Connections and How to Make Them

Our Earth! Photo taken September 22, 2013

I have been reading a lot these past few weeks and thinking about possible fixes to the fix we are in with our climate. My last post here reflects fairly accurately my impression to date about why we find ourselves in this dilemma. If we are doing most everything wrong, why have we taken this path in the first place? Why has our civilization evolved to the point that living our lives the way we live them has become life threatening? The technologies and techniques exist now to change our civilization, to reduce our fossil-fuel addictions and sequester carbon. But if we don't address the root cause, guess what – we will find ourselves back at this place again next generation or sooner.

Tim DeChristopher. a champion for climate action, spoke at the Chicago History Museum Friday night. He suggested that this crisis gives us an opportunity to rethink how we are in community. He compared the responses to two of the worst catastrophic weather events to date in the United States: Hurricane Katrina and Hurricane Sandy. The response to Katrina was corporate and military led and the choices made by those entities for that recovery effort has led to great loss of life, income and personal property. Images of the lawlessness and brutality and lack of compassionate consideration for the victims of that tragic event will be with me my whole life and the overall 'relief' effort will be a stain on our country's conscience for decades to come. The response to Hurricane Sandy was quite different as the participants in the Occupy movement stepped up almost immediately and started organizing the relief efforts neighborhood by neighborhood. FEMA and the Red Cross arrived and utilized the existing community network set up by the Occupy volunteers. For the many who wondered what the use was of the Occupy movement, you can now point to the Sandy relief as one result of what a unified community can do. This truly is what Democracy looks like. Or as DeChristopher famously said at his sentencing: "This is what Love looks like." (Local radio interview with DeChristopher from Friday, September 27, 2013 here.)

DeChristopher suggests, and I wholeheartedly agree, that the time to create a community that responds effectively to catastrophe is now. What kind of community do we want to have? Do we want one that relies on the military or a soulless corporation bent on making money to step in when catastrophe strikes again? Or do we want a resilient community structure that supports all members no matter their social standing or the color of their skin?

Which leads to a question we need to ask - what would our greater community, our civilization look like if we address this crisis head on, tackle its difficulties in creative and effective ways and set ourselves back on track to live our lives in peace. What would that community look like? I think it would differ significantly from how it looks now. We would begin to realize that we are not separate creatures moving along on separate paths. We are all connected. We are connected to all creatures on this planet from the smallest amoeba to the largest land mammal. And we humans are jeopardizing everything to maintain a lifestyle that is killing us faster and faster. If we truly understand our connection and our place in the chain of all living things, we won't be making decisions to despoil our nest and that of other living creatures as that ultimately affects us.

If we do indeed allow our culture to continue on with our addiction to oil and gas unchecked and if we do nothing about sequestering the carbon already existing in our atmosphere, the future for us is very bleak and will lead to no human, let alone other mammals, being able to live on the surface of the planet in a few generations – that is, those of us who survive the coming Ice Age (see Climate Change Model).

As I have stated here before, the technology and techniques for addressing both the reduction of carbon based fuel use and the sequestering of carbon exist and are known now. All that stands in our way now to avert these catastrophic events are our politicians. Our politicians here in the United States, standing in the way of our planet's survival, are becoming known as the most selfish, most self-centered and probably the most stupid creatures in power the world has ever known. Of course historical records are not available from the Easter Island or Anasazi cultures.

Write your congressman and urge them to read the recent IPCC report that states that climate change is happening now and that humans are responsible for the rapid warming of the planet. Everyone has a role to play in reclaiming our dying planet. Not sure who your representative is? Find them here. Not sure what to say? Here are some letters I have written to Representative Randy Hultgren, my representative (here and here).

Write them today and ask them to help us all in saving our planet and future generations. 

Don't remain silent. Make your role in addressing this crisis count.