Outside The Asylum

In September, the Senior Peer Outreach Line went live for Washington County older adults. Community Counseling Solutions operates the line, which provides free peer support by phone to reduce feelings of loneliness and isolation for adults 55 years old and up. Seniors are matched with a friendly peer specialist and receive regular phone calls that offer compassionate support and connection. One Washington County resident shared that she dreaded the wintertime, but not this year now that she receives weekly calls from her peer support specialist. The program is referral-based, not a published number that community members call directly. Call Community Counseling Solutions at 1-833-736-4676 to make a referral. Or for more information, contact Washington County’s Kera Magarill at 503-846-3105.

What is really at the center is bias. The bias of ecoterrorism that always focuses on the United States as the great evil. We all need to plant 30 trees a year. But it doesn't help to criticize the people who are *already* planting 30 trees a year. What you need to do is target those people who are not yet planting 30 trees a year. Right now, the real reason that the Trump Administration withdrew from the Paris accords is that they appeared to just be taking the pollution out of the United States, Europe, and Canada and moving it to India, China, Africa and South America- with NO solution to the actual problem. In fact, making the problem significantly worse, as companies moved troublesome processes overseas, while keeping low-labor low-pollution processes at home. And still, global warming increased to the point that it became global climate change, and in 2004, we passed the tipping point to where methane being released from Siberia and Northern Canada became the most c...