What to Do About the Climate Crisis: A MommyFesto

A Treatise for Mothers, Parents, Caregivers, Adults and All Lovers of Mother Earth

(This a companion piece to the “Heart of America” video of the same name … Please see video link below, and in “Resources” at bottom.)

This “essay” is a “manifesto” or “Mommyfesto,” as stated. Therefore, it is longer than most of my essays. Please allow yourself extra time to read it. In this Mommyfesto, I speak to:

• Connecting with our love of Earth, no matter our politics.
• Using this connection to settle our minds for greater calm and clarity, openness to insight and flexibility of Thought.
• Things we can do, as “consumers” and lovers of Earth that might help our brother and sister species (whom we need to survive), as well as ourselves as we face the chaos of the climate crisis.
• Understanding the science of the crisis, and how it impacts different regions of the world, and different people differently.
• The importance of large scale social and political activism in order to pressure those in power to enact the more impactful and far reaching changes to our systems we need now to survive and thrive.

So, here we go …

I have always wanted to hike the Pacific Crest Trail alone. I got to do that this summer in the high Sierras of California, just south of Lake Tahoe. I think I hiked about 4.5 miles. Not Cheryl Strayed, but good enough for me.

I packed up water, fruits and nuts. A small can of cold coffee. A towel. Binoculars. My glasses.

Simple.

This “Heart of America” video also addresses the question: “What to Do About the Climate Crisis”

The trail heading south from Carson’s Pass was closed due to fire. I had seen great plumes of smoke in the sky, driving up the 88; then they would disappear, and it was as though there were no fire at all. But when I re-routed and found the northbound section of the Pacific Crest Trail, and embarked on my solo adventure, I started to see smoke again on the horizon. Pretty soon, I could smell the smoke, and watch helicopters beating a path that way.

Luckily, the wind was blowing in my favor, and all the smoke and flame from what I would later learn was the “Tamarack Fire” was pushing east, into Nevada. There were 20 or so other fires buring simultaneously in this state and in Oregon. Here in California, under the Trump Administration, all these fires were our own damn fault. Our fault; the Democrats’ fault; Antifa’s fault. Maybe even Black Lives Matters’ fault. But, when there are Megafires in Oregon and Washington, Montana and British Columbia, Australia — even Siberia, who do we blame?

What a lot of folks might not know is that it was and still is pretty freaking dry up in the Sierras, compared to normal. The Kirkwood Meadows creek, which perennially makes the actual meadow impassable — a spiderweb of marsh and running water all summer long — had dried up completely. In years of coming up here in summer, I have never seen that.

So, that’s climate change. Global heating. It dries the drier places out, and then dumps all that water somewhere else in quantities so great, our cars are are tossed about like toy boats in white water. While the Sierras burned, and so too did Oregon and BC, in Belgium, more than 100 died from record flooding. And the fire season here is just beginning.

A friend of mine was worried about me, being alone, in the Sierras with a fire over my right shoulder. I was a little worried too. I told him: “The PCT is my bitch!” But, the truth is that I could only fall to my knees and worship at the great, wildflower-strewn feet (9100 feet up!) of our Great Mother Earth.

As I picked my way back to my car, I had a direct view of the Tamarack plume. At the same time, flowers of every shape and hue winked and nodded at me as I walked. I spotted a grouse. A chipmunk surveying his grassy kingdom.

Smoke from the Tamarack Fire in the High Sierras, burning across about 50,000 acres on this day

The Sierras have always been magical and majestic. Hiking there, and knowing all I know about the climate crisis (which, by now, is more than most) my sense of sadness and worry and deep concern for my children — for all children, for all of us — was overcome by a sense of incredible gratitude for my birth on this magnificent planet — so abundant, words cannot contain this abundance. So diverse, we cannot measure its diversity. So giving, there is no greater giver in this world of form.

I know more and more of us are “getting the hint” that the climate crisis/climate emergency is here and likely to only get worse. It is scary. We have left the mounting crisis untended and even denied for so long, every day now heralds a weather disaster somewhere — a drought, a flood, a fire, a demon wind. All these will lead to famines in various parts of the world, mass migration of climate refugees (already begun), systems collapse and huge, now highly populated areas of Earth becoming unlivable for humans and other species.

