تشرف بالاشتغالي بالعلم ولا تبغي به ما عشت يا دادا دادا وياله من شراف عظيمي The first problem which arose was people believing in certain ideologies and then interpreting the Qur'an to fit those ideologies The second problem was a group of people who interpreted the Qur'an just as an average Arabic speaker would without considering from whom these words came to whom it was revealed and who they were addressing احداهما قوموا اعتقدوا معانية ثم ارادوا حمل الفاظ القرآن عليها والثانية قوموا فسروا القرآن بمجرد ما يسوه أن يريده بكلامه من كان من الناطقين باللغة العرب من غير نظر إلى المتكلم بالقرآن والمنزل عليه والمخاطبه Now the sheikh is explaining to us the two reasons why there comes a mistake in the deduction The deduction, the two ways that it occurs The reason why a mistake occurs from The first one is احداهما قوموا اعتقدوا معانية they believed in a meaning ثم ارادوا حمل الفاظ القرآن عليها and then they made the wordings follow the meaning So what did they do? قدموا المعنى they had a preconceived notion so there is a meaning already there for them And what they did was جعلوا اللطف that they made the wording of the Quran تابعا له following the meaning that they have in their minds So where did this meaning come from? فأسسوفي وفنو فوسم they initiated it they made this of this meaning They believed this meaning and then they tried to find verses in the Quran in support of this And this is what we say يعتقدون ثم يستدلون فيضلون they believe they try to look for evidence for it And they become misguided from that That's the first group of people With ثانية the second are قوموا فسروا قرآن these ones they commented on the Quran بمجرد ما يسوغوا ان يريده بكلمه من كان من ان اعتقين بلوة العرب They observed the wordings They observed the Quran But when they looked at the Quran they looked at it as you would read at textbooks They looked at it from the wordings only They didn't look at متعلقاته this is important شغوليسام تايميا mentions 3 متعلقات That are connected to the تفسير They didn't observe المتكلمي بالقرآن The one who is speaking the Quran The Prophet Muhammad SAW والمونزلي عليه And the one who sent it down So they look at the Prophet SAW Who is a Nazi who came down with it And the Prophet SAW was the one who sent it down on And the third thing they didn't look at is والمخاطبي به the people who are being spoken to Which were the Arabs So what they did is they took the Quran Out of its 3 متعلقات The 3 things that it's connected to And this would affect the فهم of the Quran It will It will affect the understanding of the Quran So if a person just says I'm going to read the Quran like I would read an Arabic book And I would use the wordings based on the Arabic language only And I won't look at the timing it came down on The context it came down in How it came down in And all of those various factors If the person takes it out of it Then also There comes a mistake and a shortcoming In the deduction of the Quran The deduction of the Quran The first group concentrated on meanings that suited them Without paying any attention to the real implications And context of the verses The second group concentrated on the words And how they were used by the Arabs And disregarded the context of the verses This group also mistakenly interprets Words of the Arabic language Thinking that their interpretations are Linguistically correct The first group also falls into this error But more so, their error is that They are incorrect in the interpretations They give to the meanings of the Quran The other group is also guilty of this The first group prefers to concentrate on meanings And the other group places emphasis on words The first group is further divided Into two subgroups A group which strips the words of the Quran Of their real and intended meanings And a group which gives the words Meanings which they do not convey In both instances That which they wish to affirm or negate May be incorrect And therefore they have erred in both The evidence and the ideology They wish to support with it Or that particular idea May be incorrect In which case they have only erred In the way they use the evidences فالأولون راعوا المعنى الذي راعوه من غير نظر إلى ما تستحقه الفاظ القرآن من الدلالة والبيان والآخي إنشاء الله فالأولون راعوا The first group they observed المعنى the meaning The first group was the observation The meaning Because they had the meaning in their mind already They don't care what the wording is The wording has to follow the meaning The first group The center point for them is the meaning فالأولون and the first of the two راعوا المعنى they observed the meaning الذي راعوه But that meaning is the one they saw To be fit من غير نظر إلى ما تستحقه الفاظ القرآن without looking and observing The Quran The rights that it deserves to give The explanation of this verse They don't observe that The verse according to the Shari'a It has a meaning And it has an understanding By Allah They don't observe that They don't really care They observe the meaning That they set for this word So they're going to force it to be That meaning They will make it that meaning So the first ones What are they observing They're observing the meaning That they set for the word Without looking at The meaning that was given By the Shari'a An explanation that was done by the Shari'a That's the first of the two Which were the ones that we said they believed Then they tried to look for the evidence for it And so they become misguided From them The second one They only observe the wording They didn't care about the meaning They didn't look at the context that it's in They just take that word And they look at it the way it is They look at the word as it is Not knowing Has the Arabs ever used this word In this particular context And we mentioned this before The Arabs have they used the word They have used it But have they ever used it In the context of Like What do you call it Have they used the word Have they ever used it In the context of How Allah used it in the Quran Like that Or I created them I created him with my two hands Have the Arabs ever used The Yed Dual Like that In that context Has it ever come They don't observe that All they know is That the Arabs have used Yed as quwa And we found it here We'll just take it like that We'll look at the context The context is different From the context you knew before They don't look at the context And they don't observe the context The second one All it is is Has the Arabs ever used this word In this particular way Na'am Let's use it Without having any consideration To the context that it has come Na'am in another context It would mean that But in this particular context Will it mean this No it wouldn't Because the Arabs themselves Never have used it in this particular They haven't used it In this particular context Na'am Now the author says something powerful Even the ones He's talking about The ones who Observe the word He's talking about the second of the two The ones who observe the word The شخص says These ones These ones who say We're only going to look at the Weddings and the meanings That they find for it Are you with me Even them Majority of the times The wedding that they're actually using The meaning for It actually wasn't even the meaning That's ever used In the language The same way Like those ones who were before them Meaning the first group The first group The way that they're also doing Mistakes in that If I give you an example for this That they both do Is The صوفية They'll say to you They see the permissibility of men dancing And you see them dancing And so what do they use for that They have evidence from the Quran As they say They use When Nabi الله Was sick Hit your leg on the ground Hit your leg on the ground So the water can gush out They said Hit your leg on the ground Here means what It means dance So they took from that جوازو الرقص The permissibility of dancing For men They said it's permissible Are you with me Also This is another example of the word Having no meaning like this In the Arabic language Like the ones we said إستواء Means إستولة And they tried to make it The Arab They tried to make this أيمة اللغة From أيمة to self They denied the existence The word إستواء It means إستولة And they denied that So there isn't even in the language A usage of the word إستواء It means إستولة أصالة It doesn't exist And as you should all know There are actually words in the Quran That the Arabs never knew أصالة In that particular usage So if you even say I'm going to observe the Arabic language You're going to be in a predicament Where you're going to see words You've never seen The Arabs be using it like that قولوا تعالى واصلحوا ذات بينكم ذات بينكم The Arabs never used it In the context of this verse ثم يقضوا تفتهم وليوفوا الندورهم وليطوافوا بالبيت العتيق ثم يقضوا تفتهم The Arabs have never known As to be tough The extra filth on the person In a hajj To get rid of that Such as your hair And your nails and everything They've never known That usage فلولا نفرة من كل فرقة منهم طائفة ليتفقه في الدين وليندلوا قومهم The Arabs never knew The usage of the word فلولا نفرة من كل فرقة منهم طائفة وليتفقه They didn't use it like that So what do we have to observe? Pay attention here brothers We have to use this powerful point And this powerful point Is very important The a lot of the Arabic The usage of the Arabic language Are you with me brothers Is something that we use And it supports us To understand the Quran Because the Quran Was sent in the Arabic language But what we also have to observe Is خطاب الشرع Is that What is the Sharia Unknown to use this And how do we know The Sharia To be using this particular issue You have to observe that Are you with me brothers For example One of the narrators He says that The famous Hadith We're going to touch on later Insha'Allah Is the famous Hadith Where And the son Is going to be close The distance of a meal Meal The scholar He got confused He said I don't know is it Is it the distance of a meal Which is مصافة Land Or the Arabs They use the كحل That's put on the eye Is also known as So which of those two is it We now have to do ترجح Based on the خطاب الشرع When we look at the Quran And the Sunnah We've never seen the Quran And the Sunnah ever used A word meal as a كحل Whether that is in the Arabic language Is just something else Like in the Quran And the Sunnah Whenever it spoke about the word Meal And it used it For the مصافة distance So we're going to strengthen it Based on that Which is looking at the Quran How the Quran speaks And how the Quran