage our Representatives to get this bill to the floor and pass:
Seniors Deserve SMARTER Care Act of 2025
Section 2 of this bill prohibits implementation of the Wiser model.
Thank you so much for providing solutions and links to your succinct note on another vital concern for our County, Enoch. I agree we cannot afford to wait. It is a shame we cannot get some money from the industries responsible for a lot of our planetary warming:
"Fossil fuels – coal, oil and gas – are by far the largest contributor to global climate change, accounting for around 68 per cent of global greenhouse gas emissions and nearly 90 per cent of all carbon dioxide emissions."
In our City and County, we are witnessing a cruel and unsurprising human response to generations of increasing poverty and lack of opportunity. Studies show that childhood trauma, abuse, and neglect greatly increase the likelihood of drug and alcohol abuse, often in an attempt to cope with mental health disorders. (https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3051362/) These individuals (and all of us living in communities with them) are the "collateral damage" of an economic war that began with "Reaganomics." (https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7725949/)
We also know that once a person is addicted, the battle to break free is incredibly, overwhelmingly challenging. We need more, not less, evidence based public programs designed to prevent addiction like those recommended by WHO:
"Characteristics of prenatal and infancy visit programmes deemed to be associated with efficacy and/or effectiveness based on expert consultation:
✔ They are delivered by trained health workers.
✔ Regular visits are made until the child’s second birthday: at first, every two weeks, then every month, and less frequently towards the end of the period.
✔ They provide basic parenting skills.
✔ They support mothers to address a range of socioeconomic issues (health, housing, employment, legal, etc.)..."
Growing adolescents' "healthy attitudes and social normative beliefs related to psychoactive substance ... Good social skills, and resilient mental and emotional health remain key protective factors throughout adolescence.
Characteristics of programmes for prevention education based on social competence and influence deemed to be associated with efficacy and/or effectiveness based on expert consultation
✔ They use interactive methods.
✔ They are delivered through a series of structured sessions (typically 10–15 sessions), taking place once a week, often providing booster sessions over multiple years.
✔ They are delivered by a trained facilitator (also including trained peers).
✔ They provide an opportunity to practise and learn a wide array of personal and social skills, in particular, coping, decision-making and resistance skills, especially in relation to substance use.
✔ They change perceptions of the risks associated with substance use, emphasizing the immediate consequences.
✔ They dispel misconceptions regarding the normative nature and the expectations linked to substance use. (https://www.unodc.org/documents/prevention/UNODC-WHO_2018_prevention_standards_E.pdf)
What do you think will be the result of making birth control, healthcare, and education more expensive and unobtainable in the coming years thanks to the current regime?
We cannot look at this as an isolated problem - and cannot look to our current federal government, with a president that pardons monumental drug traffiker for help- so we need to work with our Pacific Northwest regional allies.
I am sorry for the plight of all concerned. I hope we can set aside judgement and each understand there but for luck (or grace of God) go I. Preventative measures are best - knowing that young people that have exited "caregiver" settings have "increased risk for mental health problems, substance abuse difficulties, and death by suicide than the broader care-experienced population," should be on our radar, but that will not help us in the current, immediate predicament.
We can force people to move out of public spaces and we could monitor with security cameras, but where do they go? Nonprofit, patchwork services cannot support the need for complete coverage of housing, monitoring for safety, and supplying needed medical access. "Housing first" has been tried in various ways with degrees of success for addicts and others.
Since our current federal government prefers to run away with our funds and create problems rather than helping us solve existing problems like this, perhaps we can make another Pacific alliance like our West Coast Health Alliance, pulling funds and expertise to help our three-state coastal region cope with this issue together. As Steve James mentioned the EU has found some solutions and housing first with a three-pronged approach -ACT (Assertive Community Treatment), ICM (Intensive Case Management), and CTI (Critical Time Intervention) helps reduce these challenges. Our cities and states need to follow the same program to prevent just pushing people with their problems to other cities and states.
We need to raise awareness of the problems and solutions along with public funds (taxes) to provide public care.