Yet, even in our grieving, there can be love and gratitude.

Find the feeling of being grateful. — Sydney Banks

I have been working on this essay on “what to do about climate change” for over a year now (I can be a perfectionist) … and what I keep hearing for myself is:

Go out, into nature, and listen.

I hear:

Love your Mother. … There is still so very much to love. Look around. And smell and feel and touch and taste … And, as guilty as you may feel, allow yourself to still BE LOVED by your Mother.

And then, do what you’re told.

Earth to Earthlings: Love Your Mother

Because love becomes nurturing and protecting and defending — even fiercely if need be. It is all of this.

Whatever we then decide to do, it has to be radically different from what we have been doing. Because what we have been doing has been based on the false premise that Earth is here for the “taking” (not tending) and that we can abuse and misuse Earth without penalty.

We can call this way “colonialist” or “runaway capitalist,” or “toxic masculine,” or the madness of the elites, or the madness of us all or just “greed”— and it is all of these. But more so — and beyond any ideological labels — it is a way of thinking, and, ironically, tragically, a terribly misguided and utterly useless way at that.

This way of thinking goes like this: More shoes, a new car, a bigger house, plastic surgery, a private jet, and more, more, more stuff; and more, more, more money (add also: power, fame, influence) is what will save us and bring us peace … bring us the fulfillment of some vague and aching desire we cannot even rightly name. We Earthlings are almost all guilty of adopting this thought system at some level, in small part or in whole.

Yet, our great Mother offers peace directly. The peace of the still lake, the green, rippling meadows of the Pacific Crest Trail, but more so, she offers our inner peace — which she ably draws out. Our minds are connected to Hers. Our intelligence is, actually, Hers. And if you call God or Earth or Life Him, or It or They or All or We … Or if you have no words at all … still, we are not separate from This. And if we can quiet our minds enough, She/He/They/It/All/We/None will speak.

This is our last, and best hope. IMHO. … As a mother, as a parent and lover of children and young people, the call to reflection and then action feels as urgent as anything ever has been, in my life and across the turbulent history of humans on Earth. What would each of us not do to ensure the health and well-being of our children and grandchildren? In the face of collapsing natural and human systems — upon which our children depend for life — why do so many of us not extend our attention and actions to this global threat— perhaps the greatest of all threats?

I hope this Mommyfesto might help you take action by nudging you, and each of us, toward actions that do not overwhelm us, but do move us from complicity to healing.

Wildflowers of the High Sierras

This essay includes a list of “Things to Do.” Ultimately, however, each person — whether lobbying, engaging in activism and protests, planting and growing, researching and writing, re-orienting and tranforming business, building community or running for office — has their own path. Each unique path is informed by each person’s particular skills, interests and nature. By passion. In the end, our capacity to listen deeply to Earth and, at the same time, ourselves is what must guide each of us.

It is in the nature of the universe to move forward between great tensions, between dynamic opposing forces. If the creative energies of the heart of the universe succeeded so brilliantly in the past, we have reason to hope that such creativity will inspire us and guide us into the future. —

Brian Swimme and Mary Tucker, “Journey of the Universe”

But, a list seems important as a start. As long as it is only a start. In casting aside old thought forms — about our economies, about our societies, about who should lead and who should follow, about the value of money and the value of ecosystems, about the value of each of us, and all species, about what we love — we need to be open to radical, out-of-the-box thinking and spontaneous, game-changing insights. The pace, nature and far-goneness of the current crisis means our new ideas will need to be so intutive, or “divine” and just right and win-win that they catch on like, well … wildfire.

What to Do

All suggested actions are based on experiences of an ordinary Western woman in many ways — a “suburban mom” of two teens, a minivan driver — with perhaps advanced research skills (a former investigative journalist) and, also, a woman who jumped with both feet into climate, political and social action five years ago.

Concrete suggestions are geared toward “ordinary people” who can take a little action, or a lot. But who are willing to take some kind of action. The premise here is that, if enough of us begin to move, movement will happen, in many directions, toward sound stewardship of Planet Earth in whatever state she, and we, are in.

First: Learn the science. Understand where we. Even with wildfires raging out of control across the West and in Australia, even with famine spreading in Madagascar, even with war and strife in Egypt and Syria due to drought, even with the near complete evaporation of water in South Africa and 100-plus degree temperatures in the Arctic, far too many people are not connecting the dots. We need mass public awareness to be able to move with right action. Right now, far too many of us are like frogs in heating water.