Uses this term And how it's coin this term Are you with me And that's one of the other Problems that they have They don't look At the wording Based on How the شريعة Itself uses it So the خطاب الشرع There's a معهود يعلم That is known By The Quran And the Sunnah You need to follow the Quran And the Sunnah In order to come out with that No As well as that The first many What they do In the meaning About What they explained With the Quran As well as What they do In that last one This is again This is the point We find The left If we obtain Two possibilities Of the meaning Carrying both And the mistake That is found So the mistake The wording And it's also The mistake In the meaning The ones who actually Think that They've got the meaning right They've got it wrong The ones who think They've got the The wording right In the meaning They've got it wrong Wrong as well Now وإن كان نظر الأولين إلى المعن أسبق ونظر الآخرين إلى اللفذ أسبق والأولون سنفان تارة يسلبون وما دل عليه وأريد به وتارة نح The first people What have they done يسلبون اللفض وما دل علي وما أريد به The ones who are The first of the two What were they doing They were stripping From the word يسلبون اللفض وما دل عليه The meaning that it showed They stripped it from it For example What did they do وجوه يوم إذن ناظرة They will say to you ناظرة is not seeing Allah Are you with me They stripped the meaning from what it means That Allah won't be seen And of course what's the reason for that It's a preconceived notion I believe that's already in their minds In their hearts So they don't want to take it Regardless of whether the verse comes So the first one is They changed the wording Are you with me كقوله تعالى The statement of Allah سبحانه وتعالى Which is what وكلام الله موسى تكليمة What did they say Allah spoke to Mousa What did he say وكلام الله Who spoke وكلام الله موسى تكليمة They say وكلام الله They make Allah the misool And they make Mousa Be the one that spoke to Allah So they just changed the حركة Why would they do that They just don't want the meaning To come out from it Which is what That Allah سبحانه وتعالى Spoke to Mousa That's a belief they don't want The second thing that they would do Is what Now the second thing is that Once they strip from it Sometimes what they do Is they actually give a new meaning They want to strip the meaning from it What it already is But they gave it a brand new meaning For example As I said When they strip What did they say They gave it a told to different meaning Which is They wait for the reward of their Lord Are you with me They wait for a reward of their Lord That's what they said That's what it means Does it mean That people will be seeing Allah the day of judgment They said What it means is that They're going to be waiting For Allah's reward سبحانه وتعالى نعم وفي كلا الأمرين قد يكون ما قصد نفيخ أو إثباته من المعنى باطلة فيكون خطأهم في الدليل والمدلول وقد يكون حقا فيكون خطأهم في الدليل لا في المدلول So sometimes what happens is They intend to negate Or they intend to affirm The meaning which is باطل So their mistake Might be in the دليل or the مدلول مدلول is the deduction It's the extraction of the رولing And the دليل is the evidence itself نعم وقد يكون وقد يكون خطأهم في الدليل ولا في المدلول The opposite may be true So now we finished This chapter And now we're going to move on to the last and final chapter إن شاء الله إن شاء الله بصل في أحسن ترك التفسير فإن قال قائل فما أحسن ترك التفسير فالجواب إن أصح ترك في ذلك أن يفسر القرآن بالقرآن فما أجملة في مكان فإن هو قد فسر في مو موضع آخر ومخ تسر في مكان فقد بوسط في موضع آخر فإن يا كذلك فعليك بالسنة فإنها شارحة للقرآن وموضحة له وإذا لم تجد التفسير في القرآن ولا في السنة رجعت في ذلك إلى أقوال الصحابة ولكن في بعض الأحيان ينقل عنهم ما يحكون من أقاويل أهل الكتاب التي إلا الله عليه وسلم حيث قال بليه عن ولو آية وحدث عن بني إصرائيل ولا حرج ومن كذب عليه متعمدا فليتبغ ومقعده من النار رواه البخاري عن عبد الله بن عمر تذكر للاستشهاذ لا للاعتقاد فإنها على ثلاثة أقسام أحدها ما علمنا صحته من ما بأيدين من ما يشهد له بالصدق فذاك صحيح والثاني ما علمنا كذبه بما عندنا من ما يخالفه والثالث ما هو مسكوت عنه لا من ولا من هذا القبيل فلا نؤمن به ولا نكذبه وتجوز حكايةه لما تقدم وغالب ذلك مما فا إذا تفيه تعود إلى أمر الديني ولهذا يختلف علماء أهل الكتاب في مثل هذا كثير ويأتي عن فيه تعود على المكلفين في دنياكم ولا في دينهم ولكن نقل الخلاف عنهم في ذلك جائز إذا لم تجد إذا لم تجد التفسير في القرآن ولا في السنة ولا وجدته عن الصحابة فقد رجع كثير من الأئمة في ذلك فيقع في عباراتهم تباين في الألفاظ يحسبها من لا علم عنده اختلاف فيحكيها أقوال وليس كذلك فإن منهم من يعبر عن الشيء بالازم أو نذير ومن من ينص على الكثير من الأماكن فليت فطن اللبيب لذلك والله الهدي وقال شعبة ابن الحجاج وغيره أقوال التابعين في الفروع ليست حجة فكيف تكون حجة في التفسير يعني أنها لا تكون حجة على بعض ولا على من بعضهم ويرجع في ذلك إلى لغة القرآن أو السنة أو عموم لغة العرب أو أقوال الصحابة في ذلك فأما التفسير القرآن بمجرد الرأي فحرام وأما الذي روي عن وقتاد وغيره ما من أهل العلم أنهم فسر القرآن فليست ظن بهم أنهم قالوا في القرآن أو فسر روح بغير العلم أو منقب لأنفسهم وقد روي عنهم ما يدل على ما قلنا العلم به فهذه الآثار صحيحة وما شاكلها عن أئمة السلف محمولة على تحروجهم عن الكلام في التفسير بما العلم بهم فأما من تكلم بما يعلم من ذلك لغة وشرع فلا حرج منافه لأنهم تكلم فيما علموه وسكتوا عن ما جاهلوه وهذا هو واجب على كل أحد فإن هو كما يجب السكوت عن ما لا علم له به فكذلك يجب القول فيما سؤل عنه لا تكتمونه ولما جاء في الحديث المروي من ترق من سؤل عن علم فكتمه ألنجم يوم القيامة بلجام من نار والله علم أفضل من تفسير إذا أحد يجب أفضل من أفضل من أفضل افضل سؤال من أفضل من أفضل من أفضل حيث يجب أن يكون هناك محاولة مني حتى إذا كان هناك محاولة و لا يكون هناك محاولة من الأسرائيل لكن الذي يجب أن يكون هناك محاولة مني will take his place in the fire و يجب أن يكون هناك محاولة من الهديف عبد الله بن عمر ولكن هذه التعليقات التعليقات are quoted as supporting evidences and not primary sources هذه التعليقات are of three types هناك محاولة محاولة منها as its truthfulness is attested to by our own sources هناك محاولة محاولة منها as our own sources reject it and a third type which does not fall into the previous two categories we neither judge it to be authentic or inauthentic as such we neither believe in it or reject it one is allowed to quote from this third type even though most of what is contained in it is of no immediate benefit the scholars of the people of the book differ considerably regarding this third category and as a result the scholars of Tafseer court from them and also differ in this regard and other such matters which are not detailed in the Quran which possess no direct benefit in worldly or religious affairs however one may mention the difference of opinion in these matters if one is unable to find the explanation of a verse in the Quran and does not find any relevant commentary from the companions than many of the scholars use the statements of the successors their statements are quoted and at times there is difference in wording but those who are not grounded in knowledge believe it to be differences of opinion and quote it as such this is not the case as some of them mention something by using examples or similes whilst others are explicit in what they are referring to most of the time they are in agreement so let the state be aware of this and guidance is from Allah شرع با ابن حجاج and others have said that the statements of the successors in matters such as practical rulings are not authoritative so how can they be so in issues of Tafseer this means that their opinions are not authoritative over others who hold contrary views this is true however if they all agree on a single issue then without doubt it is sufficient as evidence instead when they differ one returns to the language of the Quran or Sunnah or the general Arabic language or statements of the companions exegesis of the Quran based solely on one's reasoning is Haran there are some reports that Mujahid Qatada and other than them would commentate on the Quran however one does not believe that they spoke of their own desires there are many narrations from which support the fact that they did not use their own reasoning in the exegesis of the Quran it is for this reason that a number of the Salaf would excuse themselves from interpreting verses they had no knowledge of these and other authentic narrations from the pious predecessors all state the impermissibility of speaking about Tafseer without knowledge however there is no harm in speaking about Tafseer if one possesses the relevant linguistic and religious knowledge it is for this reason that there are a number of varying statements reported from these scholars this does not imply contradiction for they spoke about matters they had knowledge of and remained silent on that which they had no knowledge of this is what is obligatory upon everyone just as one should remain quiet about that which he is ignorant of likewise he should speak about that which he possesses knowledge of when he is asked concerning it as Allah says you must make it clear i.e. explain it to the people and not conceal it this is also due to what is reported in the hadith whosoever is asked about a matter but conceals it will be given a bridle of fire on the day of judgement and Allah knows best


