Mike Norcia brought the meeting to order at 12:30 and noted that we just celebrated our 99th birthday on Sunday. We were charted on January 15, 1924.
Suzanne gave the inspiration. She spoke about MLK who had a dream and took action to bring that dream to reality. Why do people join Rotary? Most join with the intention to make a difference in the world. And this is what she most appreciates about our club. We do want to make a difference. We are intentional about it.
Guests: Serenity Polizzi from the Los Gatan newspaper, and Beth Albers, incoming new member.
Red badge presentations:
Mary Lon Hart (principal at Fisher) and Clare Vickers (English teacher) - both sponsored by Paul Johnson, and presented by Dan Snyder.
Marie Rector (college counselor) - sponsored by John Colwell and Tina Orsi Hartigan
Tina Orsi Hartigan is asking for bags for St Lukes. If you have thick plastic grocery bags or paper bags with handles in good condition, bring them to a meeting. St Lukes uses them when handing out food to the homeless.Rotary Foundation Drive - Marty Fishman says we raised $47,000 last year but we are only up to $35,500 so far this year. We can do more! If you haven’t yet participated, please do!
Centennial Committee. 2024 will be our 100th year!!!!!!! We want to do something amazing to commemorate. Would you like to join? Contact Mike, Nicholas, or Meghan.
Coming up: Our next First Tuesday is a mingle at Ed’s Travel Advisors of Los Gatos in conjunction with a fundraising sip and shop across the street at McLaughlin. Mark Feb 7 on your calendar for that.
Crabfest update!
It’s coming 2/4/23 and it’s almost sold out! (Update, this event is SOLD OUT)
Only 8 tickets to go, as of this writing! If you haven’t acted yet, do so now. Click here to get your tickets!
Send Suzanne an email if you have a table of 8-10 and you want to sit together.
You can bid on auction items now! Click here
We will do a sneak peak of items at the Jan 31 meeting and you will get a chance to bid then too.
Suzanne called for volunteers at the meeting and our club really stepped up. People volunteered to help make soup Friday at 4, set up Saturday at 10, and help in the kitchen the night of the event, and clean up the kitchen afterwards.
Tina could still use more kitchen help so contact her if you don’t have a job yet. She will try to keep shifts to only one hour so you can also enjoy the event.
Volunteers are also wrapping utensils with the Interact club at 2:30 1/31 at LGHS.
- Gary Allison spoke about his trip to Scotland, England, and Ireland.
- Ron Cassel let us know about his wife who is in ICU, in pain, and he asked for our prayers. We are thinking of you, Karen!
Guest Speaker
Campbell Scott
Climate Change: Cause, Impact, and Solutions
The cause: Our 5 mile thick atmosphere absorbs most of the radiating heat of our planet. This is known as greenhouse gases. The more carbon dioxide in the atmosphere the warmer it gets. There’s a clear graph that shows as CO2 in the atmosphere increases, the earth’s temperature increases.
Burning fossil fuels increases CO2 in the atmosphere.
The impact: With rising temperatures, we get more extreme weather more frequently. Warmer air causes storms, drought, wildfires, and melting glaciers. Warmer water causes hurricanes, atmoshperic rivers, sea level rise, and coral bleaching. Ocean acidification (also from more COS) causes plankton and shellfish loss that will lead to massive bio loss.
(The atmospheric rivers we just had brought us from extreme drought down to severe drought conditions).
Sea levels from melting ice are rising steadily. He showed a photo of what the bay area will look like at the end of the century. Today’s king tides with be regular tides at the end of the century, losing much of our southbay flat lands.
And of course, there is the impact of economics. There are/will be hundreds of billions of dollars in direct losses, not including economic fallout from events. GDP loss will add even more: 2.5 trillion in the last decade.
The solution: Renewable energy. Solar and wind are getting cheaper than coal. Cheaper than natural gas. Lithium ion batteries to store this energy are also coming down in price. Moss Landing is now a 400MW battery plant. Renewable energy is 80% of all net new energy.
The answer is electrify everything, using renewable sources.
What can you do at home? First, insulate walls, windows, roof, and floor. Then, sign up for renewable energy- with your own panels or through a program with PG&E.
In summary, CO2 is the cause, generated by burning fossil fuels. The impact is loss of infrastructure, crops, life, livelihoods, etc. because of more severe and frequent storms, hurricanes, droughts, fire, floods, etc.
The good news is clean energy is here and it’s less expensive.