Despite the current horrors brought to us by the climate crisis, I do think I spy a light at the end of a very long tunnel. Or for another cliché, it’s more like a hundred flowers blooming.
Children in Europe – led by Swedish force of nature 16-year-old Greta Thunberg and other brilliant girls – have been on the march by the hundreds of thousands and have just wrested a pledge of a quarter of a trillion dollars from the European Union to address the climate crisis over the next 7 years. One thing I love about Greta is her absolute refusal to play nice when she sees her future being destroyed before her eyes. She finally shamed the adults into action. And here’s another totally fitting cliché: “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it's the only thing that ever has." (Margaret Mead) I would add, “or even one citizen.”
In the U.S. young people – though significantly older than the young European activists – founded the Sunrise Movement after the 2016 election and were laser-focused on the 2018 mid-term elections, where they helped turn the U.S. House blue and bring some climate hawks into office. They’re promoting a Green New Deal, and, while several groups have critiqued it from the left – saying it doesn’t call specifically for phasing out fossil fuels or exclude nuclear power from the “carbon-neutral” goal or call for a cut in Pentagon spending to fund it – it has put the climate crisis at the center of public attention.
I went to DC over the weekend to support hundreds of Sunrise activists, and especially a group from Kentucky, who went to Mitch McConnell’s office to “look us in the eyes and tell us your $1.9 million donation from the fossil fuel industry is more important than our future.” More than 40 of them were arrested when they refused to leave his office. And he didn’t meet with them – just like he didn’t meet with them over a Congressional break when he was supposed to be in his district. They went to his district office for three days in a row, then spent a night outside his office in the rain to show their commitment.
The goal of the DC action was to show he can’t stop their momentum by calling for a premature vote in the Senate on the Green New Deal resolution. (They say it’s premature because they need more time to convince more lawmakers to support it.) They were incredibly high-energy, passionate and emotional as they talked about their doomed future if people in power don’t take emergency action. You can see Erin from Kentucky leading the song, “Which Side Are You On?” at the training before the action. That’s a classic protest song, but the Kentuckians pointed out that it was written by a coal miner’s wife from Kentucky about a century ago.
I was so happy to spend time with these young people, who ranged from 17 to their mid-20s. I highly encourage anyone over 30 (not to mention over 70) to engage with them whenever possible to learn their perspective.
There’s other good news. The federal Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) – with a majority of Trump appointees – just announced it’s closing two coal plants because they couldn’t compete economically with other energy sources, despite personal lobbying from both Trump and Mitch McConnell, in whose state one of them is located. The Sierra Club reports that 47 coal plants have announced their retirement or have closed since Trump took office.
I also just attended the annual winter conference of the CT chapter of NOFA, the Northeast Organic Farming Association. There were several workshops on agriculture and climate change, and no-till, regenerative farming and gardening is gaining enthusiastic adherents. Normal tilling releases tons of carbon into the atmosphere, so the less we do that, the better off we are.
They say it takes a long time to turn around an ocean liner. Same is true of our heedless pumping of CO2, methane and other climate-heating gases into the air. The turning is still much too slow, but it finally feels like we are starting to make the turn. To quote one of my favorite singer-songwriters, James Keelaghan:
Hold Your Ground
Somewhere inside my soul there is an echo of my youth
Some pithy little saying that contained a grain of truth
If patience is a virtue, persistence is its mark
It's better light a candle than stand and curse the dark
But if we stand together we might turn this world around
Hold your ground
In the corridors of power where our voice is seldom heard
The status quo is what they want, they can get it with a word
For us it takes a thousand voices, a million angry shouts
To notify the ship of state to bring its course about
But if we pull together we might turn this ship around
Hold your ground
Oh, this world is changing
Spinning out through space and time
Oh, it's rearranging
All the things we thought were yours and mine
You've got to hold your ground
Hold your ground
Hold your ground
Sometimes it seems the motion is strictly retrograde
There are so many reversals of advances that you've made
The things you thought were changing have shuddered to a halt
But if we stand together we might turn this world around
Hold your ground
Hold your ground
Hold your ground
It isn't for the faint of heart to bet when the odds are long
And neither is it easy to be right in face of wring
You must proceed from strength to strength, although the road is rough
And sometimes human courage just isn't quite enough
But if we stand together we might turn this world around
Hold your ground
Hold your ground
Hold your ground
Oh this world is changing
Children in Europe – led by Swedish force of nature 16-year-old Greta Thunberg and other brilliant girls – have been on the march by the hundreds of thousands and have just wrested a pledge of a quarter of a trillion dollars from the European Union to address the climate crisis over the next 7 years. One thing I love about Greta is her absolute refusal to play nice when she sees her future being destroyed before her eyes. She finally shamed the adults into action. And here’s another totally fitting cliché: “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it's the only thing that ever has." (Margaret Mead) I would add, “or even one citizen.”
