Sierra Club and #NorthCarolina governor need 70,000 signatures to stop FRACKING legislation in North Carolina & you can help!

Duke Energy, the largest energy company in the USA,  wants to do seismic drilling on the Atlantic coast and make customers pay through higher utility bills. On behalf of the people of NC, the Sierra Club needs to collect 70,000 signatures needed by NC Governor Roy Cooper to make Duke Energy and other "clean energy" proponents go away. Their argument is, this creates clean energy. But how can it be clean when it pollutes our waters and destroys the natural environment?

FRACKING or seismic drilling will upset the balance of a delicate ecosystem in the area, a natural habitat that has been in existence since prehistoric times. Some plant and animal species living in North Carolina live nowhere else in the world. Despite the imminent threat to wildlife and their natural environment, landowners and clean energy proponents downplay the dangers to this stable ecosystem while the media turns a blind eye or downplays the devastating effects of #fracking seen in states that have allowed it.

I have provided an excerpt from the Sierra Club's email response to my inquiry. It outlines a few things we might do to help get signatures and spread the word about this challenge that North Carolina faces. States that received the needed signatures were able to STOP legislation that would allow this invasive practice of fracking.

Please read the information below. If you need more information or resources,

contact me here: www.survivingaday.blogspot.com or @survivingaday on Twitter.

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Hello,

Thank you for speaking with me! There are so many upcoming opportunities to participate in as we move closer to stopping this pipeline, so I'm excited to work with you on making some of these things happen.

1) Get your voice heard (and get your friends / neighbors to submit comments too). The easiest way to do this is to go here and get as many people to sign this as possible through August 19th! sc.org/nc-acp

Do Something for the Environment!  Ask the NC Department of Environmental Quality to protect waterways from the Atlantic Coast Pipeline – do it before August 18th. 

2) A group meeting on this -- Every 3rd Thursday from 6:45p to 8:45p at Eastover Recreation Center, 3637 Pembroke Lane, Fayetteville, NC 28301 (Eastover Community) there is a local meeting of folks concerned about the pipeline.

Facebook: Cumberland County Caring Voices

3) Write a letter to the editor at the Fayetteville Observer. They wrote a great piece about the hearing, now they need to keep hearing from people on this issue. The Sierra Club has a short guide on how to do this.

4) Host a house party and show a 20 minute documentary on this pipeline -- Won't Pipe Down.

5) Paper petition is available from the Sierra Club. However, it's most convenient to.use the online form (sc.org/nc-acp) whenever there is wifi or internet capability. 

Thank you!

Linkin Park Singer Chester Bennington committed suicide yesterday. One day you're listening to them; the next day they're tragically gone.

Linkin Park Singer Chester Bennington committed suicide yesterday. Although I didn't know him, I heard his music and I feel the loss. You never know when someone is making one last effort to overcome negative thinking, negative influences or negative habits. You never know how close they are to falling off a cliff, drenched in hopelessness. One day you're listening to them speak or perform, and the next day they're tragically gone. 

I've heard the music of Linkin Park, saw a performance online. But somebody important to Chester Bennington had committed suicide in May, 2017. Now it's only late July 2017 and the surviving best friend is also dead. You'd think someone would have suspected that this first tragic event might trigger a state of depression for a survivor. We continually miss the signs that all is not well with someone we know and love. We smile and watch as they plunge deeper into hopelessness.

A colleague of mine committed suicide a year after my friend attempted a murder-suicide. The suicide was not successful. For a few years, I blamed myself, thinking surely there was something I could have done. My friend had vowed to come from the Midwest to the Northeast just to visit me and my family. Two weeks prior to her visit, I got the tragic news. She had attempted but failed to commit suicide after successfully murdering her son. 

Hearing the news, all I could feel was anger and betrayal that she misrepresented her thoughts and feelings without saying a word. Then I felt sadness and guilt that I didn't detect a problem, didn't notice a change in her disposition, didn't sense that something was wrong. I could have volunteered to keep her son, would have kept him as long as she needed. As for my colleague, we said goodbye in June, at semester's end. By October he had completed a suicide.

I think of all of the people we have lost in our society--in plain sight. My quesion is always the same: How do they manage to complete a suicide with so many people around them, looking after their every need? 

So we've lost another one at age 41. It's such a tragic thing to know that people can feel they have outlived their usefulness. That's got to be what happens because when we feel useful, wanted, needed and appreciated, we hold on to those positive feelings. We receive validation and support. We feel connected to a higher purpose in life. I'm often at a loss for words when someone commits suicide. All I can do is pray for their peace and tranquility.  Chester Bennington, may he R.I.P.

Linkin Park Singer Chester Bennington Dead, Commits Suicide by Hanging (UPDATE) http://www.tmz.com/2017/07/20/linkin-park-singer-chester-bennington-dead-commits-suicide/ via @TMZ

Choose to be around people who validate you.

We are motivated by our wants and needs. We can postpone or eliminate our wants but our needs must be fulfilled. Abraham Maslow was a psychologist who studied human needs. He created a list of human needs that must be fulfilled. The list is called, A Hierarchy of Needs. It begins with our basic need to survive and ends with our highest need, the need for “self actualization.” 

“Self-actualization” is an emotional need. It inspires us to do our greatest good and to achieve our very best. In order to fulfill this need, we must first fulfill all lower needs. For example, if the need for validation is not fulfilled, our need for "self-actualization" will never appear. If the need to become “self-actualized” never appears, self-actualization can never be realized.

The general order in which our needs appear is:

• Basic needs: food, water, air, survival

• Safety needs: security, protection 

• Psychological needs: love, relationships and belonging

• Emotional needs: self-esteem and validation

• Spiritual needs: self-actualization and achieving our greatest good

Being validated by others is the last need to be fulfilled before the need for “self-actualization” appears. Meeting the need for validation depends on positive feelings about ourselves and others. It's the key to healthy self-esteem and positive social relationships. Validation involves interacting with others and being appreciated by them. It requires connecting with people who appreciate us. Validation closes the gap between meeting lower needs and fulfilling our highest need for “self-actualization.”

It's important to choose our relationships carefully. It's necessary to build connections with people who appreciate and validate us. We build self-esteem when we are around people who offer positive reinforcement and value us. This enables us to become “self-actualized,” achieve our greatest good, and find happiness in life.