It\’s Getting Hot In Here

The future does not look good.

Positive feedback loops have begun kicking in; the tundra is melting, releasing methane, a particularly potent greenhouse gas.  White Arctic sea ice is disappearing, being replaced by dark ocean seas that absorb instead of reflect sunlight.  Neither our nation nor our world has managed to agree that we must stop burning fossil fuels.  Here in Massachusetts, many of our state’s leaders seem wedded to the idea that doing more than everyone else is good enough, even if we fall short of what scientists say we must do to avoid catastrophe.

President Obama’s announcement about off-shore drilling, coupled with his earlier support for nuclear energy, carbon capture and sequestration, emissions caps that are too low, offsets that are too uncertain, and free permits to polluters does not help one look to the future with optimism and hope.  And this is from a guy who really seemed to ‘get it’, who appointed a Nobel-winning Physicist as his Secretary of Energy.

Some look ahead to the fall elections with dread.  Quickly, they say:  we must cash in our chips, and take what little progress we can get before we get kicked out of the game.

But the truth is, we are the only ones who can kick ourselves out of the game.  And right now, we’ve set ourselves up for failure.

We have not been losing because we have been asking for too much.  We are losing because we have been asking for too little.

We need to stop talking about reducing emissions, and start talking about eliminating emissions.  What successful social movement ever won on a campaign of reductions?  Did Gandhi try to ‘reduce British imperialism?’  Did Mandela and Tutu fight to ‘reduce apartheid?’  Would abolitionists and suffragists be content with ‘reducing slavery’, or ‘reducing the political exclusion of women?’  Did King look into the Promised Land and see ‘reduced discrimination?’

HELL NO.

They saw something that was bad, and state unequivocally that it had to be replaced by something that is good.  And that, my friends, is why they won.  They won because they had the courage to call not for what was achievable, but for what was necessary. We need to STOP looking at what we can get today, or what we can get tomorrow, and start working on what we NEED to get as soon as we can.

Necessity dictates action.

If abolitionists had been true to themselves and evaluated what they could reasonably achieve, they would have pooled their money together, bought some slaves, and freed them, and reduce the overall number.  Or maybe they would have campaigned for laws that would ensure better treatment of slaves.  Make the slaves happier, have them suffer less.  Guarantee them better shelter, more food, fewer working hours.  Maybe establish minimum and maximum working ages for slaves, or prevent slave families from being divided.  Those things would have been mighty battles, but they were much more winnable than a full-out assault on the institution of slavery.

Yet by virtue of trying to shave off the rough edges of slavery, they would have been implying that slavery has an appropriate role to play in society, it just needed to be ‘fixed.’  That, in essence, is what we are doing today, when we allow for these false solutions to stand up alongside the real ones.  We are implicitly saying that it is okay for us to generate electricity through processes that emit climate-destabilizing gases into the atmosphere, and spread toxics into our communities.  That it is okay to blow the tops off of mountains, or to send men deep into the ground and have them breathe in cancer-causing toxics.  That it is okay for us to have a burning planet on the one hand and a 10% unemployment rate on the other, and not dedicate every willing worker to the greatest challenge of our time.

We must be bold in our call to action.  We must be principled.  We must be resolved.  And we must not move an inch.  Because, in the words of Rep. Ed Markey: we are right, and they are wrong.

That is not to say that we cannot accept partial victories.  The slave trade was ended before slavery; some institutions were desegregated before others.  Some states gave women the right to vote before others.  These victories were rightly celebrated as such, but whenever we achieve such victories, we must be clear that they are and will remain incomplete so long as we continue to sacrifice our future stability for our present convenience.  Survival is not negotiable.

The youth of America have spoken.  We have voted for 100% Clean, Renewable Electricity. We have voted for healthy communities.  We have voted for good, green jobs.  We have voted for a safe future and a stable climate.  Now, we must set about making it happen.

This is our future. No one’s going to hand it to us.  It is up to us, each and every one of us, to define what comes.

We must be as confident as Gandhi staring down the British Empire.  We must be as unyielding as Rosa Parks when she refused to move – even when the law told her she had to.  We must be as principled who called for an end to slavery, no matter the economic costs.  And we must be as hopeful as Martin Luther King, and look to the Promised Land, even if we ourselves may not get to see it.

And truth be told, we may not.  But there’s only way to guarantee that we won’t get to see a future with 100% clean electricity, that we won’t get to live with a safe and livable climate, that we won’t get to live in healthy communities and work in good, green jobs that lift people out of poverty and jumpstart our economy.  The only way we can guarantee we won’t see that world is if we don’t fight for it.  And the only way we will see that world is if we fight for it.

It won’t be easy, it won’t come quickly, but it’s our only, best hope.

“First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.” – Mahatma Gandhi.

Who’s ready to be ignored?  Who’s ready to be laughed at?  Who’s ready to be fought?  Who’s ready to really win?

Let’s Define Our Decade.