In the U.S. young people – though significantly older than the young European activists – founded the Sunrise Movement after the 2016 election and were laser-focused on the 2018 mid-term elections, where they helped turn the U.S. House blue and bring some climate hawks into office. They’re promoting a Green New Deal, and, while several groups have critiqued it from the left – saying it doesn’t call specifically for phasing out fossil fuels or exclude nuclear power from the “carbon-neutral” goal or call for a cut in Pentagon spending to fund it – it has put the climate crisis at the center of public attention.
I went to DC over the weekend to support hundreds of Sunrise activists, and especially a group from Kentucky, who went to Mitch McConnell’s office to “look us in the eyes and tell us your $1.9 million donation from the fossil fuel industry is more important than our future.” More than 40 of them were arrested when they refused to leave his office. And he didn’t meet with them – just like he didn’t meet with them over a Congressional break when he was supposed to be in his district. They went to his district office for three days in a row, then spent a night outside his office in the rain to show their commitment.
The goal of the DC action was to show he can’t stop their momentum by calling for a premature vote in the Senate on the Green New Deal resolution. (They say it’s premature because they need more time to convince more lawmakers to support it.) They were incredibly high-energy, passionate and emotional as they talked about their doomed future if people in power don’t take emergency action. You can see Erin from Kentucky leading the song, “Which Side Are You On?” at the training before the action. That’s a classic protest song, but the Kentuckians pointed out that it was written by a coal miner’s wife from Kentucky about a century ago.
I was so happy to spend time with these young people, who ranged from 17 to their mid-20s. I highly encourage anyone over 30 (not to mention over 70) to engage with them whenever possible to learn their perspective.
There’s other good news. The federal Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) – with a majority of Trump appointees – just announced it’s closing two coal plants because they couldn’t compete economically with other energy sources, despite personal lobbying from both Trump and Mitch McConnell, in whose state one of them is located. The Sierra Club reports that 47 coal plants have announced their retirement or have closed since Trump took office.
I also just attended the annual winter conference of the CT chapter of NOFA, the Northeast Organic Farming Association. There were several workshops on agriculture and climate change, and no-till, regenerative farming and gardening is gaining enthusiastic adherents. Normal tilling releases tons of carbon into the atmosphere, so the less we do that, the better off we are.
They say it takes a long time to turn around an ocean liner. Same is true of our heedless pumping of CO2, methane and other climate-heating gases into the air. The turning is still much too slow, but it finally feels like we are starting to make the turn. To quote one of my favorite singer-songwriters, James Keelaghan:
Hold Your Ground
Somewhere inside my soul there is an echo of my youth
Some pithy little saying that contained a grain of truth
If patience is a virtue, persistence is its mark
It's better light a candle than stand and curse the dark
But if we stand together we might turn this world around
Hold your ground
In the corridors of power where our voice is seldom heard
The status quo is what they want, they can get it with a word
For us it takes a thousand voices, a million angry shouts
To notify the ship of state to bring its course about
But if we pull together we might turn this ship around
Hold your ground
Oh, this world is changing
Spinning out through space and time
Oh, it's rearranging
All the things we thought were yours and mine
You've got to hold your ground
Hold your ground
Hold your ground
Sometimes it seems the motion is strictly retrograde
There are so many reversals of advances that you've made
The things you thought were changing have shuddered to a halt
But if we stand together we might turn this world around
Hold your ground
Hold your ground
Hold your ground
It isn't for the faint of heart to bet when the odds are long
And neither is it easy to be right in face of wring
You must proceed from strength to strength, although the road is rough
And sometimes human courage just isn't quite enough
But if we stand together we might turn this world around
Hold your ground
Hold your ground
Hold your ground
Oh this world is changing
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