by Chavah Granovetter

For the 6th consecutive year, indigenous tribal communities in interior Alaska are not permitted to catch King Salmon. A staple in diets and culture. Fishing camps are crumbling to ruin as once again, indigenous cultures are suffering. Subsistence lifestyles will die out in these villages if we do not change our behaviors in the lower 48. Two main causes of the decline of salmon, leading to the restriction against subsistence  fishing: climate change and trawling. While many countries are banning trawling, America is not. Trawling is a type of commercial fishing where large nets are dragged across the ocean floor, or just above it. This destroys the ocean floor and catches everything in its path despite these commercial fisheries targeting specific fish. Their target, pollock.  The cheaper fish used for mass production for  fast food. Long John Silvers, McDonalds, Gorton fish sticks. When we eat trawl caught fish, we are directly taking away from subsistence lifestyle, indigenous tribes.

by Johanna Perez

The monarch butterfly, known for its breathtaking migration across North America, is facing a perilous decline due to habitat loss, climate change, and the destruction of its primary food source—milkweed. This iconic species now faces a dramatic decrease in numbers, signaling an urgent need for action. It is estimated that by 2080, monarch butterflies will be extinct on the west coast, and there is a 50-80% that it will also be extinct on the east coast. Monarch butterflies are pollinators and losing this species could have disastrous consequences on our food crops.

Adding the monarch butterfly to the Endangered Species Act (ESA) would provide critical protections, allowing for the preservation and restoration of the habitats that support their survival. Milkweed, the monarch’s primary host plant, and nectar-rich plants like goldenrod, coneflower, and bee balm are vital to their lifecycle, offering sustenance during their migration. By safeguarding these plants and designating critical habitats, we can help restore monarch populations and protect biodiversity. The monarch’s plight is a call to action: if we protect this beautiful butterfly, we are also protecting countless other species that rely on these ecosystems. Ensuring the monarch’s survival is essential, not only for nature but for the health of our entire environment. Besides planting seeds that benefit the monarch butterfly, please send a comment to the Fish and Wildlife Commission stating that you support protecting the monarch butterfly - it only takes a minute.

Leave your comment supporting the proposed rule at:  https://www.regulations.gov/commenton/FWS-R3-ES-2024-0137-0001

Read the text of the proposed rule, Endangered and Threatened Species: Species Status with Section 4(d) Rule for Monarch Butterfly and Designation of Critical Habitat, at: https://www.regulations.gov/document/FWS-R3-ES-2024-0137-0001

by Brian Dugas

There will be a Zoom meeting to provide legal information on Immigration, Employment, and LGBTQIA+ Issues.

Attorneys John Byrd,  Nesta Johnson,  and Melissa Evans will be available on Zoom to answer your questions on January 6, 2025, at 8:00 PM.  Preregistration is required at https://bit.ly/PJC202501.  You can also scan the QR code on the attached flyer.
This meeting will be brought to you by the Community Justice Alliance, formed by collaboration between the Peace and Justice Center and the Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Wyoming Valley.

Download the Flyer

by Dave Nichols

I want to use this time to bring our attention back to the subject of Climate change and how we, living in the industrial age, are making the planet hotter. We are making it hotter because we are putting more greenhouse gases in our atmosphere. The best known is carbon dioxide.

Prior to the mid-18th century, before the industrial age, there was some carbon dioxide in the atmosphere which contributed to warming. The average global temperature then was about 59F. A good deal of the warmth that allows life to exist is due to the presence of greenhouse gases. It has been known since the early 1800’s that, absent greenhouse gas, the global temperature would be slightly below zero Fahrenheit. The planet would be lifeless and frozen solid. A certain amount of greenhouse gas in the atmosphere is necessary to trap and then emit some of the planet’s heat loss back to the planet. At the beginning of the industrial age the concentration of carbon dioxide was just under 300 parts per million. Since then, it has been rising at an accelerated rate and is now about 420 parts per million. This increase has supercharged the warming effect. The last time it was this high was 3 million years ago, before humans, when the global temperature was 4.5-7.2 degrees higher than during the pre-industrial period. The sea level was at least 16 feet higher and possibly 82 feet higher at that time. Over the past 1/ 2 million years geologic data has shown that sea level change tracks closely with carbon dioxide concentration.

The current average temperature is about 2.5 degrees above the pre-industrial temperature. The 10 highest average global temperatures in the last 50 years have all occurred in the last decade.