Richard, I am using taxing with both of its meanings. Taxing the very rich relives the taxing burdens that fall to the rest of us when they are not paying what they owe to keep society sustainable. Read: https://www.moralambition.org/stories/tax-fairness-explainer
As far as the middle class goes, stagnating wages and higher costs (especially for housing) are shrinking the size of that group:
The cost of the MQL [Minimal Quality of Life] rose 8.6% in 2023, marking the highest annual increase, driven by increases in housing and transportation costs. Achieving even a basic quality of life in 2023 was significantly more difficult compared to 2001, with the MQL rising by a staggering 99.5% over that period
Thank you for your informative series on this critical issue facing us in Whatcom County. I would like to see a contemporary version of this past study and one that includes specifics about how many years exactly we are looking at for the future. This old study mentions "many years to come" (and it did not foresee our climate change); our current Washington State Growth Management Act (GMA) 2025 Comprehensive Plan looks only to "growth projected for the 20-year planning period." That is only one generation ahead. Given the critical climate position we are in:
"Snowpack, Streamflows, and Water Availability
The flows of water in rivers and streams are increasing during late winter and early spring but decreasing during summer. Warmer winters have reduced average snowpack in Washington by 20 percent since 1950. The snowpack is now melting a few weeks earlier than during the 20th century, and, by 2050, it is likely to melt three to four weeks earlier. Decreasing snowpack means there will be less water flowing through streams during summer. Moreover, rising temperatures increase the rate at which water evaporates (or transpires) into the air from soils and plants. More evaporation means that less water will drain from the ground into rivers and streams." (This is only one of our environmental problems our descendants will face.)
We cannot look at this issue from the perspective of an old and expiring way of life that consumes as if we do not live in delicate ecosystems; to continue in this way would be is selfish and foolish.
We cannot look at water and land as used by all living things as separate issues. Paid officials involved with WRIA 1 need to be including and weighing in on on proposals like the 3,000 new homes planned for Barkley Village. Any and all development is intertwined with our environment. We must stop acting like these are separate things and like our resources are unlimited.
Thank you for letting us know about Professor Wolf. I love that he is compassionate, moral, and including all of the "stakeholders," as you note quoting him in bold letters, 'the impact of conflict is generally felt by a much larger population than is charged with resolving it.' That would include the orcas dying from lack of food and/or contaminated salmon and the chain impacted by this. (https://www.pugetsoundinstitute.org/are-the-orcas-starving-scientists-say-its-not-that-simple/). I will read his book and hope to find inspiration.
It is at times like this that I miss Wendy Harris so much. Here we are, in our little corner of the diminished once beautiful, bountiful earth, intertwined with all living things and we continue to polute, defecating in our nest, poisoning all we touch. We are chained to or own destruction by being locked into an economic system that, for the short term, thrives on this exploitation. A recent study demonstrated that "Wealth-based emissions comprise private consumption and investment in capital formation across production sectors that supply goods and services consumed by society....This is particularly relevant for the wealthiest 1% and 0.1%, whose transboundary [my emphasis] contributions to worsening local extremes arise primarily through investments, rather than consumption. Efforts to redirect these financial flows should also consider the shared responsibilities of governments to expedite systemic changes in financial and regulatory structures."
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41558-025-02325-x#ref-CR3
We also need to be mindful of the destruction this current regime is doing to our efforts at environmental protection:
"...“Dirty oil and gas bucks are fueling the Trump administration, which should outrage all of us. This latest reporting portrays a pattern of pay-to-play donations and favorable actions by the administration,” said Jeff Merkley, senator for Oregon and senior member of the Senate appropriations and budget committees."
US senator calls for insider trading inquiry over Trump donors buying $12m worth of shares | Oil and gas companies | The Guardian https://share.google/YpubiAbxlYHQEqc3p
This needs to be included in our discussions.
The first right belongs to the first people who are still here, thank goodness, and to the creatures that live in the water.
We have abused our rights to resources by becoming the greatest makers of lasting, harmful, terminal trash to have ever lived on the face of the earth- we have spewed plastic on the land and in the water, "more than 8,300 megatons (Mt) of plastic have been manufactured since WWII ...More than half of all plastic ever made has been produced since 2002...Single-use plastics account for 35–40% of current plastic production and represent the most rapidly growing segment of plastic manufacture..." Lttle microbits are found in our fish and in breast milk! We make trash even in space and that junk is dropping in our oceans! And, of course, there is the fact that our production of waste is warming our planet, melting ice caps and disrupting the natural cycle of rainfall among other things.
Does anyone understand this is a crisis? Are we deaf to the screams of our planet? This argument about water rights is like the proverbial argument about how many angels can fit on the head of a pin.