There’s something about spending time present near the ocean that slows the body down to be closer in rhythm with the tide. A welcome and overdue respite from what has been a trying season. I relished long walks on the beach the two days I was there last weekend. The surf line at Kalaloch is strewn with the cast-off exoskeletons of countless Dungeness crabs. Evidence of a process of shedding of that which is growing too small to occupy and an entry into a period of vulnerability as the hard protective, well-defined external self is released so that the life within can grow into a larger existence of itself. Crabs do what crabs do.
As I reflect on the past year that is 2020 thus far and the profound season of change, the global, social and political realities that are present and gravely concerning for us all, I cannot help but see the human species as also in a place of needing to realize the existential “shedding event” we too have already entered. The profound shift in our lives as we know and live it since the beginning of COVID-19 has certainly been a resounding wake-up call. Many heard it and have already responded….others side step by evoking blame, decrying “false information” and citing their rights to live as they choose as the fundamental “American Way” and therefore sacrosanct.
There is a beauty in the synchronicity of the crabs’ collective shed, timed so that all within the species cast their raiments at once. Orchestrated in time with the right combination of tide, current, nutrient flow and perhaps the pull of the moon… it may also indicate a group consciousness that our intellects have not yet identified. For me the metaphorical act of surrender is profound and pertinent for us especially now. The conscious choice for believing in and acting in hope, for transmuting what may initially appear as a death process into one of life expansion seems the only life-affirming and sustaining choice we have.
I do believe that humankind is at the moment in which the need to respond to the call to shed and change is here. Can we as a collective species answer that call? Unlike the crab, we are not just being asked to shed so that we can expand into a larger copy of our former selves. We are being asked to grow ourselves as conscious beings in response to the mounting pressures the planet is now facing and to respond in life-affirming ways that support the health and vitality of not only ourselves, not just humanity, but of all life…to give honor and respect for the life force within each in the multitudinous ways in which it is so miraculously expressed. This is a call for deep awakening and for a transmutation of the mind and heart.
To transmute: change in form, nature or substance. “The quest to transmute lead into gold,”states the Oxford Dictionary. To change one’s mind or have a change of heart requires first the willingness to go there…to let down one’s guard, to risk and trust that what lies beyond what one currently knows or accepts as “truth” might just be the greatest gift we can give not only ourselves but to everyone and everything we encounter and beyond. First it seems we need to be aware of the lens through which we view our reality. Antoine de Saint Exupéry in The Little Prince wrote, “It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye.” The resonance of that Truth rings in me like a bell. It is strangely and beautifully reflected in early neonatal development as the forming of what will be the infant’s head, which with all its complexity of cerebral cortex and sensory components does not separate from the heart until at week three, when the eyes begin to form. It would seem that the mind and the heart need each other….so that we can “see” rightly.
How do we get where we need to go, from where we are today?
Excerpts from the interview:
“The old world has fallen away, and there’s not yet a clear vision of what the new world is going to be,”
“There needs to be a picture of what we’re fighting for,” he tells me, “not just what we’re fighting against.”
“This is the hardest thing we’ve ever done— that any generation of people has ever done,” he tells me. “It’s going to feel like we can’t do it.”
“The next few decades are going to feel like falling in love— setting aside everything you thought you knew and trusting that you’ll end up in a radically different place you never could have achieved on your own.”
“Climate change is a product of a system of White supremacy and colonization over the past 500 years,” Holthaus says. “A certain group of people felt it was justified to exploit people and land. That’s the simplest explanation of climate change.”
The first hopeful book about climate change, The Future Earth shows readers how to reverse the short- and long-term effects of climate change over the next three decades. — Harper Collins Publishers
Climate activist Greta Thunberg urges world leaders to do more. Doing our best is no longer good enough. We must now do the seemingly impossible, Thunberg says in the Swedish Radio show Summer on P1 where she takes us along her trip to the front lines of the climate crisis.
We don’t accept these odds. That was Greta Thunberg’s principal message while speaking before the General Assembly of the United Nations last year. It referred to the remaining CO2-budget of humanity.
Hello neighbors, my name is Noelle and I am a hobbyist beekeeper who moved here last fall. I live on 9th street in Port Angeles. Alas, my bee colonies did not survive the winter. Since I am renting, I decided not to purchase bees this year and I have several empty beehives standing by in my backyard. Honeybee swarming season is revving up, so I wanted to ask you to please give me a shout if you see a honeybee swarm in our neighborhood. I have homes for them. I can even set up a hive in your yard if it has the right conditions and you think it would be fun. I will tend it and we can share the honey. When a swarm clusters, time is of the essence. Please know that though a honeybee swarm is a dramatic, kind of scary looking event, the bees are in a very good mood and not likely to sting. Do not be scared, it is a festive occasion! Please magnetize my contact information above, to your fridge and put it in your phone.
My second request is that everyone keep their eyes peeled for an invasive menace called the Asian Giant Hornet. Please familiarize yourself with what they look like so you can report them to WA Dept. Ag. and consider trapping them if you are interested. If you have a hummingbird feeder it is possible you might see one stop by for a drink. It will be nearly as large as a hummingbird! These hornets are dangerous to humans and can decimate honey bee colonies as well as other colonial insects. Just last year they were discovered in British Columbia and in Blaine, Washington. The Washington Department of Agriculture has instigated a volunteer trapping program to try to get a handle on them. Clallam County is one of the spots they want to watch closely. We have at most 2 years to get a grip on these things before they become a long-term problem. If they are here, the queens will be emerging right about now and looking for sugar. They like tree sap, especially oaks.
I am going to set up some traps and am getting supplies. More traps improve our chances of detecting them, so consider setting out and tending (weekly) traps of your own: https://agr.wa.gov/departments/insects-pests-and-weeds/insects/hornets/trapping. If you decide to set out traps, two places you can get the rice cooking wine are McPhee’s on Race St and Saar’s on Lauridsen Blvd in PA.
If you decide to set traps, let me know, and I might be able to offer advice or help.
Thanks a ton! My husband and I are very happy to land in this excellent place! We look forward to making friends around here.
Reaching out and fostering awareness in Earth care and concerns within the community has been what the supporting visual art projects have been about all along. Then along came covid-19 and everything was upended on its ear….so to speak…and we continue to move through the effects of so much change in our lives.
As the saying goes, “necessity is the Mother of invention” it can also be said now that it is also the “Mother of do-it-yourself” (I personally installed track lighting in my studio last week. Those three little wires coming out of the ceiling where I’d removed the old light fixture didn’t have to be so intimidating after all….given that I had already switched off the breaker.) The hardest thing was maneuvering the snake-y track and affixing it where it needed to be. Voila! New lighting to work by for this artist soul!
From: Ahlay Blakely (The People’s Echo, 350 Seattle), Austin Smith (Video, 350 Seattle), David Solnit (Art.350.org)
Hello!
Song is feeling extraordinarily elemental right now more than ever.
What are some of the oldest songs you can remember? Song is history: slavery, abolition, civil rights, fair wages, the American Indian Movement just to name a few. Songs are like tiny capsules of information that we send into the future, so that the coming generations can know what we were thinking, feeling, doing and how we were acting.
We are inviting you to participate in a simple, virtual musical project to continue to act together in times of technological social distancing. We want to creatively sing out together to protect our communities during this pandemic. Movements have always faced obstacles and creatively innovated to overcome them. This particular song is a part of a campaign called Stop The Money Pipeline – a national campaign launched in January 2020 to pressure J.P Morgan Chase, Liberty Mutual and BlackRock to STOP FUNDING FOSSIL FUELS.