Climate scientists generate theoretical models, and they look back at geologic data to make predictions about the impacts of climate change. Their predictions of rising sea level, extremes in heat, and the disruption of the biosphere present us with challenges that we must address. With advances in terrestrial and satellite sensors we can closely monitor the effects of climate change at a detailed level. Two good sources of information on this topic can be found on the nasa.gov website and a recent book by Lawrence Krauss, The Physics of Climate Change. My focus for future social action minutes will be to discuss not only the dangers of man- made global warming but also ways that it is being addressed and how we can help.

by Lili Gioia

President Biden has about 43 days left in office. Before he leaves the White House he must tell the Archivist of the United States to publish the EQUAL RIGHTS AMENDMENT as the 28th Amendment to the Constitution. All the requirements for its adoption have been satisfied. They were achieved in 2020 when Virginia became the necessary 38th state to ratify the ERA, but then-president Trump refused to act.

It’s now been 101 YEARS since Alice Paul wrote the Equal Rights Amendment in one sentence, just 3 years after women won the right to vote in 1920. It says: “Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or any state on account of sex.” Many Americans believe the Constitution already protects the rights of ALL citizens. No, it does not. And women’s rights are being stripped away to where they no longer have control over their own bodies in half the nation. Women still are paid less for the same work as men and experience pregnancy discrimination on the job.

The League of Women voters website has a sample letter you can sign on line urging President Biden to certify the ERA guaranteeing sex and gender equality in the Constitution NOW. The constitutionality of the ERA was supported last summer by an overwhelming vote of the American Bar Association. Women’s organizations across the nation, including the American Association of University Women, the National Federation of Business & Professional Women, the National Council of Jewish Women and many more are all supporting this ERA campaign to prevent even further erosion of gender equality when the Republicans control the Senate, House and White House in January. Under their Project 2025, not only is denying national access to abortion on the agenda, but also ending No-Fault Divorce.

46 U.S. Senators have already sent President Biden a letter urging him to move on the ERA’s adoption with urgency, but he needs to see an outpouring of public pressure. The holidays are busy for everybody, but please take time to call the White House (Tuesday through Thursdays the comment line is open). Please text, email, send a personal letter or postcard to 1600 Pennsylvania Ave NW, Washington D.C. I sent him a handwritten note last week and have also signed the League of Women Votes website letter. Time is of the essence.

by Chavah Granovetter

Our crumbling infrastructure has led to multiple breaks in the sewer system including at least 8 known leaks of raw sewage into local waterways. Currently, the fish & game commission has recommended not consuming fish out of the Susquehanna River due to high levels of contaminants due to the sewage problem. The sanitation authority has dragged their feet on this issue and has over a six month estimation to replace the broken pipes.

by Jenny  Blanchard

President-elect Donald Trump has issued more than 100 threats to investigate, prosecute, imprison or otherwise punish his perceived opponents. The U.S. House of Representatives gave the president-elect a powerful tool to accomplish that goal.  On Thursday, Nov. 21, the U.S. House passed legislation in the form of H.B. 9495 that would give the Treasury Department unilateral authority to strip the tax-exempt status of any nonprofit it claims support terrorism.

This would be a dangerous piece of legislation in any administration. It could be used to arbitrarily target nonprofits, including news outlets, universities, and humanitarian aid organizations like OXFAM , and civil society groups – even our own congregation. It expands the sweeping powers of the executive branch to stifle political dissent; in short, to silence the voices of anyone the President perceives as an enemy of the state by labeling them as terrorists.

For a long time, when I learned about people’s history, I never understood how groups of people would be fighting each other when they clearly were both affected negatively by the same larger force.  Unfortunately, I feel like I have gotten a real front row seat to it in the past 10 years.  We’ve gone through a whole decade of social unrest due to various factors. When one topic takes the stage for a moment, somehow the discourse becomes…”yes, but…”.  Of course, if they keep a group of people fighting amongst themselves, then they never see the forest through the trees.

Project 2025 is an in depth roadmap that was created by the Heritage Foundation which is a conservative “think” tank. I will read to you a small paragraph on page 451 under the chapter of Health and Human Services.

Goal #3- Promoting Stable and Flourishing Married Families
Families comprised of a married father, mother, and their children are the foundation of a well ordered nation and a healthy society. Unfortunately, family policies and programs under President Biden’s HHS are fraught with agenda items focusing on “LGBTQ+ equity”, subsidizing single-motherhood, disincentivizing work, and penalizing marriage. These policies should be repealed and replaced by policies that support the formation of stable, married, nuclear families.

Working fathers are essential to the well-being and development of their children, but the United States is experiencing a crisis of fatherlessness that is ruining our children’s futures.  In the overwhelming number of cases, fathers insulate children from physical and sexual abuse, financial difficulty, or poverty, incarceration, teen pregnancy, poor educational outcomes, high school failure and a host of behavioral and psychological problems.  By contrast, homes with non-related “boyfriends” present are among the most dangerous place for a child to be. HHS should prioritize married father engagement in its messaging, health, and welfare policies.