The climate models built by scientists are not perfect, but they have been remarkably accurate at predicting all the outcomes we see today, with more coming. Without facing the actual reality and science of climate, we will not be able to respond appropriately. The acidification of oceans, the release of methane from oil pipelines, drilling and fracking, the slowing and increasingly erratic (“drunk”) movement of the global jet stream, the impacts of melting glaciers on ocean currents (in turn, affecting regional temperatures), the release of CO2, methane and other GHGs from the Arctic, the way forests and seas and farmland turn from carbon sinks into carbon emitters — all of this we must understand. It is highly possible we have come too far to reverse the worst of this crisis, friends. Still, we can each of us work toward both mitigation and “adaptation,” with wisdom.

Now, Earth will either — possibly, hopefully, maybe — continue to cradle, to feed and sustain us; or will become, finally, a grave for our bleaching bones en masse, as we take so much from her, she can no longer give.

A faltering Earth for us … and her Moon

Then: Understand the climate and eco-crises are also global racial and social justice issues. Countries that have historically pumped the most CO2, methane and other greenhouse gases (the US, China, Western Europe and etc.) are impacting nations of the Global South far beyond what these less developed nations have done to contribute to the crisis.

Equatorial nations in Central America and Africa, for example, are already facing increased drought and food shortages. Madagascar is sliding into famine. “Cancer alleys” in the US and oil-processing neighborhoods where children suffer astronomical rates of asthma illustrate the imbalance of environmental impacts on people of color (POC) and the poor. Oil pipelines which leak at every turn are slated to run through indigenous lands and waters, not “white suburbia,” and often through sovereign or treaty territories.

Winona LaDuke, Regenerative Farmer, Land Steward, Native Activist and Author, now leading — with other indigenous — opposition to the Enbridge Line 3 0il pipeline in Minnesota. See also “Seven Fires” and “Black Snake” prophecies.

Again, our thoughts of superiority over Earth and her species — including our thoughts of superiority over one another, and our thoughts of scarcity and fear are the root of the problem. Indigenous leaders, POC leaders, female and femme leaders hold solutions that often most “radical” (meaning, most paradigm-shifting, and therefore necessary, now), and “rooted” in a deeper understanding of the crisis. We must turn to these people for leadership.

Personal Efforts

“Personal mitigation” is a sticky widget. For decades we have berated ourselves for not recycling enough, for driving cars, for eating meat. Yet such personal mitigation measures, while important, will likely not create the massive change we need at all levels, from regulation of stock markets to how our food is grown at large scales and effective pricing on carbon and other extractive pursuits which undermine that which is invaluable — our biological life support systems.

While government and corporate entitites continue to subsidize and pursue fracking (methane release, groundwater pollution, earthquakes), and expand fossil fuel drilling, production and transport, personal mitigation is like being in a sinking ship, trying to bail with cups of water while the captain is steering full steam ahead toward an iceberg, and the crew is drilling holes in the sides of the ship.

Nonetheless, none of these activities would be happening, if we, as global citizens, were not demanding and consuming all the products of such activities. So, while we desperately need full-scale mobilization by governments and world leaders to mitigate and slow this crisis, our personal efforts do make some difference and this is clearly where we can claim immediate power.

The truth is no one knows what will be most effective now, nor how the tide may turn. What we can know, as caregivers of children and/or of Earth, is that we each, individually, have an internal compass; I call this wisdom. Wisdom, or insight is a flow of thinking that guides us toward our personal, right actions. We feel the rightness of it. This is what a quiet mind — what being alone for some time in Mother Nature, or anywhere — can do for us: align us to our proper roles at this time of crisis.

Mother Earth can help us calm our spirits and guide our thinking toward protecting and loving her better

Understand that each of us cannot do everything, and certainly not everything at once! Within the climate crisis, it can feel as though there is so much to do, it is easier to just do nothing at all. The trick is to find out what your part is, and do that.