“And people stayed home and read books and listened and rested and exercised and made art and played and learned new ways of being and stopped and listened deeper someone meditated someone prayed someone danced someone met their shadow and people began to think differently and people healed and in the absence of people who lived in ignorant ways, dangerous, meaningless and heartless, even the earth began to heal and when the danger ended and people found each other grieved for the dead people and they made new choices and dreamed of new visions and created new ways of life and healed the earth completely just as they were healed themselves.”
These are very difficult times for so many. I have been very touched by the messages that I have received from readers, many of whom are isolated now and are renewing their friendship with Mma Ramotswe and the others.
I have written a poem especially for this moment, and the text is below. It comes to you with my warmest wishes, and my hope that you are keeping well.
“In a time of distance”
The unexpected always happens in the way The unexpected has always occurred: While we are doing something else, While we are thinking of altogether Different things — matters that events Then show to be every bit as unimportant As our human concerns so often are; And then, with the unexpected upon us, We look at one another with a sort of surprise; How could things possibly turn out this way When we are so competent, so pleased With the elaborate systems we’ve created — Networks and satellites, intelligent machines, Pills for every eventuality — except this one?
And so we turn again to face one another And discover those things We had almost forgotten, But that, mercifully, are still there: Love and friendship, not just for those To whom we are closest, but also for those Whom we do not know and of whom Perhaps we have in the past been frightened; The words brother and sister, powerful still, Are brought out, dusted down, Found to be still capable of expressing What we feel for others, that precise concern; Joined together in adversity We discover things we had put aside: Old board games with obscure rules, Books we had been meaning to read, Letters we had intended to write, Things we had thought we might say But for which we never found the time; And from these discoveries of self, of time, There comes a new realization That we have been in too much of hurry, That we have misused our fragile world, That we have forgotten the claims of others Who have been left behind; We find that out in our seclusion, In our silence; we commit ourselves afresh, We look for a few bars of song That we used to sing together, A long time ago; we give what we can, We wait, knowing that when this is over A lot of us — not all perhaps — but most, Will be slightly different people, And our world, though diminished, Will be much bigger, its beauty revealed afresh.
What if you thought of it as the Jews consider the Sabbath— the most sacred of times? Cease from travel. Cease from buying and selling. Give up, just for now, on trying to make the world different than it is. Sing. Pray. Touch only those to whom you commit your life. Center down.
And when your body has become still, reach out with your heart. Know that we are connected in ways that are terrifying and beautiful. (You could hardly deny it now.) Know that our lives are in one another’s hands. (Surely, that has come clear.) Do not reach out your hands. Reach out your heart. Reach out your words. Reach out all the tendrils of compassion that move, invisibly, where we cannot touch.
Promise this world your love– for better or for worse, in sickness and in health, so long as we all shall live.
Stop. Just stop. It is no longer a request. It is a mandate. We will help you. We will bring the supersonic, high speed merry-go-round to a halt. We will stop the planes the trains the schools the malls the meetings the frenetic, furied rush of illusions and “obligations” that keep you from hearing our single and shared beating heart, the way we breathe together, in unison. Our obligation is to each other, As it has always been, even if, even though, you have forgotten. We will interrupt this broadcast, the endless cacophonous broadcast of divisions and distractions, to bring you this long-breaking news: We are not well. None of us; all of us are suffering. Last year, the firestorms that scorched the lungs of the earth did not give you pause. Nor the typhoons in Africa,China, Japan. Nor the fevered climates in Japan and India. You have not been listening. It is hard to listen when you are so busy all the time, hustling to uphold the comforts and conveniences that scaffold your lives. But the foundation is giving way, buckling under the weight of your needs and desires. We will help you. We will bring the firestorms to your body We will bring the fever to your body We will bring the burning, searing, and flooding to your lungs that you might hear: We are not well. Despite what you might think or feel, we are not the enemy. We are Messenger. We are Ally. We are a balancing force. We are asking you: To stop, to be still, to listen; To move beyond your individual concerns and consider the concerns of all; To be with your ignorance, to find your humility, to relinquish your thinking minds and travel deep into the mind of the heart; To look up into the sky, streaked with fewer planes, and see it, to notice its condition: clear, smoky, smoggy, rainy? How much do you need it to be healthy so that you may also be healthy? To look at a tree, and see it, to notice its condition: how does its health contribute to the health of the sky, to the air you need to be healthy? To visit a river, and see it, to notice its condition: clear, clean, murky, polluted? How much do you need it to be healthy so that you may also be healthy? How does its health contribute to the health of the tree, who contributes to the health of the sky, so that you may also be healthy? Many are afraid now. Do not demonize your fear, and also, do not let it rule you. Instead, let it speak to you—in your stillness, listen for its wisdom. What might it be telling you about what is at work, at issue, at risk, beyond the threats of personal inconvenience and illness? As the health of a tree, a river, the sky tells you about quality of your own health, what might the quality of your health tell you about the health of the rivers, the trees, the sky, and all of us who share this planet with you? Stop. Notice if you are resisting. Notice what you are resisting. Ask why. Stop. Just stop. Be still. Listen. Ask us what we might teach you about illness and healing, about what might be required so that all may be well. We will help you, if you listen.
Nan Bray is an oceanographer and climate scientist who has farmed superfine merinos near Oatlands since 2000
Note to my readers: This is a series I’m writing on climate change for our local monthly newspaper this year. I wanted to go back to the basics of the science behind climate change. I’ll post them in coming Yarns. Cheers, Nan
It sounds like a set up to a political joke, doesn’t it?
It’s actually real. On a recent four hour-flight to Chicago, my seatmate and I enjoyed something that has become rare in these times: a civil exchange of ideas and a surprising consensus. He was from rural Oregon, a gun owner, and a Republican. I’m from “the valley,” a moderate Democrat, and very concerned about gun violence in our country.
Had we followed the script, we might have eyed each other suspiciously, muttered insults under our breath, and tuned each other out with the in-flight entertainment. Instead, he asked about my work, and I shared how I created the Americans of Conscience Checklist.
“Oh, wow,” he said. “That sounds really great.”
“It’s non-partisan and meant to engage all people in their democracy by speaking up for our shared values. I really think our nation needs more listening and better collaboration.” He looked thoughtful and then nodded in agreement.
Taking a courageous risk
When I asked his views on the increasing gun violence, he surprised me by saying, “I believe people should have to get trained and pass a test—just like a drivers license—before they can own a firearm. There’s no good reason to oppose this.”
“I’m surprised,” I confessed. “That’s not what I expected you to say.” He grinned at me.
We’d found common ground. Our conversation was a humbling reminder that our neighbors—red, blue, and green Americans—are more than the labels we put on them. I could have smugly written him off with misinformed biases, but he wasn’t a caricature. He was a real person with values, cares, and concerns just like me. In listening deeply, I came to understand this person and appreciate his thoughtful, nuanced views.
As we landed, I thanked him for sharing so openly with me about a contentious issue. He thanked me for being curious and listening despite our differences. We agreed our country would be better if everyone showed respect to one another, even when we don’t see eye to eye. I got off the plane feeling more hopeful than I had in weeks.
The value of choosing kindness, even now
When I started the AoC Checklist three years ago, my vision was—and remains—to create a kind and thriving nation. This worthwhile effort can take many forms and many small steps to achieve, but it’s fundamentally grounded in hope.
Despite evidence to the contrary, kindness is part of the fabric of our nation. You need only peruse our Good News section in each issue to find generous souls and organizations doing good because they can. Although we may temporarily forget this kinder nature in the rising tide of hate and fear, it’s still there waiting when tragedy strikes and we decide to be part of the solutions. Kindness isn’t magic; it comes down to making a choice.
Thriving means much more than having a good leader in the White House. In a thriving nation, every person enjoys dignity and respect, health and happiness. That’s why, week after week, our Checklist offers ways for all Americans—red and blue and green—to steer our nation in the direction of a healthy democracy that represents all its people. Every time you take an action, you help create this.
