So what's happening with COP26 in Glasgow?  Here is one accomplishment:   40 countries pledged to abandon coal power .  About time, right?  Well, no.  First of all, this is less than half of the represented countries.  Also, missing are China, the USA, India and Australia.  I'm afraid this will be the story of this gathering.  You can  blame Joe Manchin and the butterfly he killed . Travel+Leisure's November issues in the past featured  Trips of a Lifetime .  Editor  Jacqui Gifford  indicated they switched this year to  Invest in Travel, Invest in You .  I interpreted that focus to mean travel is not an unnecessary luxury.  Every trip you take will last you a lifetime.  Throughout your life, these experiences will accumulate in  your memory. Many of you invest in education.  A degree does a lot for job security and life enjoyment.  Some invest in stocks.  If you do well, you thus have more money for your  spending pleasure and retirement. For example, just a tea/coffee mug

I keep referring to Ray Bradbury's 1953  Sound of Thunder , for merely stepping on a butterfly in his short story significantly altered the future of humanity.  Of course, this also means that every breath you take, every move you make, would likewise do so.  But purposeful action can particularly make that crucial difference. From this tale came the term  butterfly effect , a concept of chaos theory not made popular until a decade later.  While any accidental act can drastically alter the future, a more specific decision can most surely affect the future regarding that topic.  Incidentally, the movie,  The Butterfly Effect , a 2005 film starring Ashton Kutcher, garnered 33/81 ratings from  Rotten Tomatoes , which attracted my interest because I usually side with the viewers. While Senator Joe Manchin will sign off on the Democratic wish-list bill, which has dropped in value from $3.5 trillion to less than half that value, gaining a last gasp life support to the incubative-state of