Good afternoon, Howard Wade, Code Green, Sintek, Hawai'i. It gives me great pleasure this afternoon to bring to the table Jeffrey King, Hawai'i coordinator for the Citizens Climate Lobby and you think I've had some interesting guests here before? Wait until you hear what Jeffrey is proposing for us.  No, I'm actually originally from Chicago, a little over two years ago. Okay, from Chicago that explains your extreme high-poweredness. You're not exactly a local guy. And when he's not doing Citizens Climate Lobby work, which of course commands a huge salary, that's a small token, he is a jazz musician, my goodness. And he's looking for some other line of work down the road maybe, but yeah. Anyway, talk about an interesting fellow. Now what Jeffrey is proposing to do is nothing short of drastically dropping the amount of carbon that we put into the atmosphere. I hand that, of course, as full of CO2, the greenhouse gas, and so forth, so forth.  So welcome, Jeffrey, and we have so much to cover. Let's just jump right into it and explain first what Citizens Climate Lobby is all about. Thanks, Howard. Sounds good. So yeah, real quick, Citizens Climate Lobby is a non-profit, non-partisan national organization whose mission is to address climate change in the most effective way that we believe is possible, and that is through a proposal we call carbon fee and dividend. So other people might refer to this as a revenue-neutral carbon tax, though it is technically different because we are proposing a fee as opposed to a tax, and there is a technical difference between the two. But yeah, really briefly, a carbon fee and dividend would, one, put a steadily rising fee on ultimately carbon dioxide emissions, but that would translate into the individual user's language as basically fossil fuels. And this would be coal, oil, and natural gas. Yes, correct. So anything that emits carbon dioxide that is considered a fossil fuel. And then, you know, the main purpose of that is obviously to make, you know, basically fossil fuel usage is an investment unpopular, but more strategically, to be able to basically rapidly create demand for the renewable energy market.  So, yeah. And as we're going to see as we go through the slides, it's good for the economy also. Yeah, and that's kind of just to finish up the dividend portion is there to, number one, you know, ensure that nobody's going to be hurt during this transition from fossil fuels to renewables.  You know, we'd make sure that you get at least $50 back in a check every month. So, yeah, that's kind of the basics of that. But yeah, I can go and explain later on how it will help the economy as well. Let's start you. You start off in your slides with a quiz here. What can we do about carbon change or climate change? And I'm pretty gosh darned authoritative. I would say go vegan. Actually, this isn't necessarily a quiz.  And it generally comes down to these three as major ones. And yeah, and we, you know, we definitely support all of these actions. But for us, this is, you know, ultimately only individual action and to really address the climate crisis in the time we have left, which will be led into by our next slide. You know, we really need to take much more drastic action. Yeah, and we're, instead of individuals, we go get to the big boys here. So only about 36% of average American fossil fuel, some direct emissions, indirect the products we buy, like we looked at a vegan diet. We meet eaters by cow, and cow is a bit of a carbon emitter. Yeah, actually, that's more methane, but yeah, definitely greenhouse gases overall indeed. And yeah, and that last slide was, you know, up there to illustrate the point that we, you know, even if all of us did our part as individuals to, you know, reduce our carbon emissions as much as possible, there's still this other two thirds of the pie that's still left to be solved, you know, and that's basically, as it says, embedded in the products we buy through manufacturing, shipping, et cetera. So a lot of things we don't have direct control over. Yeah, and we don't think of it. We talk about resource efficiency, but it boils down to carbon efficiency also. Yes. Yeah. So what else do you have for us? There's just so much meaty thing. Oh, now this looks interesting. Trillion the ton dash org. Oh, what is going on here? Okay, so this is a website put on by Oxford University called trillionthton.org, and that's why it's spelled a little differently because it's a British site. But yeah, this is an estimate of how many tons of CO2 are being emitted into the air as we speak. And the reason they called it trillionth ton is because from their research, they believe that we'll hit the two-degree limit, which to put it casually is sort of a point of no return in terms of... This is raising the earth's temperature or the water temperature two degrees Celsius? Yes, the earth's temperature overall. And yeah, and then that's sort of the consensus among the scientific communities that once we pass that limit is when we really hit a danger zone, if you will. So we're about over halfway there right now. And the thing I found most fascinating about this site is that if you look towards the bottom, they actually give an estimate on the date, the time, and the second that we will reach that two-degree limit if we continue along this path. And so that will be roughly 2038, which gives us about 22 years to genuinely address this issue. And by genuinely address, as we'll see in the next slides, we're talking about not just a little incremental step here and there, we're talking about a huge dip. Yes. Yeah. So let's take a look at the next slide here. Border adjustments. What is a border adjustment? Oh, yeah, we skipped. What is carbon fee and dividend? Oh, sure. Yeah, and like I was explaining for, just to put it a little bit more visually and simply. So yeah, that's the idea of what we're setting out to do is, yeah, put a rising fee on CO2 emissions. So that would start out at $15 per ton of CO2, which equates to relatively about 10, 12 cents extra on the gallon. And then, yeah, raise that fee by $10 every year. And then you talked about only one-third being direct and two-thirds being indirect. See, give an example of people who are manufacturers who manufacture cardboard boxes. Yeah. Because there's millions of cardboard boxes out there. They would be taxed, too, because they're consuming a heck of a lot of energy in manufacturing the product and then putting cardboard boxes together and then shipping cardboard boxes somewhere. Absolutely. And yeah, and just to clarify it, the fee is actually placed at either the point of extraction or once if it's imported oil or whatever, the fee will be assessed once it enters U.S. shores. So actually, before even the refinery purchases that fuel, it already has a fee on it. So the kind of idea is the refinery passes it down to the oil company. The oil company passes it down to the consumer or the companies that will be using the electricity or energy use and somehow or other. And then to take that one step back, there's a heck of a lot of equipment involved in extracting oil from the ground. That equipment is generally made out of steel. You don't make steel for nothing. That's a very energy-intensive industry. That's true. So that, too, would be taxed. Yeah, at the end of the day, yeah. I mean, just from these fees being passed down. So speaking of importing, exporting, so a lot of this comes from overseas. We're the nation's, the world's largest consumer of goods. So we're importing a heck of a lot of stuff and I think this addresses that. Yeah, indeed. So this is kind of a second element of the proposal is to, as it says, charge import fees on products from countries that don't have a carbon fee. So let's say you're indie or something and you ship goods that have a carbon footprint on it, which will be hard to avoid. And yeah, and if you don't have an equivalent fee assessed on that from your country, then yeah, we will assess it. And part of the incentive for getting other countries to adopt their own carbon pricing system like we would have is to, it's sort of the logic that, if I was India, I would, as long as I have to do, as long as I'm going to be doing business with the US, I want to make sure that that money is going to be going back to my country opposed to just to Americans. So that's kind of the logic. And also to keep, one of the bullet points on there was to keep US business competitive and also to ensure that US businesses won't, basically try to avoid the fee by just relocating to a different country. Good point, good point. So for those many reasons. Of course, the largest country or the most of our imports come from China and it sounds like the Chinese premier and President Obama were getting along pretty good on this issue of reducing carbon output. Yeah, luckily China has understood the value of carbon pricing and has initiated a carbon pricing system of their own. It's not exactly like what we're proposing but it's definitely a great step in the right direction. So they're ahead of us in that sense. Yeah, in general. Yeah, they actually are. Well, you know, the portraits of people wearing great big face masks in Beijing and children not being allowed to go outdoors. That's a pretty good incentive. Yeah, jeez. So what else do we have for us here? Oh my goodness, look at this. So yeah, this is... This is Columbia. Yeah, so I brought the slide up just to answer the question has this been done anywhere before and in fact it has in British Columbia, Canada and their system was enacted in 2008 and as you can see on the left a study that measured the impact from 2008 to 2014 found that gasoline consumption was dropped by seven times in the area and at the same time British Columbia's economy was actually entirely stable throughout those six years and actually did perform a little bit better than the rest of Canada during those years. So yeah, so this is actually something that's been tested and we can see a proven model. Because Vancouver and Victoria are right near the Washington border.  Driving across the border. Yeah, no, that was definitely part of the impact to say as well. But yeah, for the most part it was an actual drop as we would think of it without sort of these loopholes. Absolutely, we all follow our pocketbooks which is the basic premise of this. Yes, indeed. And on that cherry note we need to take a break, take away cold green with Geoffrey Kim back in a moment. Hi, I'm Chris Leitham with The Economy & You and I'd like to invite you each week to come watch my show each Wednesday at 3 p.m. Hi, I'm Stan Energyman and I want you to be here every Friday. Noon! ThinkTechHawaii.com. Watch the show. Be there. I'll pay you to full weight! Hello, I'm Marianne Sasaki. Welcome to Think Tech Hawaii where some of the most interesting conversations in Honolulu go on. I have a show on Wednesdays from one to two called Life in the Law where we discuss legal issues, politics, governmental topics and a whole host of issues. I hope you'll join me. Thank you for watching Think Tech. I'm Grace Cheng, the new host for Global Connections. You can find me here live every Thursday at 1 p.m. where we'll be talking to people around the islands or visiting the islands who are connected in various aspects of global affairs. So please tune in and aloha and thanks for watching. Good afternoon again. Howard Wing, Code Green, Jeffrey Kim, Hawaii representative for the Citizens Climate Lobby and we have just begun to see how big a proposal this is. If we're really going to get serious, excuse me, about carbon reduction, this just may be the way and we just saw that British Columbia has indeed undertaken this and during our discussion I learned that China is already moving in this direction and of course we have seen the pollution levels from