The future is up to us
Feeling discouraged is normal. Our team feels it. I feel it. Everywhere you look there is so much to fix, the project seems impossible. If you notice this discouragement too, here’s a reminder that if a conservative and liberal on a plane can talk civilly, respectfully, and meaningfully about a hard topic (and come out smiling!), maybe all isn’t lost just yet.
That’s why Americans of Conscience Checklist is still here, keeping the flame lit and held high. We believe that a brighter future is possible, no matter how bleak things may seem at the moment. It won’t be easy create the kind and thriving nation of our vision. It will take listening and advocacy. It will require tenacity and generosity. And. Every time you and I show up with courage and compassion—every time we take small but meaningful actions, we say YES to that brighter, flourishing future.
Grassroots Rising by Ronnie Cummins, founder and director of the Organic Consumers Association, will be available January 28. This is one of the most important books Chelsea Green has published, and we are offering activists and organizations the special discounts listed below.
$17.95 paperback – 208 pages – ISBN 9781603589758 – Available January 28, 2020
“This is a book that should be in the hands of every activist working on food and farming, climate change, and the Green New Deal.” —Vandana Shiva, scientist, environmentalist, social activist; author of Earth Democracy, Soil Not Oil, and Stolen Harvest
“Burning Worlds” is a new monthly column dedicated to examining important trends in climate change fiction, or “cli-fi.”
It astonishes to think just how long humans have known that the Earth is getting warmer. The term “global warming” didn’t enter public consciousness until the 1970s, but scientists have studied our planet’s natural greenhouse effect since at least the 1820s. In 1896, a Swedish chemist named Svante Arrheniussome concluded that human activity (like coal burning) contributed to the effect, warming the planet further.
And yet, here we find ourselves in 2017, still wrestling with man-made climate change like it’s a new phenomenon. Why have we not acted sooner? The answer may lie in what Indian author Amitav Ghosh calls humanity’s “great derangement”: our inability to perceive the enormity of the catastrophe that awaits us.
That’s where fiction writers come in.*
For years, authors have been writing climate change fiction, or “cli-fi,” a genre of literature that imagines the past, present, and future effects of climate change. Their work crosses literary boundaries in terms of style and content, landing on shelves marked “sci-fi” and “literary fiction.” Perhaps you’ve read one of the classics: Margaret Atwood’s Oryx and Crake or Kim Stanley Robinson’s Forty Signs of Rain. Then there’s Ian McEwan’s Solar and J. G. Ballard’s 1965 novel The Burning World, from which this column derives its name. Each of these novels—like others in the genre—help us to “see” possible futures lived out on a burning, drowning, or dying planet.
Here at the Chicago Review of Books, we feel it’s time to give cli-fi more attention. To that end, we bring you “Burning Worlds,” a new monthly column dedicated to examining what’s hot (sorry) in cli-fi. It’ll feature interviews, reviews, and analyses of the genre with the hope of generating a larger conversation about climate change and why imagined depictions of the phenomenon are vital to the literary community—and beyond.
Kicking us off is an interview with journalist and former teacher Dan Bloom, the man who coined the term “cli-fi” (read more about Bloom in his interview with Literary Hub). Bloom founded and maintains The Cli-Fi Report, the web’s most comprehensive site dedicated to cli-fi. He is a tireless crusader for the genre, a self-proclaimed “cli-fi missionary.” In this interview, we discuss what inspired his passion for climate change fiction, why he thinks the term “cli-fi” caught on, and what he recommends we all read next.
Summoning a chorus of over 125 diverse poetic voices—including Mary Oliver, Robert Hass, Aimee Nezhukumatathil, Ross Gay, W.S. Merwin, Natalie Diaz, Kimiko Hahn, and others—this anthology approaches the impending environmental crisis with a sense of urgency and hopefulness.
While listening to Jackson Brown’s album “Late for the Sky” for the ump-teenth time, the words of “The Road and the Sky” suddenly registered with my new climate activism. In 1974, he was singing about climate change and I hadn’t noticed. Listening with “new ears”, I realized he was telling the story of our time. Have a listen, or read the words:
When we come to place where the road and the sky collide Throw me over the edge and let my spirit glide They told me I was going to have to work for a living But all I want to do is ride I don’t care where we’re going from here Honey, you decide
Well I spend my time at the bottom of a wishing well And I can hear my dreams singing clear as a bell I used to know where they ended and the world began But now it’s getting hard to tell I could be just around the corner from Heaven or a mile from Hell
I’m just rolling away from yesterday Behind a wheel of a stolen Chevrolet I’m going to get a little higher And see if I can hot-wire reality
Now can you see those dark clouds gathering up ahead? They’re going to wash this planet clean like the Bible said Now you can hold on steady and try to be ready But everybody’s gonna get wet Don’t think it won’t happen just because it hasn’t happened yet
I’m just rolling away from yesterday Behind the wheel of a stolen Chevrolet I’m going to get a little higher And see if I can hot-wire reality
A fire broke out backstage in a theatre. The clown came out to warn the public; they thought it was a joke and applauded. He repeated it; the acclaim was even greater. I think that’s just how the world is going to end: to general applause from wits who believe it’s a joke.
In 1931, the year he died, Thomas Edison told Henry Ford and Harvey Firestone, his retirement neighbors in Florida:
“We are like tenant farmers chopping down the fence around our house for fuel when we should be using nature’s inexhaustible sources of energy — sun, wind, and tide. I’d put my money on the sun and solar energy. What a source of power! I hope we don’t have to wait until oil and coal run out before we tackle that.”
by Brian Payton , August 27, 2019, Hakai Magazine ‘Knoll Lowney, the lawyer representing the three plaintiffs who claimed they were victims of Carnival’s environmental violations, said, “Time and time again, Carnival has shown its contempt of environmental laws and the rule of law.”’
Today the DNC voted down holding a climate debate. Evan Weber of the Sunrise Movement was in the room and live tweeted the conversation. The link below is that thread.
Thirty years ago Bill McKibben offered one of the earliest warnings about climate change. Now he broadens the warning: the entire human game, he suggests, has begun to play itself out.
Bill McKibben’s groundbreaking book The End of Nature — issued
in dozens of languages and long regarded as a classic — was the first
book to alert us to global warming. But the danger is broader than that:
even as climate change shrinks the space where our civilization can
exist, new technologies like artificial intelligence and robotics
threaten to bleach away the variety of human experience.
Falter tells
the story of these converging trends and of the ideological fervor that
keeps us from bringing them under control. And then, drawing on
McKibben’s experience in building 350.org, the first truly global
citizens movement to combat climate change, it offers some possible ways
out of the trap. We’re at a bleak moment in human history — and we’ll
either confront that bleakness or watch the civilization our forebears
built slip away.
Falter is a powerful and sobering call to arms, to save not only our planet but also our humanity.
Join our webinar for this hour of meditation and conversation about the personal side of the climate crisis. We’ll be debriefing our experience asking the question “how do you feel about the climate emergency?” and will share a meditation focused on mindfulness of emotions to help us navigate charged conversations.
‘I am talking to my peeps: those of us who get the science, care deeply about the environment and the need for climate action, and are filled with both disgust and determination at our current course as a nation. But many of us have well-earned scars and deep concerns that make us reluctant to join a children’s crusade that might lead us off a cliff. I get it; I share your fears. This piece articulates some reasons that I believe following these young leaders and embracing the Green New Deal might be our best and perhaps only hope to mobilize action at the pace and scale needed to avert the worst impacts of the gathering climate crisis.’
‘When people come to me and confess their green sins, as if I were some sort of eco-nun, I want to tell them they are carrying the guilt of the oil and gas industry’s crimes. That the weight of our sickly planet is too much for any one person to shoulder. And that that blame paves the road to apathy, which can really seal our doom.’