Because of the highly emotional and urgent nature of this crisis, many of us are quick to judge what others may do or not do. This distracts from our own wisdom and work. Activists may drive to meetings or fly to meetings. Those primarily focused on personal mitigation, or growing food may not show up for direct actions or protests at all. Spiritual teachers and counselors may choose to focus on “grounding,” on going deeper themselves, so they can authentically help others during this turbulent time … and so on. Pointing fingers at one another is not going to help.

I have found, as a mother and activist who founded, with others, the first Extinction Rebellion climate activist chapter in my hometown, that activism takes time I could spend instead on personal mitigation (gardening, making my own soap, taking a bus, etc.). Rather than fret about this, I do what feels like the right thing for me to do every day … or month or year, according to my unique skills, talents and passions. Our actions can and often will change, because wisdom is fluid and responds organically to new circumstances. Just do the best you can. Who can expect more?

OK. Having said all that, these are some of the most effective actions we can each take to bring down our personal carbon emissions (or “carbon footprints”) and help save ecosystems. Do not dwell in guilt, nor beat yourself up about doing or not doing any of these. I have done some but not all of these things and, indeed, my own “waking up” to the crisis at hand was much later than for many friends who were biking and going meatless for years before I began to think deeply about such matters.

A revolution of spirituality, focused on “inner” over outer resources — and of non-consumerism is called for.

You must choose actions that make sense for you and your family or loved ones, and will not drive you crazy and short circuit your attempts. It is the cumulative effect of all of these choices by millions — and hopefully billions of us — that may begin to turn this Titanic.