China go up and up and up and up and up and sounds like they're taking this very seriously and they're undertaking a similar program through this. Yeah, that's correct. So let's go to our next slide. Now talk about a reduction in fees. What's going on with this chart here now? Sure, so this is to show the amount of carbon dioxide reductions that would happen from our proposal being enacted. So as you can see, this would reduce CO2 emissions to 52% below 99 levels within 20 years and that is one of the most aggressive carbon reduction plans that's been proposed for the United States and the blue line is basically showing you what would happen if we didn't do anything or if we did business as usual and the yellow line being the amount of reductions or the amount of emissions that would happen with our proposal in place. That is dramatic stuff. Yeah, definitely and we picked 99 levels because that's basically where the Kyoto Protocol was sort of setting its targets around. And looking at the blue line we haven't done all that badly. I'm in the energy efficiency field and the economy is much more efficient than it was but we have more people and we've prospered more people, more stuff. Yeah, definitely. Just taking a Hawaii example, back in 1990 there was barely any residential air conditioning. Now the great majority of new homes are centrally air conditioned but despite all of that we're not rising so we're doing a fairly good job now but this is what we really need, this type of program. Now let's take a look at what, because you seem to be indicating that we're going to get prosperous through this program. So yeah, because of something we call revenue recycling from the dividend checks our research actually found that people are going to be likely to spend their money relatively soon and sort of as to put it casually, fund money and restaurants, entertainment and so forth. And yeah, in our research found that that actually helps to stimulate the economy and not only create economic growth as we see here but also be able to create job creation and that's not only through sort of the obvious of more jobs because of more renewable, more renewable industries being able to do their thing but also just creating jobs within the local economy from things like people eating out more and so forth. And we've seen this happen in Alaska because Alaska also gets checks cut out to each household but they actually get it for the opposite reason if you will for a surplus of oil production. But regardless, the principle is the same. And people might do this drastic thing called investing in their children's education. Yeah, that would be very nice. And also I sense that it would simply create more American jobs because suddenly shipping becomes much more of an issue. All those great big tankers, they don't run for free. Yeah, definitely. And speaking of economic benefits, speaking of jobs, I think this goes kind of hand in hand with the last slide we saw here. Absolutely, yeah. So as I was mentioning, because of revenue recycling, we would have more job creation regardless of how much growth is happening within the renewable energy industry. Just because, like I said, it would feed into the local economy and help create a lot of local jobs in addition to jobs in general. But also because of the growth of the renewable energy industry, we would see a lot of jobs. And at this point, the numbers are 2.1 million within 10 years of our proposal. So yeah, definitely, it doesn't really hurt on the economic side either. Nothing wrong with 2 million more jobs. Sure, yeah. And those could be some of them very decent paying jobs too. Yeah, definitely a lot of them will be within the renewable energy sector. And I have friends in the renewable energy sector. They're skilled people. They are up on roofs, they're pretty dangerous. They get a nice hefty revenue from that. Right on, yeah. Okay, so what else we got here? Ooh, you've got some supporters in this realm here. Yeah, so this is just a short list of some, you know, noteworthy and well-known figures who support carbon pricing initiatives overall. So yeah, Dr. James Hansen, who, for those of you who may not be aware, is a world-renowned climate scientist and one of the first people to ever testify in front of Congress is really stating the fact that there is such a thing as global warming and it's a serious problem that needs to be dealt with. And he's actually on our advisory board for Citizens Climate Lobby National Office. And yeah, Joseph Stiglitz, who's a Nobel Laureate economist, as well as Robert Reich, who's former Secretary of Labor and another well-respected economist. So definitely on the economic side, this is a credible solution and something that's been talked about for, you know, decades, actually. And it's just, you know, it just hasn't been really put into action and organized around like until our organization came around. But yeah, I think the most interesting name up there probably is going to be Kenneth Cohen, who, as you can see, is the former Vice President of Public and Government Affairs for ExxonMobil. Yes, yes, the great climate deniers. Right, so just showing that there's a diversity of people who all support this idea and think it is one of the first major steps we really need to take in order to make a legitimate impact on the problem. And I'm looking at Arthur Laffer. There's something called the Laffer Curve that economists talk about. So he's very, very, very respected in the industry. And then towards the bottom, there's this fellow named Bill Gates. Who might that be? Okay, so yeah, as it says, co-founder of Microsoft. And yeah, Bill Gates, you know, has definitely been an advocate for a revenue carbon tax for some time now and published a pretty lengthy article in The Atlantic where there was an interview with him in The Atlantic the last few months. So something definitely worth checking out if you have time. And then Paul Anderson, Duke Energy, they're headquartered in North Carolina, but they're throughout the South. That is a major, major, major utility. One of the biggest in the nation. And then finally at the bottom, one of my heroes, Elon Musk, he's developing the, he has a factory that's going to be, I believe it's 42 million square feet. And you'd have to translate that into many, many, many football fields. And it's going to be doing nothing but manufacturing batteries. And the factory is only maybe two thirds finished. And he's already got orders for tens and tens of thousands of his batteries. Yeah, that's a major, major name to be behind you. So you would think that we'd be getting some public action and speaking of public action here, what is this? So yeah, as it says on the bottom right corner, this is a Stanford University poll that was conducted in 2015. And yeah, and the question was, would you support a refundable carbon tax, which is essentially what we're asking for. It's like, yeah, maybe an easier way to look at our proposal is basically as a carbon rebate program, if you will. Like high five only, you don't have to get up and recycle the can, you just get a check sent to your mail every month. And yeah, and as you can see, a majority of Americans are actually in favor of this idea. And to add on top of that, from a more local angle, Blue Planet Foundation actually had a survey recently that asked similar questions and found that a majority of people were actually willing to pay more and not even have this refundable element in there, but just pay more in general to see more clean initiatives happen. So in overall, yeah, I think it's some evidence that our state and our country are ready for this. Yeah, it sounds like the citizens are ahead of the politicians because you don't see a whole lot of political will behind this in the state legislature. In the state legislature, I mean, I don't know, we've talked to several legislators locally and have found quite a bit of support. But nationally, certainly, we're seeing quite a change happening in Congress in terms of their receptivity to these ideas, which will be coming up in one of our future slides. Yeah. But locally, you've got... Oh, well, here's the national. Yeah. Do I see... Where's Brian Schatz here? Okay, so yeah, this is actually only for House members. Oh, House, okay. But yeah, so this is a recent development called the Climate Solutions Caucus and it is a bipartisan caucus that has to have equal members of Republicans and Democrats. Very important, very important, yeah. And, you know, it's very amazing to us that we're in such a short amount of time. I mean, it was formed in February and already now we have 20 members. And just showing that not only are we seeing, you know, bipartisan effort so strong on both sides, but yeah, that they are willing to work together to really tackle this issue. What a concept, yeah. And yeah, especially inspiring to us was a House resolution that was introduced last November from New York representative, Republican representative Chris Gibson, that was one of the first documents from that party that really clearly stated that climate change is an issue that's not only the environment, but national security, and that we must take action accordingly. And he got 12 other House Republicans to sign on to that, too. So I really, really do believe that, you know, there's some changes happening in Congress. Wow. Yeah, that's impressive, and let's hope that a similar change takes place in our legislature. Yeah. Because we have a teeny, teeny little population, but we have a lot of influence in the nation also. And we, of course, are, we pay the highest prices by far. Mm-hmm. And so we need to wrap up, but before we do, how can we get hold of you, Jeffrey? Sure. So if you can send an email to Honolulu at citizensclimatelobby.org, we'll be able to answer any questions you may have. And otherwise, you can just visit our national website at citizensclimatelobby.org. And once again, yeah, our local chapter email is just Honolulu on top of that email address, on top of that website address. Yeah, well, let's see you building and building and building the local chapter. Yeah, definitely. Yeah. Okay, well, on that cheery note, we need to wrap up again. We could have gone really deeply into depth into this, but we must bid fondaloha to Jeffrey Kim, the Hawaii Rep for the Citizens Climate Lobby. Thank you so much for coming by, Jeffrey. My pleasure. And see you in two weeks on Think Tech Hawaii Code Green, signing off.