“The iconic folk song has become an anthem for the predominantly white environmental movement. But can a colonized nation built on the backs of slaves ever really make that claim?”
‘These deals, many of which were made just last year, at what may be the height of public awareness of the threats posed by climate change, are explicitly aimed at streamlining, improving, and rendering oil and gas extraction operations more profitable.’
“It’s so easy to look at the big picture and get completely disheartened. … What we need to remember is what is my own personal moral obligation. When I wake up each day thinking about what I might do from that perspective … when I come at it from a deep sense of moral obligation, it really doesn’t matter what the results are. What matters is am I doing the right thing, and am I doing all I can right now at this time of crisis?”
16-year-old activist @GretaThunberg, who has been camping outside the World Economic Forum in Davos, urges politicians to act on climate change pic.twitter.com/AtQTuUZTuc
When I complain to the old man about rising gas prices, he says “I want $10 a gallon.”
“Why?” is the obvious question. “Because I love birds,” he says.
At the time, I thought him insane but now I think most everyone else is.
Scott T. Starbuck is a poet/activist and co-creative writing coordinator at San Diego Mesa College. His ecoblog, Trees, Fish, and Dreams, with audio poems, is at riverseek.blogspot.com. His books, Carbonfish Blues, Industrial Oz, and Hawk on Wire, are available at Fomite Press. Here’s hisYale Climate Connections interview.
Scott T. Starbuck is a poet/activist. His books are Industrial Oz: Ecopoems, noted by Bill McKibben as “rousing, needling, haunting,” Hawk on Wire: Ecopoems, available at Fomite Press (preferred) and Amazon.
We planted trees everywhere at once. Facebook posted only the words “Go outside.”
“Destroy Your Television Day” grew more popular than Xmas and the 4th of July.
Children of execs saw themselves as global citizen sand despite every temptation and distraction
disowned their wayward parents. ExxonMobil became BlueOrbSolar.
Each country committed to saving one thing from extinction — them.
People wondered why it took so long.
Scott T. Starbuck is a poet/activist and co-creative writing coordinator at San Diego Mesa College. His ecoblog, Trees, Fish, and Dreams, with audio poems, is at riverseek.blogspot.com. His books, Carbonfish Blues, Industrial Oz, and Hawk on Wire, are available at Fomite Press. Here’s hisYale Climate Connections interview.
It’s possible future generations will destroy our art, literature, music, film, and corporations, in bitterness for allowing ecosystem collapse,
and mistrust for how many leaders were distracted, apathetic, selfish ignorant, or insane with money and power.
It’s possible future generations will redefine family, community, work, value, happiness, life, dirt, success.
It’s possible education will change from locking children in boxes to getting them outside in tide pools, rivers, creeks, deserts, mountains
and their community of remaining mammals, birds, fish, amphibians, invertebrates, reptiles, plants, trees.
It’s also possible, based on our collective behavior, there won’t be future generations.
Scott T. Starbuck is a poet/activist and co-creative writing coordinator at San Diego Mesa College. His ecoblog, Trees, Fish, and Dreams, with audio poems, is at riverseek.blogspot.com. His books, Carbonfish Blues, Industrial Oz, and Hawk on Wire, are available at Fomite Press. Here’s hisYale Climate Connections interview.
Scott T. Starbuck is a poet/activist. His books are Industrial Oz: Ecopoems, noted by Bill McKibben as “rousing, needling, haunting,” Hawk on Wire: Ecopoems, available at Fomite Press (preferred) and Amazon.
Wind Spirit said to the man, “I will ask a question, and each day you give the wrong answer, I will take a finger. The question is hard, requiring much reflection, and self-purification. I don’t know how many fingers you will lose. That is up to you. How will you save the community of species on Earth?”
“The question is too hard,” protested the man.
“It has been ordained,” said Wind Spirit, “and cannot be changed. I will return tomorrow at noon.”
The man knew coyote was smart so he went to ask, but all coyotes were dead.
He knew king salmon had a bright red soul so he went to ask, but all king salmon were dead.
He knew steelhead trout could leap waterfalls so he went to ask, but all steelhead trout were dead.
He knew eagle had unerring vision so he went to ask, but all eagles were dead.
Trembling, he knew cougar could be invisible, but all cougars were dead.
In ten days, the man lost all his fingers.
This is a parable written on what remains of the ancient Pleistocene Lake Chewaucan now called Summer Lake, Oregon.
Published in the Amsterdam Quarterly Writing and art in Amsterdam, the Netherlands and the world
Scott T. Starbuck is a poet/activist and co-creative writing coordinator at San Diego Mesa College. His ecoblog, Trees, Fish, and Dreams, with audio poems, is at riverseek.blogspot.com. His books, Carbonfish Blues, Industrial Oz, and Hawk on Wire, are available at Fomite Press. Here’s hisYale Climate Connections interview.
Scott T. Starbuck is a poet/activist. His books are Industrial Oz: Ecopoems, noted by Bill McKibben as “rousing, needling, haunting,” Hawk on Wire: Ecopoems, available at Fomite Press (preferred) and Amazon.
Bringing Together Cultural and Scientific Knowledge of the Stars
This workshop builds on combined decades of experience in what we come to call “duallearning” – the weaving together of cultural and scientific knowledge, stories, and hands-on activities in an environment where neither is dominant over the other and resonance between the two is easily found. PI A. Lee’s Native Skywatchers initiative and Collaborator D. Scalice’s NASA and the Navajo Nation partnership form the basis of the pedagogical approach of dual-learning.
We will focus on three constellations—Wakinyan-Thunderbird, To Win/Tun Win-Blue Spirit Woman (Lee, 2014), and Maang-Loon (Lee, 2014)—grounding participants in their location in the night sky and the knowledge contained in their stories. Then, we will introduce astronomy and astrobiology concepts that correspond, relate, and resonate: Wakinyan-Thunderbird with precession; To Win/Tun Win-Blue Spirit Woman with stellar nucleosynthesis; and Maang-Loon with Solar System formation. In each case, we will introduce scientific hands-on activities/labs, and participants will work in groups to expand them to reflect and teach the cultural knowledge they learned.
WHEN: Wednesday, January 9 at 1PM
WHERE: ʔaʔkʷustəŋáw̕txʷ House of Learning, Peninsula College Longhouse
The Compassion Campaign of Clallam County is co-sponsoring this 2019 Compassion Winter Read
As a scholar of world religions, Armstrong extends an invitation to explore the particular place of compassion in religious and ethical teachings. She specifically focuses on the Golden Rule as expressed in each one, which served as common ground for the Charter of Compassion. As she acquaints the reader with various perspectives, she also describes compassion as “Love in Action.”
Invite people from work, organizations, neighbors, friends and family!
SIGN UP NOW: To facilitate or join a group at CompassionCampaignCC@gmail.com or call Marilyn at 360-477-0681
You will receive specific info for that group when you sign up.
More groups are forming. Maybe start an online ZOOM group (We can help with that!)
Groups begin the week of January 6th and run twelve (12) weeks.
SEQUIM Sundays, 2-3:30pm, OUUF, 1033 N. Barr Rd. Mondays, 10am-Noon (1st meeting only) 2-4pm all other weeks, Sequim Library Wednesdays, 10am-Noon, Trinity United Methodist Church
AGNEW Wednesdays, 10-11:30am, Monterra in Agnew
PORT ANGELES Sundays, 11am-Noon, Holy Trinity Lutheran Wednesdays, 10-11:30pm, Eash Home Wednesdays, 1-2:30pm, CSLPA, 254 N. Bagley Creek Rd. Wednesdays, 6:30 – 8:00pm, Unity in the Olympics, 2917 E. Myrtle Street Wednesdays, 7-8:30pm, CSLPA, 254 N. Bagley Creek Rd. Thursdays, 10:30am-Noon, Port Angeles Library, 2210 W. Peabody St.
