Judy Dykstra-Brown has come up with a weekly prompt that she calls “The Numbers Game.” This week’s number is 146. To play along, we need to go to our media/photo file and type that number into the search bar. Then post a selection of the photos we find under that number and include a link to our post back to Judy’s Numbers Game post of the week.
Here’s my collection of photos based upon “146.” All of the photos below have appeared in my blog posts. Some are photos posted by other bloggers as photo prompts. Some are screenshots or photos that I took. A few may have been generated by AI art apps, but most are photos I grabbed from free photo sources like Pixabay, Pexels, Pinterest, Unsplash, or Google photos.
Di, at Pensitivity101, is our host for Share Your World each week. Here are her questions for this week.
1. What is/has been your favorite job/occupation?
Retirement! Oh wait, that’s neither a job nor an occupation, is it? For much of my career with several different companies I was what was called a “solutions consultant.” For some companies I worked for, that position was within client services, and for others, it was part of sales. I preferred when it was part of sales because my role was to evaluate the prospective client’s needs, to help close the sale, and to ensure that our solution was successfully implemented and performed as was promised.
2. Is there a job you would never consider doing?
My daughter-in-law is a veterinarian, but her primary focus is to go to people’s homes and provide in-home euthanasia services. I simply cannot imagine a job where my primary role is to euthanize people’s beloved pets.
3. Did your family own a business and expect you to join the ranks when you got older?
My father owned a laundry and dry cleaning store and my mother owned a knitting shop. I was never expected to “join the ranks.” I was expected to go to college, get a degree, and get a white-collar job.
4. Did/do you have a career requiring qualifications or did you learn on the job and work your way up?
Having a bachelor’s degree and a master’s degree opened up doors to me that might otherwise not have been opened. That’s not to say that I didn’t have to learn some very specific skills on the job for the roles I played. Each company I worked for had its own policies and protocols and the various systems I supported had specific requirements and processes that I had to master. So while the formal education got me through the door, the on-the-job training, both formal and informal, helped me work my way up.
NOAA’s Mauna Loa observatory on Hawaii, shown in 2019, finds carbon dioxide levels peaked in May.
The headline on my newsfeed read:
Carbon dioxide levels climb faster than ever
And I thought, Why am I so worried about the political situation in America when the whole planet is dying?
The article went on to say that carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere are higher now than in millions of years — and the latest measurements show they’re climbing faster than ever.
Scripps and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration scientists reported the biggest 12-month increase on record in March 2024. Both groups, which make separate observations, also said January through April marked the most rapid increase in the first four months of the year on record.
The greenhouse gases act like a blanket, trapping in heat and warming the planet. This not only means more intense heat waves and droughts, but also more frequent and stronger storms because of additional moisture in the atmosphere.
“We are burning more fossil fuel than ever, and it’s having predictable consequences on the buildup of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere,” said Ralph Keeling, director of the Scripps CO2 program. Carbon dioxide levels fluctuate during the year: they drop during the growing season when plants take more of the gas out of the atmosphere, and they rise as plants die, typically peaking in May in the Northern Hemisphere.
Why do the numbers continue to go up despite all this talk about climate change and how, without being proactive in combatting it, our planet may no longer be able to sustain human life by the end of this century? Because we are fucking burning more fossil fuel than ever!
Carbon dioxide measurements at the Mauna Loa site on the island of Hawaii were started by Keeling’s father, Scripps geoscientist Charles David Keeling. The monthly average back in May 1958 was 317.51 ppm, which was more than 100 ppm lower than the latest numbers.
Keeling said his father would be surprised at the inadequate action following decades of evidence that fossil fuel burning is warming the planet. “Renewables will eventually turn this corner,” Keeling said. “Let’s just hope that’s soon.”
On a personal note, I’ve only got ten or maybe even twenty years left in my life. I’m assuming that I’ll still be around for this year’s presidential elections, so I will be a witness to the aftermath of that election. If Trump wins and the Republicans control Congress, Trump has promised to lower taxes for the very wealthy and for large corporations. But that loss of revenue will mean other programs will be cut or eliminated.
We know that Social Security and Medicare for seniors are high on the list for elimination. But if you think Trump and the Republicans, who still claim climate change is a hoax, won’t decimate programs designed to slow and combat climate change, you’re dead wrong.
Fortunately for me, I won’t still be around when the planet will no longer be able to support human life anymore. But my grandchildren and great-grandchildren will be and that is something I do worry about. A lot!
So when you vote this November, give that some thought.
Welcome to Fandango’s One-Word Challenge (aka, FOWC). I will be posting each day’s word just after midnight Pacific Time (U.S.).
Today’s word is “embodiment.”
Write a post using that word. It can be prose, poetry, fiction, non-fiction. It can be any length. It can be just a picture or a drawing if you want. No holds barred, so to speak.
Once you are done, tag your post with #FOWC and create a pingback to this post if you are on WordPress. Please check to confirm that your pingback is there. If not, ÿplease manually add your link in the comments.
And be sure to read the posts of other bloggers who respond to this prompt. Show them some love.
This, That, and the Other 