How do y'all, LFG here back in the Fish Cave Studio and today we're going on a river adventure for catfish and gar. Before we get to firing up that fan boat and get to going down the river, let me tell you about today's awesome sponsor of this video and that is Worksharp. As y'all may know, I never step into the outdoors without a very sharp knife. I've collected knives since I was a young buck, but now that I'm an outdoorsman and do this a lot, I like to make sure my fishing and hunting knives are super sharp and the best way to do that is to keep them sharp after every time you go out and use what I've gone through. Wet stones, honing steel, straps, all those things can be used in a combination but they take time to learn. So when I found out about Worksharp and they sent me one of their products, I found out that you can cut that time down tremendously. Worksharp has come up with a number of knife and tool sharpening devices that enable you to get your knife sharp quick and get back in the outdoors. When I say quick guys, I'm talking about within minutes you're going to have a super sharp knife. Just go to their website, look at how they design these belt sharpening systems that are going to have a perfect convex edge for you to sharpen just about all your outdoor knives.  Keep this thing in the boat for sharpening hooks, broad heads, attaching broad heads, and they even thought of an ingenious 20 degree edge to just lay your blade flat on there and just keep it home. You always want to make sure you're keeping your blades home after every time you use them. So you can be like me and go through hours and hours of trying to learn the correct angle and taking off a lot of metal on your blades using sharpening stones and then honing steel or get the work sharp system, get it done within minutes, and get back in the outdoors. If you guys want to learn more about Worksharp, make sure to go down in the description and click the link in there so you can learn how to sharpen knives using this system. I promise you if you're an outdoorsman this will save you a lot of time and keep you sharp for anything you're doing. So if you guys want to learn more about how I sharpen all my knives, let me know down in the comments and I'll do a whole video on it. Now it's time to put our knives and our fishing rods to use down in the Brazos Valley on a river that I used to live not too far from. So it brought back some memories and there are some huge fish in this river and it's one of the coolest rides in an airboat I've ever gone on. Check it out. Oh man, I haven't been on an airboat many times. We've got some frozen little carp. Drum and carp. Freshly harvested, I think Brad caught these. Y'all kept up with the videos in the summer, you know, jug lining. Got into that. A lot of fun. Really cool. I think we're gonna do some of that right here and then maybe get a pole line out as well. There's some big gar that lives in these rivers in Texas. You've probably seen it on River Monsters and other YouTube videos. These are jugs by Brad. Anything special about these? You got the T-pattern on the end where you can just kind of wrap it up. Supposed to go a little smoother than that. Mine are all experimental. Everyone's different. It's like a half ounce or a one ounce weight. A little circle hook or an octopus hook. Foam noodle. Mike's cutting up a little bit of drum. Got to let him eat it. Swallow it basically. He's running good. Is he going up current? Oh, this one's getting bite too Brad. Dang it. I had him for a second. That was a big one. Oh that's the juice. Multiple lines out. Let's have a couple of takers. But no hangers. We need ones that are hungry.  But they've bit the other lines pretty good. Mike just saw an eight footer. That's a big one. That's a world record dude. What? What do you want me to say? Middle one's on Abu Garcia. 20 feet of line. They just know. They know which one to get. It's going. It's going hard. Oh, dang. Got him. You on Brad? I think he's on. Think it might be a little one. Dude, I think he's on bro. Fish on man. Fish on. Oh, there you go. They know that that one's got 44 pounds of drag and that Abu Garcia's got about 10. Oh, it's like they're coming in waves. Let them eat. Let them eat. Let them eat. Talk to me, Mike. Give me some tips. Well, it's about the fifth hookup we've had. Not hookup. Fifth bite we've had. We're not very prepared. Justin's the only one that brought enough line to actually probably land one. We're just out here getting bites. Getting bit up. That thing's taking the line like crazy now. Oh, yeah. That one's committed. In it to win it. Oh, she's running still. Yeah, still going up river. So I say when it stops would be a good time or you might run out of line again. You going to do it? A lot of stretch in that line. Ah, come off the gar game. It's tricky, y'all. It's tricky. I've done it a few times and it seems like you hook up on one out of every five or six if you got everything set up. I really want this rod to go off right here because I've got a ton of 100 pound line on here braid. So I know I can get a good hook set and I can let them runaways. I've got a 14,000 size reel. Just let them swagger it. Get real happy with that bait and then just we're getting bit. Got him. Stay on. Stay on. Oh, here we go now. What are you feeling? I don't know. We're about to know real quick what it is. Oh yeah, softy. Ready for dinner? Softy. Yes, dude. Soft shell catching cook. That's what I'm talking about. Soft shell turtle, man. How soft are they? Will they bite pretty good? Oh, this looks like a stingray underneath. All right, we're going to let this guy go. It's his lucky day. See Mr. Softy so quick. If we had ice on the strip, we would definitely keep that. I've always wanted to try one of those. I've heard they're pretty tasty. Oh, god. Still got it. You want a reel up? Oh, wow. Or you want to give him some time? Yeah, let's let him chew. Dude, with that, the way he just took that, yeah, that's a big gong. It's so big, dude. He's hooked. He might be caught on that one. Oh, yeah. Yeah, I've had one bigger net on rock reel. That is the biggest one I've seen on a jug so far. That is awesome. Mr. Whiskers, you're going to the grease, man. Going to the grease. Yes, we didn't get skugged, boys. We thought it was going to happen. The last one. Here we go. Oh, winner, winner. Catfish dinner. That worked. This used to be my rod sleeve until the motor, the blades.  Don't do that. Don't do this right here. This is bad. Made it in safely. Thank goodness.  And we didn't get skunked. This is a big old catfish. So we're going to go clean this up. And that is going to be either some place tonight or later. Garfishing, man, I just don't have it down. You got to let them take it, then they drop it, and it's a process. So I definitely need to work on my garfishing skills, but this is the way to do it. Taking the airboat out. We didn't see anybody out there. They were rolling, you know, the water was coming in. It was a really cool experience on the water today. And it's always good when you can bring home the meat, especially some tasty blue cat. Mike, I want to see how you clean cats. Smaller fish. I don't skin them, but I need a big one. Just want to make an outline. Wow, that's not that sharp. Yeah, it's very sharp. Just go with the outline.  That'll do, though. There we go. And there we go. Yeah, that's a juicy looking steak. Go. And the belly meat, this one's so big, it's probably even just cheek meat out of them. Just make sure you peel that off or you can rub it off with a like a scrub brush and sink. That's the only bad part. Good day all over. I can't believe how far that catfish actually took that juggling down river. Just riding in that airboat today was awesome. Going through the Brazos Valley. That's an area that is a huge historic landmark in Texas. Saw bald eagles, all sorts of birds. We saw big alligator gar rolling, tons of turtles, just a really cool ride. Big thanks to my buddy Mike for firing up the airboat and doing a great job steering that thing around, going around those trees and rocks and everything. It was a little sketchy at times. I'm sure we're going to be going down there again to try and get on some of those big gar. They are huge. I'd love to get a cool gar replica mount on this wall, man. Got to fill this thing up with some mounts. Hit the thumbs up and let me know in the comments if you're digging the river fishing. I don't do enough of it, I feel like. I do tons of lake fishing going out in the bass boat, but river fishing is awesome, man. Go ahead and subscribe right here for more outdoor action and hit the ding dongs so you don't miss a single bite, y'all. I appreciate you being here. I'll see you on the next one.