“Celebration of the Journey”, April 6, 2019, 1-3pm at the Shipley Center in Sequim, where all groups can share what we’ve learned and “what’s next.”
Dear Olympic Climate Action, thank you so much for supporting The Climate Mobilization!
We are a small but fierce organization that advocates the strongest, fastest, sanest approach to the climate crisis. Because of your support, we are moving the country toward mobilization. A few highlights:
April 16, 2016 Bernie Sanders calls for WWII scale climate mobilization in Brooklyn Debate with Hillary Clinton
July 22, 2016: Need for WWII climate mobilization officially adopted into the official Democratic party platform
November 1, 2017: Hoboken, NJ city council unanimously passes a resolution declaring climate emergency and committing to a decade transition to zero emissions brought by local TCM Hoboken chapter.
December 5, 2017: The county council of Montgomery County, MD unanimously supports a resolution declaring a climate emergency and committing to an end to all emissions by 2035. The move and TCM’s participation is covered in the Washington Post and picked up by the Associated Press, reaching over 50 outlets.
January, 2018: Inspired by our success in Montgomery County, Seattle 350 and a coalition of Washington state climate groups launch the “Climate Countdown,” demanding an immediate halt to all fossil fuel infrastructure, and 100% renewable energy in ten years or less.
May 4th, 2018, LA City Council Unanimously votes to explore Climate Emergency Mobilization Department (CityWatch LA).
Your support has made this possible. Sincere thanks,
Margaret,
Margaret Klein Salamon, PhD
Founder and Director, The
Climate Mobilization
Climate change is an emergency. Let’s treat it like one. Let’s mobilize.
The Climate Mobilization
275 9th Street, Suite 150387
Brooklyn, NY 11215
United States
The award winning climate scientist Michael E. Mann and the Pulitzer
Prize-winning political cartoonist Tom Toles have fought at the
frontlines of climate denialism for most of their careers. They have
witnessed the manipulation of the media by business and political
interests and the unconscionable play to partisanship on issues that
affect the well-being of millions. The lessons they have learned have
been invaluable, inspiring this brilliant, colorful escape hatch from
the madhouse of the climate wars.
Through satire, “The Madhouse Effect” portrays the intellectual
pretzels into which denialists must twist logic to explain away the
clear evidence that man-made activity has changed our climate. Toles’s
cartoons collapse counter-scientific strategies into their biased
components, helping readers see how to best strike at these fallacies.
Mann’s expert skills at science communication aim to restore sanity to a
debate that continues to rage against widely acknowledged scientific
consensus. The synergy of these two commonsense crusaders enlivens the
gloom and doom of so many climate-themed books–and may even convert a
few of the faithful to the right side of science.
This story was originally published by WIREDand is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration.
“Gender and climate are inextricably linked,”
said environmentalist and author Katharine Wilkinson on stage at
TEDWomen last week, a gathering of women thought leaders and activists
in Palm Desert, California.
Women, she says, are disproportionately affected by climate change. When communities are decimated by floods or droughts, tsunamis or fire,
the most vulnerable among them suffer the most. Because women across
the world have fewer rights, less money, and fewer freedoms, in those
moments of extreme loss, women are often hit the hardest. “There’s
greater risk of displacement, higher odds of being injured or killed
during a natural disaster. Prolonged drought can precipitate early
marriage, as families contend with scarcity. Floods can force
last-resort prostitution as women struggle to make ends meet. These
dynamics are most acute under conditions of poverty,” she says.
With several new reports painting an increasingly bleak picture of
the state of the world’s climate, Wilkinson is delivering her message at
a time when leaders on the global stage are looking for solutions. As
thousands of people gather this week at a major climate summit known as
COP24, Wilkinson is making a plea to open people’s eyes to one fact:
Women’s rights are Earth’s rights. “In my experience, to have eyes wide
open is to hold a broken heart every day,” she says.
But she has hope. Though women feel the effects of climate
the most, they also represent an opportunity. “To address climate
change, we must make gender equity a reality. And in the face of a
seemingly impossible challenge, women and girls are a fierce source of
possibility,” Wilkinson says. She and her team at the nonprofit Project Drawdown
have been studying the real-world steps people can take to fix climate
change, resulting in a best-selling 2017 book highlighting the top 100
solutions to reverse warming.
Her argument is that if women are empowered
in three distinct ways, the downstream effects on the environment will
make a huge difference in the fight for climate change. She argues that
if women were treated more equally professionally, they’d have fewer kids and the land they farm would be more efficient, all of which would help save the planet.
“Women are the primary farmers of the world,” Wilkinson says. They
produce 60 to 80 percent of the food in lower-income countries, she
says, on small plots. These farmers are known as “smallholders.”
Yet due to local laws and entrenched biases, women farmers are given
fewer resources and support from their governments, and they have fewer
rights to their own land. For example, in some countries women are not
allowed to own their own land, which makes it impossible for them to use
the land as collateral for a loan to buy farming equipment. In other
places, women are are not able to borrow money without a man’s
signature. These restrictions hamper their ability to run their farms
efficiently, leading to lower yields.
This is a problem not just for their earning potential, but for the
Earth. Every year, humans clear-cut forests to create more agriculture
land to grow crops to feed the world’s growing population. In turn, this
deforestation increases the rate of climate change.
Instead of clear-cutting new land, why not work to make the existing
farms run by women more efficient? “Close that gap and farm yields rise
by 20 to 30 percent,” says Wilkinson. “Support women smallholders,
realize higher yields, avoid deforestation, and sustain the life-giving
power of forests.” If women’s farms yielded as much on average as farms
run by men across the world, it would stop approximately 2 billion tons
of CO2 from entering the atmosphere between now and 2050. “That’s on par
with the impact household recycling can have globally,” she says.
Besides addressing inequality in agriculture, Wilkinson says giving
women access to high-quality voluntary reproductive health care would
have tremendous benefit for the climate.
“Curbing growth of our human population is a side effect,” she says —
one that would reduce global emissions. Do that by making birth control
and medical care more available to women across the world.
And do it by educating women. Wilkinson notes that more than 130
million women worldwide are denied access to school. Yet the more
education a woman attains, the fewer children she has. From a
conservation perspective, empowering women to have smaller families is
an objectively positive outcome. “The right to go to school effects how
many human beings live on this planet,” says Wilkinson.
With these three changes — empowerment of women farmers, increased
global access to family planning, and the right to an education —
Wilkinson and her team at Project Drawdown predict that by midcentury,
improving gender equality could equal 1 billion fewer people on Earth.
“Gender equity is on par with wind turbines and solar panels and
forests,” Wilkinson says, adding, “This does not mean women and girls
are responsible for fixing everything. But we probably will.”
If you or someone you know is the kind of person who calls winter “reading season,” this list is for you.
If you or someone you know is the kind of person who handles a
wrapped gift and bursts with excitement when it becomes evident that, “Ooh! It’sa book!” this
is the kind of article you should casually leave open on your screen as
an–ah-hem!–hint to your family members in case they happen to be
hunting for gift ideas.
At Sightline, we’re readers. Books are our friends. And without
further ado, these are some of our favorite reads this year, from
novels, sci-fi, nonfiction, poetry, and more. If you have a book you
loved best this year, leave the title and author in the comments section
below.
Letters to a Young Poet, by Rainer Maria Rilke Image by Penguin Books Publishing
The best book I read this year was an old one: Rilke’s book,
based on a correspondence he carried out between 1902 and 1908. The
letters work as meditations on many subjects: the life of the mind,
professional struggle, loneliness, and learning how to swim against the
current of conventional wisdom. It’s good fare for the Northwest’s long
winter nights.