1. Reduce consumption. For years, David Attenborough’s central advice on what to do about the climate and species extinction crises — beyond re-wilding — has been, in two words: “Stop wasting.” Overconsumption of all Earth’s resources (not just fuels) is rapidly creating an untenable situation for life on Earth. We must make frugality hip again — as it was in the US during the Great Depression and World War II for many of us. Shop at thrift stores. Use Craig’s List. Reduce plastic use (killing wildlife and sea life). Bring your own cups and containers to coffee shops and delis, or for leftovers. Stop buying cheap plastic products made in China or anywhere. Get broken appliances and shoes or torn clothes repaired, rather than throwing them out … If you must buy a new product of any kind, research (via the tree-planting, ecological search engine “Ecosia”) which materials are best. Bamboo and hemp are both notable for eco-friendliness. Bamboo furnishings are preferable to most woods. However, be mindful of the bigger picture. There are now nearly 8 billion people all consuming and disposing of resources that must be extracted from the earth and which create untold damage to ecosystems in the process. We are overconsuming Earth by sixty percent each year. A revolution of non-consumerism is called for. If the developed world has consumed more than its fair share of resources, it is high time for us to sacrifice and become humble and mindful about our consumption. Some industries will suffer, but not terribly, if governments, businesses leaders and smart, compassionate thinkers plan for this. At any rate, the alternative is not simply lost jobs, but lost jobs and a lost, life giving planet upon which those jobs are utterly dependent. We either plan for “de-growth” and circular economies or Mother Nature will do this job for us. Indeed, she has already begun.
2. Divest from all personal fossil-fuel holdings, either through your bank, your credit card or your stock and fund investments. Talk to your account managers and bank executives about why you are doing this. Demand that your company, local government or university system also divest from such holdings. JP Morgan Chase (Chase Bank) is the number one funder of fossil fuel exploration and development at a time when this funding threatens most life on Earth, and our children’s futures. Chase knows this very well, as its executives contracted an internal, “special report” on the climate crisis, projecting the collapse of human civilization (available online: “Risky Business: the climate and the macroeconomy”). Wells Fargo is the second biggest funder of fossil fuel projects. Here are all the top banks funding fossil fuels and accelerating climate chaos globally. Here are the 100 “worst” companies contributing to the end of life on Earth. Here are their CEOs. Divest from all of these.
3. Grow food and plants to support pollinators and native wildlife habitat in your garden, on your land or on your porch, etc. You don’t need to feed the neighborhood … yet. Experiment. Local food indepedence will become increasingly important in years to come. And, it’s important now. The more food we grow organically, in a carbon sequestering, Earth-friendly manner, the less we rely on massive agribusiness with its ecocidal mono crops, pesticides and fertilizers. Twenty percent of US land is used for corporate agriculture, with a toxic, earth-killing reliance on chemical fertilizers and pesticides. These twins of corporate and large scale ag emit GHGs and poison land and waters. The corporatization and resulting mono-cropping of agricultural land is one of the largest sources of damage to ecosystems and waters worldwide. In the US, Chinese and other foreign conglomorates are buying up farmland. In Australia, massive water diversion to huge agribusiness concerns (as well as fracking wells) both created drought conditions that led to the horrific wildfires of 2019-2020, and shut down small, family farmers. … During World War II, 40 percent of US produce consumed was grown in home-based “Victory Gardens.” Planting organic fruits and vegetables as well as pollinator plants for insects, tending lovingly to our soils, and providing wildlife habitat in any space available to us will teach our children skills they will likely need going forward, beautify our neighborhoods, help other species and create food resilience in days to come. Tending our little, or large parts of the world with love — creating food, shade, carbon sinks, habitat and beauty, will add up … and release an important sense of personal efficacy for ourselves, our families and communities. Fruit, nut and other helpful trees planted in empty lots, along sidewalks and in the smallest patches of dirt in the “heat islands” of inner cities and urban areas will cool these areas down, provide food in the future and benefit wildlife. “Guerilla gardening” means planting gardens in areas that seem “off limits” but are not in use. And while I am not advocating for illegal activity in general, I just thought I’d mention this. :)
4. Make it known to all your elected represenatives at the local, state and federal level that this issue is of the utmost importance to you and your family and that you are watching how they vote and that you encourage them to take bold and courageous action on both the climate crisis and mass species extinction. A basic and substantial carbon tax is the absolute bare minimum of what we must implement now. It may go without saying, but clearly: do not vote for climate change deniers, or those who have just recently changed their tune. Do not vote for candidates obviously beholden to the fossil fuel industry. Do not vote for anyone who does not agree that the climate crisis is an immediate threat to nearly all forms of life on Earth. I am trying to be bi-partisan here, but it is challenging. (See resources below for one of the best organizations to support for a US carbon tax, Citizens Climate Lobby).
5. Cease flying or reduce flying. If you have family you must see or important travel, rather than not flying at all, simply try to reduce your number of flights. Experiment with trains and buses. Plan regional or local vacations. Purchase carbon offsets when you do have to fly. Business flights in this age of Zoom meetings seem most superfluous. (See “Who Gets to Fly Now” on Medium.)
6. Get out of your car if you can. I purchased an electric bike last year for trips around town because I live on a very high hill that prevented me from ever wanting to bike anywhere. I love my new e-bike! … There are many studies about the actual impact of electric cars. The truth is that any highly manufactured product will include a massive amount of “embodied” CO2 just through the extraction and manufacturing process — as well as impact species through mining, runoff and pollution. However, it is still far better to buy a used or new electric car than a gas-powered vehicle if you now need a car. The “embodied emission payback time” for an electric car is only 1.5 years, so this makes an electric car a good investment. Even better if solar panels to charge it, or if your neighborhood is supplied with renewable energy. Also, please do not idle (run your engine) in your car when you are not moving!
7. Stop or decrease meat and animal product consumption or choose meats wisely. Cut down on industrially-raised beef, lamb and dairy if you can. Soybeans (for feed) and cattle farmed and raised in the Amazon rainforest basin are causing ruinous deforestation — a major contributor to global heating. If it will be too hard for you to stop consuming beef or dairy products, choose beef and dairy from known, local sources, from regenerative operations or just cut back. Stop eating or buying products that contain palm oil (massive tropical deforestation). Boycott Nestle products, and if your water supply is relatively clean, stop using plastic water bottles. Try to buy organic whenever possible. Support sustainable and local or family farming over large scale, factory farming. This food thing is tricky. Because humans are so many, switching from dairy milk to almond milk, for example, comes with its own set of issues. Even avocados are not immune from evil-doings. Both almonds and avocados demand vast amounts of water, and in Mexico, carbon-sink forests are being razed to grow more avocados for “avocado toast” the world over. But what shall we eat? Nothing at all? … Having done a fair amount of research, cutting back to a mostly plant-based diet with the addition of silvo-pastured or Regenerative Ag-raised, or locally hunted animal products seems the best way to go for the planet, including limiting fish to line caught. If you are concerned about almond milk, you might try hemp or oat … Overall, “food waste” from sprout to plate to mouth is one of the number one contributors to global heating, so simply being mindful of making good use of food we do buy will help. And even though almonds and avocados are problematic, beef and lamb are truly two of the major producers of GHG’s — including deforestation — worldwide, so cutting back on these still makes sense. Overall, it is best to buy local and organic when you can, from farms and farmers and hunters and fisher folks who care about their land, about water and about their communites. Our biggest problems are coming from huge, multinational food and pesticide/fertilizer conglomorates, muscling out or pressuring smaller family farms and willing to drain water tables and pollute watersheds for profit.
8. Encourage others, including your city or town, to reduce waste. It is insane that while we face this global crisis, threatening our childrens’ lives and futures, we have city skylines and downtown strips blazing away with lights at night (also killing insects by the millions), people idling in their cars, lights left on overnight in businesses and homes; we use dryers for wet clothes when the sun is up and hot, and we flush our toilets with clean, drinkable water! … Fruits and vegetables come wrapped in all kinds of packaging as do products of all sorts. With new eyes, we see that wastefulness and planned obsolescence has become the ethos of the developed world. (And I include myself in the “blame.”) We have refrigerators in our homes keeping food cold at the same we are heating the rest of the house. Restaurants and cafes “heat up” the great outdoors with outdoor heaters — some of which are left on with no one even sitting outside! Businesses run air conditioners on high while leaving doors open to attract customers. We cut down trees to put paper rings on our toilet seats that literally accomplish nothing at all. We produce and purchase product after product that brings no real value into our lives … souvenier plastic tumblers from vacations, ill fitting clothes, painful shoes, the latest version of a phone or gadget, and on and on. It’s time to think along longer horizons in terms of everything we buy. Home composting is also an excellent way to keep our organic wastes (food, even paper products) out of landfills, where they produce heating methane. You might encourage municipal food composting in your city too to reduce waste and bring landfill methane down.
9. Get solar panels and a battery if you can at all afford to. Insulate your home. Install solar hot water and even a “humanure” composting system (they work remarkably well!) … Collect rainwater. If you want to go very deep with reducing your carbon footprint, I recommend Being the Change: Live Well and Spark a Climate Revolution by Peter Kalmus.
10. Consider having less children. It is actually a rough time to have children in light of the climate facts. Indeed, many young people are now on #BirthStrike … But this is a personal and individual decision which must come from the heart. Global population, it seems to me, will need to stabilize if we are to protect life for all. “For long-term biospherism, we must … settle at a stable and sustainable population,” writes Kalmus. Having no, two or less children will bring population growth down (if we all did this!) … Otherwise, support programs that bring family planning, female education and improved standards of living for women in poverty or regressive societies. All of these efforts bring birth rates down.