I'm not talking loudly. I'm talking in a pretty modern tone. Is that too loud? A little loud. Yeah, I agree. Let's try this. How does that sound? Sounds good? Yay! Welcome everyone. I'm Michelle Singer. I'm the Adult Programs Coordinator here at the Calgary Book Library. It's my pleasure to have you here with us for Poem City. I'm not going to take a lot of time for introductions because that's going to happen. I want the readers to have as much time as possible, but I do want to express my gratitude to Rootstock Publishing for partnering with us. Thank you, Sam. And I want to thank Orca Media for being here to be our filmers and give access to people who are not in the room with us at this moment. Hello everybody. Hello. Without further ado, I'm going to hand it over to Samantha. And again, welcome to Poem City. It's a special thing that we do here in Montpelier. I think we do it better than anywhere else in the world. World? Okay. We'll see. But we're very happy to have you. Yeah, much of a way. Thank you everyone for coming. Poetry on a Saturday afternoon. What could be better? Sunshine, which started to come. Thank you Orca Media for filming. Thank you Kellogg Hubbard Library for hosting. It's been great as Rootstock Publishing. My name is Samantha. I'm the owner and the publisher. And it's been great working with the library to be a sponsor of Poem City this year. For those of you who might not know, we put together the Poem City anthology. They have that for sale here. Most of the poets here are in it except for Kim missed the deadline, but that's okay. She was busy getting her book together. So we do have three debut poets here today. Now I say debut. They've been writing and reading and sharing their poetry for decades. But this is the first time that they each have a printed book published by Rootstock. So we have Amy Allen of Shelburne. This is her debut chat book. Chat book means little book. You can see how thin it is, but it's mighty. Mountain offerings, poems very much about Vermont nature, the human experience. I'll read a little bit about Amy Allen from her bio. As I said, she's from Shelburne. She was just named as the new Shelburne Poet Laureate, which I think is super cool. And I'd love to talk to the library about making a Montpelier Poet Laureate. She'll be working with the community, with schools, with the library there to bring poetry to the community. Amy Allen studied English literature and creative writing at Skidmore College and at Drew University. Her poetry has been published in a variety of journals, including Westrade Review, The Right Launch, The Mountain Troubadour, Pine Row Press, and more. I'm sorry to read the whole list there. She lives in Shelburne with her husband, children, and dogs. And she enjoys time outdoors in the beautiful Green Mountain State. She owns all of the right words of freelance writing and editing business, a profession that allows her the time to write for pleasure. So that we'll have Amy will read first. I'm going to introduce all the poets and then they'll come up to read. Next, we're going to have Mary Elder Jacobson with her debut stone chat. Beautiful cover. These poems are more of a full-length collection because it's almost, it's about 80 pages. These also span the human experience. You're going to find grief. You're going to find parenting. You're going to find nature. There are bird poems, though it's not specifically a book of bird poetry. And I'll read Mary's bio as well. Mary Elder Jacobson was born in Washington, D.C. and grew up in Annapolis, Maryland. She holds a BA with honors and art. Is it Goucher College? Goucher College. Some words I don't always pronounce. This is what happens when, I've heard that when you're a precocious reader, like you learn to read at a young age, you don't always know how to pronounce them. That was definitely me and my daughter as well. We both were reading when we were three. She holds a BA with honors and then the MA from the writing seminars at Johns Hopkins University where she was a teaching fellow. And an MFA in creative writing from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. Her poems have appeared in various literary journals and have been selected for anthologies, radio, poetry daily, and other distinctions. She's a recipient of a Vermont Studio Center residency and she lives in North Calis, Vermont. And Stone Chat is her debut. Our third poet, Kim Ward from Montpelier. This is a lovely collection, Fire on a Circle. This is also her debut. I've known Kim, I think ever since I moved to Montpelier. I think we've lived in Montpelier the same amount of times, 20 plus years. And at every open mic and poetry thing, a bear pond, Kim was there and I've always loved her poetry. I mean, I love all my rootstock poets, but it's really been an honor to publish all three of these poets with their debuts. So let me read Kim's bio. Kim Ward is a poet, playwright and visual and theater artist. She is the founder of the Vermont Playwright Circle and received her MFA in performance poetry from Goddard College in 1998. RIP Goddard College. I'm also an alum. I did my MFA in writing there in 2014. Her poetic play, Angel in the Fire, received the 1999 Playwrights Showcase Award by the Vermont Actors and Theaters Artist Association. Plenty of seats up front. Feel free to come and take a seat. And the same poetic play, Angel in the Fire, was accepted into the New Frontiers Conference in 2000. She grew up in Vermont. Many of these poems are very Vermont-y, but they might show up, you know, they're beautiful, but they also show a dark side. There's a lot of poems about addiction, poems about poverty, poems about motherhood and nature, but it's really growing up out of that darkness. And you'll hear from some of that today. She's lived in Vermont Playwrights for over 20 years and she teaches English at Norwich University. As I said, these are my three rootstock debut poets for April. We are publishing more poetry throughout the year. In the fall, we'll have a posthumous collection by Ruben Jackson. He signed with us in November. He sent over his collection to me in January and as many of you may know, he passed in February. I'm going to move forward with his book. We are putting it together. He had already given me poetry and a picture for the cover and a title, which is just blanking my mind. I can write it down. So stay tuned for that. If you'd like to sign up for my newsletter with rootstock publishing, I do have a form in the back so you'll get notice when these new books are out. We also have a debut book by Toussaint St. Megritude. He's a Vermont poet and musician and his poetry will be coming out in the fall as well. So as I said, we will hear from our three poets. There's a bathroom in the back. Help yourself. We'll be selling books after the readings. You can come back and get your book signed. I have a question already. Toussaint and Ruben's poems are in the bookspealer window this month. They're a beautiful little arrangement. Please go over and read them. Thank you, Rick. Yeah, we do have a tribute to Ruben Jackson in the Poem City display. The Poem City anthology is also dedicated to Ruben Jackson. So please enjoy your poetry today, but please also enjoy Poem City throughout the town, Poem City in the library. I know Amy Allen's poem. Did you say it was here? Yeah. Amy Allen has her poem here in the library. So Treasure Hunt, go find it. Mary's is up there upon books, correct? Kim's will be in next year. That's okay. It is on State Street, I forget, which building, one of the old banks. But enjoy your poetry and I'm going to step aside. And our first poet today will be Amy Allen. Thank you, Sam. Hi, everybody. Nice to see so many people on a Saturday. We finally stopped raining and you're inside to hear some poetry, which is really wonderful for all of us. I know. So thanks for being here. Quite a few of my poems, as Sam mentioned, are inspired by the outdoors and the natural world here in Vermont. So I'm going to start with a couple of those because I think there's sort of a good indicator of my style and some of my favorite subject matter. So the first one is called January in Vermont. January in Vermont. Afternoons are fleeting. Their daylight quickly replaced by brilliant oranges and pinks spreading and easing down into Lake Champlain. Soon a three quarter moon takes stage, a spotlight on snow covered hills, illuminating the journey as our car slips through wood stove smoke suspended above the pavement like a phantom toll booth. A solitary cow stands just outside a lopsided dairy barn seeping warm yellow light out into the night air. Her saucer eyes are fixed out to where the sky joins the lake. The stars always shine brightest on the coldest of days, a reward just for making it. The next one I'll read is called Pilgrimage and this poem was inspired by times, as Sam mentioned, I live in Shelburne and I live out on, lucky enough to live out on Shelburne Point, which is such a narrow strip of land in between Shelburne Bay and Lake Champlain and you can almost, you can stand there and see water on both sides from certain parts and there's so much preserved land there that's undeveloped and it's just a bevy of wildlife. There's just so much to see, so many animals and so many birds and my husband and I often sit outside in the evenings and as the sun is setting, the birds go back and forth between the bay and the lake and that inspired this poem, which is called Pilgrimage. People arrive by car, on foot and on bikes. Some bring dogs who chase frisbees and each other out into the lake's shallows, oblivious to the show before them. Some hold toddlers who mimic the ooze and oz of the adults surrounding them. The lovers hold hands, their shoulders touching, heads tipped together. The teens hold up their phones, adjusting settings in a hurry quest to capture, to perfectly capture the glowing ball as it eases down into Lake Champlain. She prefers her spot alone in the woods, reclining on a flat rock, jacket bald under her head, surrounded by the pines and maples, the only soundtrack from the birds passing back and forth overhead in a sort of rushed commute. Their bellies are illuminated with golden light, the undersides of their wings aglow with the sun's final offering. She knows from the pinks and oranges visible through the trees the beauty that exists out on the horizon, but her pilgrimage is here in the margins with a quiet shade and the reverence in knowing what can never be captured. Some of my other poems are about relationships, partnership, and also motherhood. And a couple of them are about my daughter. My daughter is 19 now, and she actually designed the cover for the book, which was fun.  And so I said, I really love what you're doing and I appreciate that you're doing this, but can you just alter it a little bit? And so we went back and forth until we got it quite right. But during COVID, she went through anorexia and nearly died. And I speak about this with her permission. She speaks very openly about it. She's thriving and on the other side, but it will be a lifelong thing that she will deal with. And she has spoken in front of her entire school and about it and plans to make a career out of helping others. You know, she's studying social work now. But I wrote a couple of poems during that time when she was in the hospital. We were at Dartmouth and I spent eight nights on a chair next to her bedside in the hospital. And so a couple poems came out of that and I'll read one of those, which is called Monitors. There's an implied understanding in the family lounge at the children's hospital that we will discuss the persistent light rainfall or the questionable sushi from the deli downstairs. Making conversation like actors in an extended improv where we play people who bumped into one another on the stained couches of a car service lounge or shifting in metal folding chairs in the back of a sticky school gymnasium awaiting the orchestra concert's first note. Our stiff limbs reveal the toll of nights spent curled in vinyl chairs, eyes alert at every beep, watching intently for the rise and fall of chests under blankets. Our hearts can't bear to feel anything for fear of feeling everything. So we smile meekly, lament the weak coffee and resume our synchronous solitary vigils. Okay, I'll do one or two more. The other one is about, I'm the youngest of five by 11 years. I was a surprise. I prefer to say surprise, not mistake.  