Alan Durning, Executive Director
This year, when liberal democracy is
under siege near and far, I have been reading about totalitarianism of
both the left and the right. I recommend two books by the same author,
historian Adam Hochschild.
This first book details the epochal
left-right showdown on the Iberian peninsula in the years leading up to
World War II. It was a dress rehearsal for that great war: Adolf Hitler
and Benito Mussolini armed and sent troops to the Spanish generals,
ultimately led by General Francisco Franco, who sought to overthrow the
elected government. The West dithered endlessly, and only the Soviet
Union helped the Spanish government. Hochschild casts light on the
massive, organized brutality that marked the birth of the Franco
dictatorship, but he also illuminates the purges that decimated the
Spanish Left during the civil war—murders and disappearances ordered not
only by the Right but by Communists who took directions from Moscow. In
this conflict, American (and Canadian) combatants were idealistic,
zealous, and sometimes credulous volunteers. To their credit, they went
to fight the fascists when Western governments refused to do so. Had
France, the United Kingdom, and the United States supported the
government and its troops—or even just cut off oil shipments to Franco
from the United States—Franco might never have risen to power. Indeed,
Spain might have fought with the Allies in World War II. To the
volunteers’ discredit, too many turned a blind eye to the cancerous
barbarism that Soviet Communism had already become.
The second book documents the purges that
killed perhaps 20 million people in the first few decades of the Soviet
Union. Two things linger with me from this sobering book: the scale of
the genocide (exceeding even the Nazi Holocaust in its macabre toll) and
the way that psychopathy came dressed in the political ideology of
equality and liberation. The pervasiveness of denunciations, purity
testing, and thought policing made Joseph Stalin’s death camps an
especially potent reminder that tolerance for dissent, whether from the
cant of the Left or the Right, is among the indispensable virtues of any
civilization. A good reminder in a time of deep divisions in the United
States.
OK, that’s kind of a downer. So here’s a bonus book: something more uplifting. Hochschild also wrote my favorite history ever. Bury The Chains chronicles
the implausible victory of the British anti-slavery movement. It’s a
profile of dissenters who changed the world. Inspiring and a happy
ending!
Spain in Our Hearts: Americans in the Spanish Civil War, 1936-1939, by Adam Hochschild Image by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing
The Unquiet Ghost: Russians Remember Stalin, by Adam Hochschild Image by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishers
Bury the Chains: Prophets and Rebels in the Fight to Free an Empire’s Slaves Image by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Kristin Eberhard, Senior researcher
The Broken Earth Trilogy: The Fifth Season, The Obelisk Gate, and The Stone Sky. Image by Orbit Publishing
The Broken Earth Trilogy
I loved N.K. Jemisin’s Broken Earth Trilogy:The Fifth Season, The Obelisk Gate, and The Stone Sky.
All three books won the prestigious science-fiction Hugo Award, as they
should have. This is an epic story of almost-magic, what it means to be
human, to be part of a family, to love, set in a world that we can
easily imagine could be our own. The protagonist is a middle-aged woman
and the author is an African-American woman who weaves themes of race
and womanhood seamlessly throughout.
Infomocracy by Malka Older Image by Tor.com Publishing
A sci-fi book about an idealistic crusader
fighting to keep a new-fangled democracy reform… is it possible Older
wrote this book specifically for me? Thank you, I loved it.
The Power by Naomi Alderman Image by Naomi Alderman Novels & Games
Naomi Alderman, a protégé of Margaret
Atwood, knocks it out of the park with this piece of feminist science
fiction. It is a short, breezy read, but packs a punch about how power
changes us, and what people do when they have it.
Book of Ages: The Life and Opinions of Jane Franklin Image by Penguin Random House
These Truths: A History of the United States Image by W. W. Norton & Company
Anna Fahey, Director of strategic communication
Jill Lepore
I adore Jill Lepore. Over the years, I have devoured her writing in The New Yorker
on American history, law, literature, and politics, but only recently
tucked into her books. I started with her clever recasting of America’s
founding decades via a charming portrait of Benjamin Franklin’s youngest
sister, Book of Ages: The Life and Opinions of Jane Franklin.
Lepore’s alternative vantage on well-worn stories and historical
figures was so refreshing, I’m now making my way through her latest, These Truths,
a comprehensive history of the American experiment that through obscure
archival documents gives voice to forgotten characters and reexamines
everything from Age of Discovery to present-day manipulations of our
founding myths (by Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump alike) through a
feminist and social justice lens. Plus, the prose is stunning. Lepore’s
language has a poetic rhythm and depth that almost makes you forget
you’re struggling to keep a 4.5-pound history text propped in your lap.
Land Mammals and Sea Creatures: A Novel Image by ECW Press
As Pacific Northwest rains set in this fall, I also enjoyed curling
up with British Columbian Jen Neale’s debut novel. I found the surprise
of the book’s “magical realism” well balanced with the comforting
familiarity of the characters and the Cascadian places Neale lovingly
captures.
Aven Frey, Development associate
The Ends of the World by Peter Branna Image by Harper Collins Publishing
It may be kind of perverse, but in these
times of great climate uncertainty, I’ve actually found comfort in
reading Peter Brannen’s book. Going over each of the last five mass
extinction events in Earth’s history, the author discusses the plants
and creatures that existed during each epoch, the fossil record of their
disappearances, and the current scientific evidence that exists for the
cause of each event. Spoiler alert: climate change has played a major
role, each and every time our biosphere has experienced a massive
species die-off. How is this comforting? Well, so far biodiversity has
come back quite spectacularly after even the most thorough annihilation,
so it’s reassuring to know the planet will bounce back after we’re done
self-destructing.
Maddi’s Fridge, written by Seattle teacher and author Lois
Brandt, teaches kids about what happens when a family doesn’t have
enough money to buy food, and how we can all help out so that no kid has
to go to bed hungry.
If you haven’t yet heard about Marlon Bundo, presented by John Oliver of Last Week Tonight fame, you should go buy a copy right now, whether you have kids in your life or not. For one, all proceeds benefit The Trevor Project and AIDS United,
and for another, how can you resist a story about Mike Pence’s gay pet
bunny finding his true love and leading an insurrection against an
intolerant (and suspiciously familiar-looking) stink bug who says being
different is bad?
Before a recent work trip, I pulled
Cramer’s book off my shelf at home in order to have something to read
during quieter moments in Seattle. The book is a sprawling, engrossing
account of the 1988 presidential election, with a focus on six
candidates—George H.W. Bush, Bob Dole, Gary Hart, Joe Biden, Dick
Gephardt, and Michael Dukakis. Before there was Game Change, there was What It Takes, and I would argue Cramer not only did it first, he did it better.
The fact that President Bush died only
weeks after I revisited this book is an eerie coincidence. But part of
the reason I note it here is because, unlike most US presidents, Bush
did not write a memoir. And thus, any penetrating accounts of him in
book form are trickier to come by (the Washington Postwrote about this point about
a week after he died). So in the wake of renewed interest in Bush’s
life, I would recommend Cramer’s book, which captured a snapshot of Bush
the Vice President (and the presidential candidate).
Kelsey Hamlin, Communications associate
The Color of Law: A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America, by Richard Rothstein Liveright Publishing
This is an astounding and straight-forward book about housing
segregation, a pretty huge front skipped over by the Civil Rights
movement. The US narrative concluded it was all de facto segregation,
thanks to private prejudices, but the federal government clearly had
racially explicit incentives and programs for public housing. It’s a
“yes and” type of situation, but the fact of the matter is the US
government wasn’t held accountable for its unconstitutional housing
decisions.
Shrill: Notes from a Loud Woman, by Lindy West Image(license)
3) Feminist. It’s a quick read but hits so many nails on the head.
The book goes through her journey of accepting her own body, the
obstacles that prevented her from doing so, and the shared strain of so
many women today.