That’s it! Just ten things to do! How easy was that?

Political and Social Activism

While personal mitigation measures, especially the first on the list, will have some impact, it will take the more wide ranging actions of sane or publicly pressured national, state and local governments to truly impact the climate and extinction crises in any meaningful way.

Only our governments can enact policies affecting all industries, and rapidly reduce GHG output. We will also need to draw CO2 down from the atmosphere and seas, if possible. Only governments — and possibly larger NGOs — can coordinate and fund the to-scale efforts toward reforestation and regenerative agriculture, carbon pricing and compassionate adaptation needed now.

Activism

Nearly all pro-human and positive environmental changes ever enacted by our governments — at least in the US — resulted from years of activism, organizing, protest and pressure by abolitionists, by the civil rights movement, by the women’s rights movements, by the environmental movement, by the disability rights movement, by labor unions … by “ordinary” people like us.

Despite the painful and “great” divides in the US and many nations today, the majority of us all are working people who simply seek a secure and peaceful future for ourselves and our children. Most of us love Earth. Whether we hunt or fish or hike or camp or farm, deep within us, I believe, we share a deep reverence and respect for Earth. We must try to listen and dialogue and unite … and to act and fight for a future in which our children may be able to have children with the joy we all would wish for them.

Despite the painful and “great” divide in the US and many nations today, the majority of us are working people who seek a secure and peaceful future for ourselves and our children. Most of us love Earth.

US Trump supporters in the midwest, and within depressed economies rightly felt betrayed by our political system in the US, as global trade agreements turned their futures into zero balances on multinational corporate balance sheets — maybe even debits.