But my one brother died several years ago now of early onset Alzheimer's at age 57, which as you might imagine was incredibly difficult. And I have found as you move through the world other people who have lost a sibling, there's just a certain, it's a certain type of loss and it's an interesting and sad way to connect but I think there's connection in understanding that type of loss. So this is called brotherhood of the brotherless. There's a bittersweet kinship among those who've lost a sibling, a strange comfort in all that does not need to be spoken. Like how it feels to take a seat at the Thanksgiving table or to line up for family pictures at weddings and graduations, knowing there should be another chair at the table, another body to drape your arm around in the photo. There should be an asterisk on everything that comes after. And while we all just keep getting grayer and more tired and freckled and wrinkled, our brothers remain captured, suspended in yellowed three by five photographs with curved edges, stuck in thick chestnut-haired days, wearing their faded ripped cutoffs, their tanned tone limbs gleaming and wide grins spread effortlessly across their faces in anticipation for all that was surely to come. Okay, and I'll finish with one. I'm going to finish with one that's actually not in the book. It's a more recent thing that I've written and it's actually a flash micro, so it's like a short, more like a prose poem. And it's called Perspective. And the prompt for this was, I'm in a writing workshop that this was assigned for, and the prompt was a one-sentence story or poem, so this is ostensibly one sentence. I am at the beach under an umbrella pretending to read my book, but really I am watching a toddler holding his mother's hand, pulling her toward the water, crying and then yelling, mommy, mommy, mommy, over and over. And she is talking to a friend and it's clear that she really just wants to relax on the beach and watch the ocean while laughing with another adult, but her son's little hand in hers is making that impossible. And he's got her arm fully outstretched and she is still talking, but he's winning and her feet begin to move toward the object of desire and she raises her voice now so that the other woman will still be able to hear her and the boy carries on repeating his calls and finally she finishes her conversation and picks him up in her arms. His sandy legs wrapped around her tanned, taut waist and she says okay, okay.  And I am sitting there not reading my book and thinking that I would give anything, literally anything to be able to do that one more time with my son. This is when I always start crying. Who is now a young man who shaves his face and calls me mom and really barely calls me at all and doesn't seem to need me for anything and I have all the time in the world to relax and talk to friends on the beach but really all I want to do is be able to pick up my child and show him something magical. Thank you. I know a lot of people here but I'm Mary Elder Jacobson if I haven't met you before. Nice to see so many faces that I know. I have notes so that I stay on track. Where's Sam? Sam, thank you so much. This book would not be here without this wonderful community-minded, poetry-loving, smart, articulate local business-owning woman. Thank you. A lot of people have asked me what is Stone Chat? Why is it called Stone Chat? I thought I'd start with the title poem Stone Chat. So Stone Chat is a bird and at the front of the book I have the definition here it's a small old world songbird of a thrush subfamily having old markings and a call that sounds like stones being knocked together. And when I came across that word Stone Chat in the dictionary and it said that it was called that for the way that it sounds I thought well who named that bird? What was that? So that's where this poem comes from asking that question. Stone Chat. Who first thought to name it? Who first heard its cry? Before she heard the Stone Chat did she stoop at river's edge the weight of an infant pack heavy on her back her blistered feet blessed by the waters foaming eddies? Did she ask what sort of pebbles fall that they may sound like birds singing? When she first heard the Stone Chat did she hear the rhythmic whisper her broom saying into air moving its patterns across the dirt floor? Did she pause long enough to notice the design her body and broom had wrought out of the dry earth? The straw combed hearth at her feet the way the ripped dirt lay like a tablet before her? Perhaps it was then that she squatted down to trace her name in the blankness then when she called the lines her own connected sound to sight and heard again the falling pebbles their music drawing her eye to an open window through which she saw on a wavering branch small and copper breasted amid white flowers and dark berries the song's true source to which she listened and wrote beside her name Stone Chat, Stone Chat, Stone Chat it is amazing to have a book that has everything I need in it I did not have that bad dream last night where you leave your papers at home this is a poem that's difficult oops we're good hello hello this is a poem that's difficult to read but I'm losing it's really difficult to read am I jiggly the wire? it's a very difficult poem to read I will not lean on the podium even more it's not important so in Stone Chat that poem gives voice to a figure, a woman who names the bird people talk about having to find your voice as a writer and I feel like you have to find your voices I've been discovering many voices in my work so this poem is called After the Floods and it's the most recent poem I think in the book after the floods in July and like an incontainable flood it has no punctuation after the floods I should say sorry this is a poem of and for a month after the floods where went the sky that emptied itself into the green mountains who moved the mountains that emptied themselves into the rivers that flowed the rivers that emptied themselves into the roads where be the roads that emptied themselves of black tar of rock, of earth, of culvert, of bridge span and now damn into the cellars, stairwells, hidey holes oh god the bric-a-brack all through the mud rooms, dining rooms living rooms, wreck rooms here, heave the homes filled up, fed up, flooded up wrecked with mud, with roads with rivers, with mountains inside, inside inside the houses themselves reaching, retching, reaching end over end lost and found a posted sign still pinned up outside everyone looking left looking right looking up, looking down each dwelling emptied inside out, out onto the streets lost, utterly lost who has seen has anyone seen the sky where went, oh my my dear parent's clear blue sky yes I am shaking a little bit now, want to do something else I always kind of envy guitar players because they can sit there and tune while they're coming up with the next song I'm going to retune a little bit and have a different energy here so here's another Vermont poem a Montpelier poem a few years ago they were getting ready to completely restore the dome on the state house and of our capital city and I was captivated by that so with a nod to everything that's beautiful beautiful about Montpelier and how we take care of things this poem is owed to Ceres and her golden dome so they were re-guilding the dome with gold leaf or about to before the re-guilders can touch up the dome to match the gold that Ceres stands upon they'll have to find the just right leaf in sheen and tone the glint and hue of hillsides autumn afternoons old pastures guilty with goldenrod or proud with grain Monet's depth touch end of summer brushwork mounted haystacks and oh right here that shimmering hour when tucked in farms nod to dusk as sun bends down to kiss Vermont re-guilding acres and acres of burnished wheat Timothy, rye even the yellow-gold surprise of fresh-shocked corn stacked nearly too high upon kitchen tables by eager children who must wait bright bits of corn silk clinging to their blue-dung greeds In my family, if it's your birthday we call you the birthday boy we have a birthday boy in the audience today so he can choose whichever poem he likes to have dedicate to himself as from me to you this is a little poem sometimes I like to become something else and not have it be my voice but have it be another voice so this is a little persona poem some of you may have seen it in another iteration it's from the point of view of shadows it's just a little six-line poem without a peep deep from the yawning barns ink-black silhouette we seep unasleep we spill in silence in puddles in every shape of dark we curl up tight at your feet then wait to pat about all day proverbial cats pacing the path mute as the marks beneath cats' practised paws I would do three more does that sound good time once in I have five minutes I might leave one out then this poem is called pondweed sometimes I'd like to escape the constructs of our human world and just be something else pondweed the grass is greener underwater I've grown green with envy over every underwater weed so long and thinly loved and lively glint and greenly underwater fluidly, movingly underwater leave me grow me willowy green me underwater ebb and billow me laugh and please me leave me be the underwater oh ribbon me oh rabble me oh underwater's where undone I've long become, have gone and go under spells and lo how soon am overquelmed by deep, by shallow water's all and in whose realms I'll gladly dwell all unhoused and underwater take me underwater water me there make me pondweed underwater undulate me underwater so I'll close with this poem and I chose this for a lot of reasons I guess but it seemed to be quoted or quoted by people that read the book it seemed like a lot and on a personal note after my mother passed away and I had to go through her things she had many copies of this printed out at her desk because I think she gave it away to lots of people why I still write because on Monday I am not a Syrian refugee fleeing with nothing but my name lost on a two year long waiting list to safety because Tuesday I am not the Hawthorne tree found feeble with rot in our yard trunk collapsing to its core because come Wednesday I'm neither my neighbors lost curls nor her wept tears dropping onto the chemo chair because these late September temperatures never did plummet as predicted by Thursday and I can't forget to plunge again into the Pearson lake to swim once more deliriously numb because on Friday morning not another soul in my garden I work leaf litter into loss meeting the earth while kneeling down grateful to have known the Hawthorne its blossom and its thorn because we can't even fathom an age as old as Saturn's four and a half billion years yet already before it's over we've begun to miss this day the one we've just been given and the one after that because on Sunday after nightfall we sit under dark skies on our wobbly outdoor lawn chairs their old joints creaking the wood silvering to gray all of us waiting together mother father and son on the cusp of adulthood warm under blankets the air brewing cool our puppy roving from lap to lap wondering what's up as we speak or don't speak in the welcome quiet gazing out across the lake up over treeline our heads tilted back we stare in awe at the super blood moon just now Eclipson because whatever science says about some equal future moon I know the rare particulars of this vast and intimate brilliance the now of us won't ever in our lifetime come my way again I like to set a timer because otherwise I'll be up here forever because that's who I am thanks everybody for coming today and it's so lovely to be able to read with these two amazing poets and be part of poetry month it's exciting and I would definitely echo thank you to Sam for all her amazing work to put the kind of books out that Rootstock is putting out poetry or otherwise it's a real gift so I appreciate it maybe this isn't done but I'm going to read a poem that's not in the book I read it the other night at our LGBTQ reading and that's because it was recently a solar eclipse so I felt like I had to read it and this comes from Angel in the Fire which is a play written in poetic verse, monologues it's all about three generations of my family and a lot of its fiction and when my mother heard the piece and sort of went out at intermission I