Intern Nation: How to earn nothing and learn little in the brave new economy, by Ross Perlin Image(license)
This book starts off a little slow but really picks up the heat after
one chapter. It analyzes all of the nuance behind unpaid and underpaid
internships, and how they ultimately don’t follow any part of the law
under labor standards and yet persist. He details how the system upholds
itself through multiple facets. There was clearly a lot of reporting
behind this book because he references so many peoples’ real stories but
keeps them with pseudonyms, and he references so many bits of the law
(like the differences of volunteering standards vs labor standards,
individual court cases, and a really weird network of colleges and
grants).
Admittedly, I do prefer the latter of the two. It’s a bunch of short
poems, some of which definitely made me cry. Trigger warning: rape. It’s
raw and beautiful and disparaging and uplifting all at the same time.
Kelsey McComas, Development associate
Just Kids by Patti Smith Image by Harper Collins Publishers
Just Kidsby the
multi-talented artist/singer/author Patti Smith, chronicles her rise to
fame through the New York art scene in the late 60’s and early 70’s.
More important, the book is a tribute to her relationship with the late
photographer, Robert Mapplethorpe, who pioneered the use of erotic
imagery in photography. With brutal honesty and clarity she tells the
story of her and Robert’s unique—and definitely
unconventional—partnership, from being broke and struggling artists to
Robert’s premature death from AIDS in 1989. I finished the novel in
tears from the beauty of it all.
Don’t Call Us Dead, by Danez Smith Image by Gray Wolf Press
You should watch Greta Thunberg’s speech to the UN plenary session at COP24 if you haven’t seen it yet. Or if you have, watch it again. It is that powerful.
Leonard Higgins explains why he broke the law to protect the climate
“My hope is that more and more of us, including this court, will see and feel the emergency and pull together to demand immediate changes to reduce our carbon emissions and the other responses needed to avoid the worst.”
Leonard Higgins gave the following testimony at his sentencing hearing after being convicted of trespass and property damage, in conjunction with an action on October 11, 2016, in which five activists, dubbed the Valve Turners, turned off all four major tar sands pipelines in the U.S.
NOTE: Olympic Climate Action does not condone civil disobedience involving property destruction, and our publication of his courtroom statement is not meant as an endorsement of Higgins’ actions. Here is OCA’s policy on non-violence:
We use non-violent means to achieve change. We are committed to nonviolence, inspired by the spirit of Gandhi, Martin Luther King Jr., and other peaceful protesters before us. We believe that this approach, eschewing violence and property damage, offers the best means of creating lasting progress toward a just and healthy world.
by volunteer Don Steinke, with the Washington State Sierra Club:
Can We Save Civilization As We Know It? A Plea for Initiative 1631
We’ve waited thirty years for Congress to act on global warming. We’ve waited enough. Some scholars are saying it is too late to save civilization as we know it, but I believe for the sake of our children we are obligated to do everything possible to save what we can. There is probably nothing more important you can do right now than to pass Initiative 1631.
Initiative 1631 will place a fee on large corporate polluters, such as refineries and power plants, and use the funds to invest in clean energy projects such as wind and solar while mitigating the impacts to low income households. We currently send billions of dollars out of Washington State each year for natural gas, coal, and oil produced in other states as well as Canada. Initiative 1631 will keep some of that money here to invest in local clean energy production.
Let’s get this initiative passed for jobs and clean energy!
When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary to dissolve our dependence on fuels that have driven so much human development, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that we should declare the causes which impel us to the dissolution.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all people are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness. –That to secure these rights, governments are instituted and corporations are chartered, deriving their powers from the Consent of the People. –That whenever any Form of Government or Corporation becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to reorganize these institutions in such form as most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.
Prudence dictates that institutions long established should not be changed for light and transient causes. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations evinces a design to reduce the People to poverty, sickness, insecurity, and death, it is their right, their duty, to throw off such a system and provide new guards for their common security. The history of the present power structure is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of a tyranny of the Few over the Many. Let these facts be submitted:
Big Oil, Gas and Coal corporations have known for decades that their extractive industry, if left unchecked, would doom our common future with extreme weather, melting ice caps and glaciers, global sea level rise, ocean acidification, diminishing food and water supplies, forced migration, damaged physical and mental health, and a progressive unraveling of the very bonds of Civilization.
They have plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and captured our Governments.
They have continued to seek untrammeled Profit over the over the health and welfare of the People, endeavoring in every manner to manufacture doubt and mislead the People about the consequences of their activities, using their vast Wealth to skew the Body Politic into confusion, apathy, distraction, and even self-destructive support of their very Oppressors.
And they have known that those who will suffer first and most from these ravages will be those who are most innocent of the damage: the poor, the flora and fauna of our earth, and our future generations.
In every stage of these Oppressions we have petitioned for Redress, stating the facts well studied by our best minds and lately observed all over our Earth. Our repeated Petitions have, unfortunately, been answered by repeated injury and a turning away from these Truths so inconvenient to our Oppressors. A wielder of Power whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to hold sway over a free people.
It is against such Corporate and Governmental abuses that we, the People, join forces in common purpose to end the dirty-energy era and bring about a just transition to a future based on clean energy and economic opportunity for all rather than the few. We call for action now to complete this transition within a few decades at most, but we must start in earnest and with all due speed. There is not a moment more to lose. We urge Governments of all States to say no to fossil fuel infrastructure, to deny permits, certifications, and other regulatory approvals for further extraction, transport, processing, and combustion of these dirty fuels, and to accelerate investment in renewable energy.
We therefore, in the Name and by Authority of the good People of this Earth, solemnly publish and declare our intention to become independent from fossil fuels and transition to clean, renewable energy. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the rectitude and necessity of our Purpose, we mutually pledge our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.
Originally published in 2004, with a new foreword and afterword, Solnit’s influential book shines a light into the darkness of our time. Bill McKibben says: “Literary and progressive America is in a Solnit moment.”
Using historical examples for perspective, Solnit weaves a sometimes metaphorical tale which reinforces the reader’s commitment to bring about change.
Here are a few choice quotations:
“It’s always too soon to go home. And it’s always too soon to calculate effect.”
“Cause-and-effect assumes history marches forward, but history is not an army. It is a crab scuttling sideways, a drip of soft water wearing away stone, an earthquake breaking centuries of tension.”
In the chapter, “A History of Shadows,” Solnit asks us to “imagine the world as a theater. The acts of the powerful and the official occupy center stage,” but in the dark spaces outside the limelight, “ordinary people have the power to change the world. You can see the baffled, upset faces of the actors on stage when the streets become a stage or the unofficial appear among them to disrupt the planned program.”
From Hi Times, Sequim High School Business English Class, Vol. II, No. 10, April 10, 1931, displayed at the Sequim Museum and Art Center. This class included Joe Rantz, who went on to win the Olympic 8-man rowing competition in Berlin in 1936, beating Hitler’s Nazi team in spite of illness and underhanded officiating. The class also included his high-school sweetheart, Joyce Simdars. Both are featured in the book The Boys in the Boat.
When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary to dissolve our dependence on fuels that have driven so much human development, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that we should declare the causes which impel us to the dissolution.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all people are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness. –That to secure these rights, governments are instituted and corporations are chartered, deriving their powers from the Consent of the People. –That whenever any Form of Government or Corporation becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to reorganize these institutions in such form as most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.
Prudence dictates that institutions long established should not be changed for light and transient causes. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations evinces a design to reduce the People to poverty, sickness, insecurity, and death, it is their right, their duty, to throw off such a system and provide new guards for their common security. The history of the present power structure is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of a tyranny of the Few over the Many. Let these facts be submitted:
Big Oil, Gas and Coal corporations have known for decades that their extractive industry, if left unchecked, would doom our common future with extreme weather, melting ice caps and glaciers, global sea level rise, ocean acidification, diminishing food and water supplies, forced migration, damaged physical and mental health, and a progressive unraveling of the very bonds of Civilization.