In the context of current and emerging reproductive technologies, HHS policies should never place the desires of adults over the right of children to the biological fathers and mothers who conceive them. In cases involving biological parents who are found by a court to be unfit because of abuse or neglect, the process of adoption should be speedy, certain, and supported generously by HHS.

Everything intersects in this one “goal”.  All the homophobia, transphobia, misogyny, and if you listen closely, racism.  So as we move forward, instead of saying “yes but…” let’s start saying “yes….and” because that is what they are

by Brian Dugas

Last week I spoke to you about the possibilities. Well, the impossible has come to pass. This country has made it’s bed, and we will see how well we can lie in it.  The entire world will be impacted by this decision, but it will be up to our local communities to come together and make it through the upcoming dark times.

I’d like to read you a poem by Mikko Raima:

It’s when the earth shakes
And foundations crumble
That our light is called
To rise up.
It’s when everything falls away
And shakes us to the core
And awakens all
Of our hidden ghosts
That we dig deeper to find
Once inaccessible strength.
It’s in times when division is fierce
That we must reach for each other
And hold each other much
Much tighter.
Do not fall away now.
This is the time to rise.
Your light is being summoned.
Your integrity is being tested
That it may stand more tall.
When everything collapses
We must find within us
That which is indomitable.
Rise, and find the strength in your heart.
Rise, and find the strength in each other.
Burn through your devastation,
Make it your fuel.
Bring forth your light.
Now is not the time
To be afraid of the dark.

As a congregation we have some decisions to make, where we will stand and where we will draw the line. I have spoken to our President, Isaac, and they will be discussing this at the upcoming board meeting. If you want to have a voice in that decision, you are invited to join them on November 19th at 7:00PM.

If you're not afraid of the dark and want to awaken your hidden ghost, please join us at the Social Action Committee meeting on Tuesday, November 12th at 8:00PM.

by Brian Dugas

Undoubtedly you all know that next week is a very important week, with the elections on Tuesday. I can't remember when an election has seemed to be more important.  My relatives and I have had many discussions around why this is so. Their point is that the oligarchy and corporate interests are in control of our government, and both parties are complicit in the current system. So why vote?

I do think that it is time for changes to our government so that it better reflects the needs of the American people, but it is important to have the right people working on the changes. This time, those people need to be representative of all of the groups of our society that make up our unique culture and I think we have learned from this election,  they need to be caring, kind, and able to cooperate with others with opposing views.  I certainly hope that there are still people like that in our government.

Back in the day, when you could trust a poll, the Pew Research Center was one of the more trusted sources of information that I can remember. I wanted to share with you the results of their polling for the 2024 election.  They asked people what was most important to them, and these are the results for what is “Very Important” on the survey - the average of D and R.

#1 The Economy                                     81%        D68%    R93%
#2 Healthcare                                         65%        D76%    R55%
#3 Supreme Court appointments    63%        D73%     R54%
#4 Foreign Policy                                   63%        D54%    R70%
#5 Violent Crime                                    61%        D46%    R76%
#6 Immigration                                      61%        D39%     R82%
#7 Gun Policy                                          56%        D59%    R53%
#8 Abortion                                             51%        D67%    R35%
#9 Racial and Ethnic Inequality        37%        D56%    R18%
#10 Climate Change                             37%        D62%    R11%    

Tops for Republicans: The Economy, Immigration, and Violent Crime
Tops for Democrats: Healthcare, Supreme Court Appointments, the Economy, and Abortion

It’s interesting to see how the current status of political decisions in America affect these polls.  For example just 35% of Republicans consider Abortion as being very important, while 67% of Democrats do. I'm sure it's not all that important to Republicans since the overturning of Rowe V Wade, and it’s equally very important to Democrats who now have to again fight the battle to establish women’s reproductive rights.  And I won’t even mention Climate Change at the bottom of the list.


And of course this survey does not take into account those very important issues that we all know are just lurking beneath the surface: Voting rights, LGBTQIA+ rights, Gender rights, Christian Nationalism, White Supremacy and Fascism just to name just a few.

The bottom line is that next week we will have the answer to the direction this country will be taking for the next four years. As a congregation our path based upon that election might be very clear, or very convoluted.  I do know that as one of the few liberal churches in the Wyoming Valley we may be at the forefront of the social upheaval occurring across the country whether we like it or not.  It is important to remember that we will determine our way forward together, and that as a community we are strong enough to weather the coming storms.

Next Sunday I will once again be doing the social action minute.  I hope that I will have positive news to share with you.  If not, our work truly begins as we determine our best way forward. One thing for sure, as Ben Franklin famously said after the signing of the Declaration of Independence “We must, indeed, hang together, or most assuredly, we shall all hang separately”.

So Get Out and Vote!