One question for each of us:
Are you working to keep our planet habitable by the living creatures and plants we have now?
Or are you ignoring the problem or even working against our common goal?
Now this is the only question.
Jacques Ellul said, don't get distracted. If we get distracted [1] we'll become extinct.
I don't care about people's reasons for working for change. Just so they act.
Two eloquent essays (rants):
What Do You Call The Feeling Of A Dying Planet? by umair haque
People Will Look Back and Regret How They Acted by Jessica Wildfire
If you prefer long form, read the compilation All We Can Save or anything recent by Rebecca Solnit.
[1] Not a distraction: dismantling structural racism and making reparations to people whose ancestors we enslaved. (The concept of "Whiteness," concocted by the ruling class to divide workers from each other, hurts us all. Tim Wise explains this at more length.)
It will be easier to save ourselves, all of us, if we stop thwarting the energy of Black people. (You can download a Citigroup report that documents part of the damage.) Let's unleash everyone. For a start we could stop suffocating people and shooting them in the back.
Each group of Americans who are not considered "white" has its own issues. For example, see Lily Zheng's To Dismantle Anti-Asian Racism, We Must Understand Its Roots. Listening to people directly hurt by racism (without asking them to fix or save us) is a path forward.
Speaking of reparations, did you know that the US recently pledged to pay reparations to countries who are suffering the most (and may already be under water) from the effect that the US "lifestyle" has had on the planet? The amounts weren't enough but they were a beginning. And now we've paused paying them: another decision putting me as a US taxpayer (since 1973) on the wrong side of this one question. Here Lawrence Lessig explains why the modern (currently used) filibuster is fraudulent (his words) and (my opinion) needs to die.
Personally I answer YES but I'm not doing enough. I tell myself I'll do more, once I at least partially recover from Covid-19, and once I finish helping my sister get our parents' house on the market.
Most of the readers of this blog know me personally. Let's connect and talk (but not here).
Just now I heard birds singing in the trees around my house. They have no idea, I thought to myself. They may not be able to do much, but we can.
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