Dear friends,

When a natural disaster strikes, we have one urgent obligation: to feed the hungry, house the homeless, heal the injured, and restore key services like electricity and water.

When an unnatural disaster strikes, one caused or worsened  by human action, we have two urgent obligations: to meet the immediate needs of those who are suffering, and to speak the truth about the disastrous behavior that has brought about the suffering.

The American people have just suffered through three Hyper-Hurricanes. All three were made far more furious and destructive by the burning of fossil fuels that is scorching our planet. In all three cases, the worst suffering landed on the poorest people, especially those in the Black and Latino communities.

It is not surprising that the Trump Administration, in its zeal to protect the wealthy and white supremacy and its hostility to the poor, to the middle class, and to people of color, is doing its best to bring about future Hyper-Hurricanes, future droughts and famines, and future floods to destroy our coastal cities. And not only "our" in the sense of the American people, but “our” in the sense of the human race and the entire web of life that makes up Mother Earth.

So it is not surprising that when their efforts to support Big Oil and Big Coal result in predictable disasters, the Trumpist officials say it is "insensitive" to talk about the causes and to name their complicity in what amounts to murder.

In the three Hyper-Hurricanes we have just experienced,  the racism, white supremacism, and xenophobia  of the Trump Administration had their worst effects on  Puerto Rico.  The Trump government waited more than a week to send the US Navy and Air Force into emergency relief, and has not yet even asked Congress for the billions in emergency aid that Congress passed for Texas within days of Hurricane Harvey.

So The Shalom Center urges you, our members and supporters, to address both urgent needs in the face of a man-made unnatural disaster: relief for those suffering now, and organizing to prevent future disasters.

1. We have checked out various groups funneling aid to  Puerto Rico. People are dying because there is no electric power. We urge you to send money to El Puente, a state-side Puerto Rican organization that has very close relationships with Puerto Ricans on the battered island and is ready to supply them with emergency solar energy.

This meets three urgent needs: Immediate emergency electricity; longer-term people-based alternatives to the shattered Puerto Rican coal-based electric-power system; and urass-roots climate-concerned organizing to stymie racism and prevent future disastrous Hyper-Hurricanes. 

Please click to --

<https://donatenow.networkforgood.org/1441788?uniqueID=634588002278884597>

and check off the box marked “Puerto Rico Emergency Solar Energy Fund.”

2. And please help The Shalom Center organize for a renewable-energy world despite the modern Carbon Pharaohs of our day -- fossil fuel killer corporations and their governmental boot-lickers.

This appeal is especially urgent right now. Every year, Rosh Hashanah-Yom Kippur time is one of our major times for incoming contributions to The Shalom Center. This year, the three Hyper-Hurricanes swept into us during the same period. So many of our regular donors wrote they were devoting some of their money to emergency relief.

We utterly understand –-- and we also know that unless the Carbon Pharaohs are stopped, these disasters will come even more often and get still worse.

The Shalom Center has been one of the key pioneers in the Jewish and the multireligious worlds to awaken the sleeping giant of American religious life to act against global scorching.

Now more than ever, we need your help –--  and  now even more than ever, the work we do is crucial to our children and the children of our children.

Please click on the maroon “Contribute” banner on the left-hand margin of this page, and please make a strong contribution to sustain our work for a sustainable future.