thought oh my god she's so upset I wrote all about our family and I came out and she was just smoking because she was a smoker oh my god your poetry is so amazing but some of that's not true I love that I wish she could be here to hear it so this doesn't have a title it's just part of a monologue that's done from the play the moon blocked out the sun today for a brief moment night at noon I am eight the cement steps have a hole beneath them bees dip and fly silently between my legs waiting for me to move until you come and pick me up in the dark and we watch the moon dozee-doe with the sun visions of old apocalyptic stories fresh in my mind then the sound of the bowl in the field across the way startles me and you take me inside oh and I just realized I read that with no glasses on it's been a while since I've done that so if I were in a circle everyone says where did the title come from and you'll find out as we go because there's three sections in the book the first is called Pursuit it's mostly about I feel like I'm too tall for where this is it's mostly about what we pursue whether it be art or relationships or just what is our passion the second part is called Green Mountain Rooms and it takes place all of the poems in this section come from me practicing as a pagan and studying the old German Futhark Rooms so as I introduce those poems I usually try to at least spell the room so you know what I'm talking about and I tried to bring those into Vermont because that's where I grew up the last piece is called Fire and deals a lot with family so I'll read a little bit for each section I thought why not read the first poem from each section so this first poem is called Movement in D Minor I think it's probably the oldest poem in the book it was written when I was a wee lass going to Johnson State College when it was still called out it's only a dark stage a bright circle clinging to her yellow skirt grey words upon her palms it's only a twisting body knives of light slice out and away from her small frame it's only one short step out of that safety where she sways to the chanting of the unseen crowd she leaps off the wooden cliff into the darkness yellow skirt lifted above her head like a leaf storm that's definitely about performing at least my passion and always has been I was a someone was talking about like when they started to read Sam like I don't remember I think I learned to read in the womb because I do not remember and always always was writing and making little stapled books and giving them to people so having one that's not just stapled this kind of fun so I was with my partner for about seventeen and a half years she's still my person but we haven't killed each other because we don't live together anymore and so a ton of the poems in the beginning are about our relationship or being in love but they're also about depression which she struggles with a lot so this is called your turn it's a hard rock surrounds me I cut it myself eons of work I slide downward ever aware as the bomb silence grows while you hang above lean precariously into my deep well your voice knocks the slippery walls don't worry I'll be here when you come up the encircling breeze turns your hair into a torrent of wings you think I would have planned this out go on to the second section there's nothing else I want to read so the first poem in the green mountain room section is a poem that just tries to give you a feel of what it I think it might have been like to work with the runes in ancient times it's called dried ghost a small cave smoke on the water an empty longboat once filled with settlers the rune secrets itself inside her chest the men gather trumpeting for war hunting dogs sniff the carving knife a dried ghost curls under her tone it's leaf of death it's lodging teeth waiting to spring into fruition on the end of the spear and the rune she carves bloody handed and so I haven't gone through the entirety of the runes there's 24 of them and the first eight are supposed to be about your physical life and physicality the second eight are intellect and the third are spiritual and I figure it's going to take me until I die to do the third because I'm working through them um this first one is called it's named after the rune onsues which the definition of is breath of God and it's also about voice your own personal voice onsues God mouth of time moth of words wisdom of the weird inside that hole we part grandmother God takes the tongue and roots it elsewhere lights your bones with eternal flame sets them deep beneath my own skin and the blessings burn goddess slips her tongue over my bones drills the cipher to my life deeply against hip and shin breast and skull becomes the cursed bird and flees thorazaz it stands for thorn but when used in numbers in three times in a row it's supposed to help you cast a spell thorazaz giant I hear your steps in the forest of dawn thorazaz thorn that pricks my rib with glee thorazaz transformation of the very flesh inside of me transformation happens when the thorn pricks the thumb transformation that sticky seed of the giant transformation the thrice cursed bird and the wind blows and the thunder rocks as you move into night with the bird and when the crow cries three times I know it is you so what I tried to do is for a long time I did these individual stanzas which are loosely based on the structure of the attic rooms and then I started moving into doing things that were more directly connected to me so this is called green mountain rooms great grandmother beginning with your bare Irish feet standing on Abenaki backs you walked from rune to rune fehu cattle was the first fehu prosperity which first generation meant sheep more sheep than one woman could shear and not go bleary eyed and bloody handed home the gold of the hills propped you up when you walked the rolling turf up Snipe Island Road when the barns had yet to cure much less sag unturned corpse of wood and hay the foundation is filled with rusting sighs and old plows and in the field above the graves are full you moved on to Nauthe's that greasy little room full of vicious joy and taking if you don't watch him I stand before your tombstone below us the highway prances like a nest of ticks the falling dark pulls yellow's foos gold from the city as it sparks to light I wrote that poem for my grandmother and she grew up on a 250 acre farm in Richmond to which she said when the 1927 flood happened everyone definitely came to their place because it was the highest place in town so I'll redo the poem that has to do with the title you'll hear where the title came from and the poem is called Rido and Rido means journey it's more than that when you journey to find yourself Rido, wheel of days crushes a month of thunder beneath its heel the journey is pleasure while the world is a flame I follow I dip myself in the waters of the rains, live off of the land and land I travel is strange give me the hand you once held out, Rido let my horse slow only when it is at the end of our trail that I may know to stop the pursuit is fire on a circle water anointing my bare head and the clear aster of a new moon sky blazing blackly above I'm going to be careful to read this one important poem today because Anne is here and she wanted me to read it last time and I didn't so the last the last section of the book is fire and a lot of these poems are definitely just about growing up in Vermont and this first one it actually got published right after our last hurricane, Hurricane Irene which is ironic, that's my grandmother's name but it's not about that hurricane it's about one my mother experienced when she was 8 Hurricane in Vermont after the hurricane we went out to help our neighbors in the dawn the moon was just the slivers, sharp and small the cows beneath the collapsed barn called out like an anguished village and were silenced with each successive blow from daddy shotgun little light reading and I would say this is the title poem from the play that I did for my MFA at Goddard rest in peace we've been knowing that's unfortunately been coming for a while and a bunch of us are very concerned that hopefully that the archives at Goddard will be somehow magically saved and kept for good use because they're important I am the girl you brought through the fire I am the singing angel in the furnace the voice of the hunting owl as she kills her prey in the beginning I was the silent face all questing eyes and limbs my early body ready to fling this world off you are mother of mothers voice of the ages soothsayer to the aged stretches to the top place of crones become infants and daughter become keeper in the stone of your heart beat the hearts of tree frogs and the wings of youth while I returned to the girl in the tree the one who lost her voice winter after winter as if the gods were stealing her angels fire so that I would start up in bed fever shaking the voice out of me while out in the hall was warm light and the sound of your deep song drifting last but not least so I don't get in trouble okay so one of my most recent poems is called Vermont Calendar I don't know if it needs any introduction I wanted to write a poem about Vermont but no one wants to know about my Vermont the streets of the trailer park flooding and freezing and winter the boys tripping me mercilessly as I crawled my way across that rippled expanse of ice in a dress I'd been forced to wear to school the man whose trailer was the first one at the third entrance who chopped his wife to pieces as if he could fling her up and make ruby stars by which to navigate his broken heart our neighbor Billy who decided not to come to the bus stop on Monday because he had a date with a tree and a rope he could not break I vowed at 16 one day I would make my own foliage calendar and send it to Vermont Life for publication with a January full of rusted trailers instead of collapsing bucolic barns or tractors in an October full of young tortured souls falling in the bright air in reds and black and blues and a December filled with the panoramic picture of my neighbor David running from his father's rusted truck at midnight casting green sickly night vision and buyers will get a special greeting card with a microchip playing the song of his adolescent voice calling out dad no don't please stop while the growl of the engine can be heard rising and falling like a roaring fire truck the byline would state no rural poor were killed in the making of this memorabilia David only broke his leg that night thank you I forgot to mention we can do a Q&A so anybody has questions for our poets they can come up and answer them questions for me about rootstock questions about home city there's lots more programs so many topics so little time anyone or we can hear more poems or we can do book signing but if anyone has anything speak now or forever hold your feet now oh there's a hand guess okay I'd like to ask the power to their literary influences so come on up here poets and each take a turn about your literary influences so come on to yourself well you can go first everybody I almost brought some Wallace Stevens with me because a lot of people when I say I love Wallace Stevens they're like oh my god he's brilliant I also discovered Ellen Bryant Voight in the library at Johnson State when like only her first was out tons of women poets I was like oh women can write poetry too but tons of people so Ellen Bryant Voight was one that I was going to mention too and then also Barry Goldinson who I studied with at Skidmore and went to Goddard and actually I saw it was published in some of their literary journals that they're trying to preserve and then also David Budbill another Vermont poet at a workshop which was a blessing but so a lot of Vermont poets for sure how about you Barry that's a tough one I'm going to say Maurice Sendak and Mother Goose and folk songs of 1960s were my earliest nice good answer I attribute Shel Silverstein oh I'm blanking on her name there's a children's book called The Giant Jam Sandwich oh Janet Burroway is her name she's a fiction author actually those books for me as a kid I think made me a poet any other questions for our poets thank you so much for listening everyone please join us in the back for books and signings you in my jeans they're just white this is what I do on Fridays is I don't want to dress up I understand thank you you're awesome thanks so much for the back