They have plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and captured our Governments.
They have continued to seek untrammeled Profit over the over the health and welfare of the People, endeavoring in every manner to manufacture doubt and mislead the People about the consequences of their activities, using their vast Wealth to skew the Body Politic into confusion, apathy, distraction, and even self-destructive support of their very Oppressors.
And they have known that those who will suffer first and most from these ravages will be those who are most innocent of the damage: the poor, the flora and fauna of our earth, and our future generations.
In every stage of these Oppressions we have petitioned for Redress, stating the facts well studied by our best minds and lately observed all over our Earth. Our repeated Petitions have, unfortunately, been answered by repeated injury and a turning away from these Truths so inconvenient to our Oppressors. A wielder of Power whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to hold sway over a free people.
It is against such Corporate and Governmental abuses that we, the People, join forces in common purpose to end the dirty-energy era and bring about a just transition to a future based on clean energy and economic opportunity for all rather than the few. We call for action now to complete this transition within a few decades at most, but we must start in earnest and with all due speed. There is not a moment more to lose. We urge Governments of all States to say no to fossil fuel infrastructure, to deny permits, certifications, and other regulatory approvals for further extraction, transport, processing, and combustion of these dirty fuels, and to accelerate investment in renewable energy.
We therefore, in the Name and by Authority of the good People of this Earth, solemnly publish and declare our intention to become independent from fossil fuels and transition to clean, renewable energy. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the rectitude and necessity of our Purpose, we mutually pledge our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.
by Emily Johnston. Cross-posted from the Climate Defense Project. The Climate Defense Project is part of the legal team providing support to Emily and the other valve turners.
______
A certain kind of anxious question comes almost every time we give a talk as “the Valve Turners”: Why would you take such a risk? What brought you to this? One interviewer was sure that I was leaving something out in my answers; he thought for sure some moment in my childhood had primed me for this.
I could tell it that way, if you wanted. It’s true that when I was twelve or thirteen, my brother told me about global warming. We lived on a low-lying island each summer, a place where the manmade causeway would sometimes be dramatically reclaimed by the sea in a big storm: swallowed by waves, just like that. The island was the place I loved most in all the world, and it disturbed me deeply to suddenly imagine it under the rising seas—my father’s vegetable garden, my mother’s flowers, the trees and their dappled light. It gave me an uncomfortable awareness of impermanence.
But the truth is that my love for the natural world often gave me that feeling of vulnerability: extinctions, factory farming, the clubbing of baby seals—all of these were wounds to my sense of connection and continuity. It’s a susceptibility I shared with a lot of sensitive kids. Which is to say, with a lot of kids—not to mention adults. Continue reading →
On the fifth day
the scientists who studied the rivers
were forbidden to speak
or to study the rivers.
The scientists who studied the air
were told not to speak of the air,
and the ones who worked for the farmers
were silenced,
and the ones who worked for the bees. Continue reading →
One of Barry Commoner’s lasting legacies is these four laws, written in The Closing Circle in 1971:
1. Everything is connected to everything else. There is one ecosphere for all living organisms and what affects one, affects all.
2. Everything must go somewhere. There is no “waste” in nature and there is no “away” to which things can be thrown.
3. Nature knows best. Humankind has fashioned technology to improve upon nature, but such change in a natural system is, says Commoner, “likely to be detrimental to that system”
4. There is no such thing as a free lunch. Exploitation of nature will inevitably involve the conversion of resources from useful to useless forms.
Earthjustice attorney Vawter “Buck” Parker, looking back over his 40-year career involving environmental battles on every subject, from wilderness to nuclear power to human health, realized that beneath the complexity was an underlying unity:
“The root cause is so often the same: the desire of some to reap the benefits while imposing the costs on others.”
OCA volunteer Daniel Walker shows the structure of the seedling’s roots
“Human limitlessness is a fantasy. . . . Our great need now is for sciences and technologies of limits. . . . We are not likely to be granted another world to plunder in compensation for our pillage of this one.” –Wendell Berry
The United States’ response to the climate crisis has been beyond pathetic. It is probably the greatest dereliction of civic responsibility in the history of the Republic. James Gustave (“Gus”) Speth, former Chair of the President’s Council on Environmental Quality , New York Times 2015-05-15.
“Science is real and verifiable, With the health of our families and our futures at stake, the American people expect us to act on the facts, not spend precious time and taxpayer money refuting manufactured uncertainties.” EPA administrator Gina McCarthy speaking before the National Academies of Science, 4/28/14
“The art of communion with the earth we can relearn from the Indian. Thus a reverse dependence is established. Survival in the future will likely depend more on our learning from the Indian than the Indian’s learning from us. In some ultimate sense we need their mythic capacity for relating to this continent more than they need our capacity for mechanistic exploitation of the continent.” — Thomas Berry, The Dream of the Earth
What price a grandchild? And if not what price a grandchild, then what price a grandchild’s grandchild? —UK chief scientific adviser, Sir Mark Walport, commenting on the IPCC Working Group II chapter of the 5th Assessment Report, on global impacts of climate change.
This essay by Bruce Bode, minister of the Quimper Unitarian-Universalist Fellowship in Port Townsend, explores the question, “How do I move forward when things look so bleak?”
“The worst that can happen to everybody in the world if I’m wrong and Al Gore is wrong and scientists are wrong and the U.N. is wrong … is that we make a decision to have cleaner air, better health, more jobs and new energy independence. That’s what happens. But if the guys who say it isn’t happening are wrong, life as we know it on this Earth can literally end. . . . So you’ve got a choice.” –Secretary of State John Kerry speaking at a Congressional hearing
It is easy…to throw up one’s hands and conclude with the Kentucky farmer that “you can’t get there from here.” That conclusion, however, breeds self-fulfilling prophecies, fatalism, and resignation–in the face of an overwhelming need to act. We also have the historical examples of Gandhi, Martin Luther King, and Alfred Schweitzer suggesting a different social dynamic, one that places less emphasis on confrontation, revolution, and slogans, and more on patience, courage, moral energy, humility, and nonpolarizing means of struggle. And we have the wisdom of E.F. Schumacher’s admonition to avoid asking whether we will succeed or not and instead to “leave these perplexities behind us and get down to work.”
1) Even tiny little partial successes represent saving millions of human beings from death or untold suffering, including watching their children die of starvation, heat stroke, or lack of water.
2) The morality of one’s actions is not dependent on the morality, or lack thereof, of one’s neighbors. Living a moral life is NOT a sacrifice. Rather, it is a privilege.
3) SOMEONE has to speak the truth in a democracy. It’s not going to be the politicians, and it certainly hasn’t been the news media. SOMEONE has to speak the truth. How about if it be YOU?
“The world and our life in it are conditional gifts. We have the world to live in on the condition that we will take good care of it. And to take good care of it we have to know it. And to know it and to be willing to take care of it, we have to love it.” —Wendell Berry
“In the face of the plainest warnings, we have now entered upon a period of danger. The era of procrastination, of half-measures, of soothing and baffling expedients, of delays, is coming to its close. In its place we are entering a period of consequences. We are in it now…I see great reason for intense vigilance and exertion, but none whatever for panic or despair. If we can stand up to this…we may be free and the life of the world may move forward into broad, sunlit uplands. But if we fail, then the whole world, including all we have known and cared for, will sink into the abyss of a new Dark Age…One ought never to turn one’s back on a threatened danger and to run away from it. If you do, you will double the danger…Let us therefore brace ourselves to our duties, and so bear ourselves that [in] a thousand years, men will still say: ‘This was their finest hour.’”
/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/63906440/Environment_Movement_2.0.jpg)
