August 2025 Meeting & Notes (2 August 2025 @ 10:30AM)

Monthly Meetings & Notes
1

Online Meeting: Saturday 2nd August 2025, 10:30am online bit.ly/climate-network.

Saturday August 16th Hike & Picnic at Scandia Woods Environmental Learning Lab!
During meeting time on August 16th (10:30AM) we will carpool to Scandia Woods Environmental Learning Lab and go on a hike and have a post hike picnic! Everyone should bring their own sack lunch. Syd will send out an email week of the hike to determine who is coming with and how we can best carpool!

Join Online Meeting: Launch Meeting - Zoom

With agenda items, upcoming events, or more email wcmncn@googlegroups.com

Agenda:

  • Community Check-ins
    • @syd (she/they) is thinking a lot about the wildfire smoke and how often she is seeing folks in states of denial about how it affects us. She wishes more people were brave enough to wear masks, but even more so she wishes more people were brave enough to challenge their habits and ideas. If you want masks, let Syd know, she has lots of free ones! Syd uses this site to look at air quality, Morris friend Kristin has an outdoor air monitor: US EPA PM2.5 Air Quality Standards Interactive Map by PurpleAir
    • @Nic_McPhee (he/they/it/whatever) is thinking about how he wants to do hikes in his phased retirement, but with the air quality being so bad he didn’t do that this week.
    • @Susan_Gilbert (she/they) is thinking about how mask wearing isn’t encouraged for the smoke because of politics, even though public-health-wise it is one of the best things you can do.
    • Donna is Vern’s partner and she has been retired for 10 years now, they love to hike and travel. Now they are slowing down physically. She is thinking a lot about Gaza and how people seem to be afraid to stand up and speak out for what’s right. She feels the government is not on the side of the people, she feels like our voices are being stolen.
    • @Stardrop has been thinking a lot about floods, smoke, and fires (all the jazz). They got 14 inches of water in the basement, it wasn’t super damaged, but it is still work to clean up. Her garden also got flooded and is not sure how that will pan out. “Relatively small, but super irritating parts of the climate puzzle.” Its very hard to not fall into nihilism when you think about the corporate systems running (and destroying) the globe. Something she likes about the group is that we can get together and talk about these things, and how when you scream into the void, sometimes it listens.
    • Barbara is going to keep sending emails to Michelle because for her she has to be able to say something to someone who appears as if they might have power. Barbara is also trying to send emails when she approves of something that people in power are doing. “Do what you can locally, within 6 feet or within 6 miles”. Maybe there is something we can find to do that’s positive here in Morris.
    • Ted is thinking about the water like everyone else. It became a common community connecting point, everyone shared stories and compared notes. Ted has been moving books and selling books at the Friends of the MPL Book Sale. He loves seeing the “orphan books” find homes.
    • @cberthiaume is also thinking about the wildfire smoke. They are trying to not spend as much time outside because of the air. They are also confused about how people seem to be oblivious about the wildfire smoke. Captain fluctuates wildly between hope and despair when thinking about the greater world systems. The big question they ask is “how do we get from here to there?”
    • Vern was oblivious to how severe the rain was this week. He suspects there is a lesson to be learned, we are experiencing something but we don’t really know the impact of it. What to do about it is the huge issue.
    • Hunter has been thinking a lot recently about the wildflowers blooming right now. The shorebirds are going to start moving through to go south for the winter. He is finding little places to get away and connect with the world.
    • Anna (she/her) is thinking about how many of the places she has been living have been having droughts, so its interesting to see the opposite end of that. Her parents visited, she went camping with friends, talking to people outside of her experience/work (USFWS) is nice and helps the brain.
  • Announcements
  • Determine Next Meeting/Other Summer Plans
    • Sign making/crafts
    • Doing Journalism/Sustainable Living/Values prompts at WCMNCN