What many may not remember is that Left activists put their lives on the line in large scale protests to try to stop these global deals — knowing they would harm the lower and middle classes, as well as hand corporations even more power to destroy eco-systems and undercut labor laws with impunity.

Interestingly, trade deals like NAFTA were launched with the force of binding law. Transgressions against “international trade” could now be brought to international courts, and any offending country penalized heavily. Heaven forbid anyone, nor anything get in the way of multinational corporate profits. And yet, GHG emissions agreements, meant to protect life on Earth, like Kyoto and the Paris Agreements, are non-binding. Because, well, Who cares if we destroy our life support systems on Earth, as long as someone who already has more than enough is making another buck?

The feeling on the part of most Americans that increasingly large multinational corporations and industries are running the global show and care little, if at all, for most of us is a feeling I believe nearly all of us, on both Left and the Right share. Is it not to the advantage of these “global elites,” — including and especially the fossil fuel industry — to stoke the ideological, racial and “religious” wars between us?

We all feel it, do we not? The sharp turn somewhere in the not too terribly distant past from a “local,” even national economy, when we might know the owner of a business, might get them on the phone if needed … to now, and the great distance between ourselves (if we are in the US) and the customer service rep in India or the Phillipines — any of whom may be nice enough. Between the two of us (9,000 miles) is a great, corporate, profits-above-all-else chasm filled with an almost tangible sense of un-caring.

“Your call is important to us,” the canned recording tells us. Really? This non-human recording does? … Do we believe this at all? The corporation “cares” because we represent dollars to it. Not because we are human beings.

Certainly, not all corporate executives and business owners are heartless. I am sure many care. Some, perhaps, a great deal. Perhaps they are caught up in careers they cannot see past. But when CEOs must constantly turn a profit or be sued by shareholders, the economic system is structured to actually prevent people from caring too much.

No law of physics requires exponential economic growth. We humans are free to organize our societies and meet our needs in other ways. Indeed, most human societies over the course of human existence were not organized around exponential growth. — Peter Kalmus

We cannot continue in this current system. This is not a “political ideology.” This is simply the truth.

We can now choose God/Goddess/Life/Earth or Mammon. This choice was laid out clearly over two thousand years ago.

If we do not intentionally, with prescience and according to the science, rapidly change the current system, it will collapse under its own weight due to the chaos of climate change and mass extinction of species; and we will be left in the rubble and terror of no system at all — on a planet increasingly hostile to human society and survival.

If we do not intentionally and with prescience rapidly change the current system, it will collapse under its own weight due to the chaos of climate change and mass extinction of species; and we will be left in the rubble and terror of no system at all — on planet increasingly hostile to human society and survival.

The most vulnerable — the poor, those in the global South, children and the elderly or those with medical needs — will be the first to suffer.

Bruno LaTour, in his recent, short political book, Down to Earth: The New Climatic Regime, spoke in his unique and interesting style of a “third attractor,” beyond the neoliberal, endless-growth, techo-globalist agenda; and also beyond the fear-based, xenophobic anger and repression of white supremacist, fundamental-religious or ethno-nationalist movements. This attractor was Earth herself, the territories we belong to, our here-ness — our lands, our children, our communities, our food, our farms, our wild spaces, our local economies.

Perhaps our shared love of all this can bring us together to act. At any rate, we will need to focus on these if we are to survive what is coming without some miraculous turnaround.

If we can come together — and, frankly, even if we cannot — it behooves those of us alert to the climate and ecological crises to engage politically on some level. We need proper preparation, sanity, educated officials and compassionate distribution of resources in and by our governments as the crisis becomes worse.

Even just educating and waking others up is important. The Tamarack Fire in the distance, behind the mountains as I hiked the PCT, was mostly invisible to me. I could carry on hiking as though it did not exist, although it raged just a few miles away. This is the conundrum of climate change. If we cannot see it right in front of us, we tend to ignore it. Even as we hear reports of catastrophe from elsewhere around the world.

Whether our actions are calls to our electeds, or pressuring mainstream meteorologists and the media to do better, or marches, or mass civil disobedience in the style of Extinction Rebellion, the Sunrise Movement or Fridays for Future … or whether that is lobbying on behalf of Citizens Climate Lobby, or promoting Regenerative Agriculture and reforestation — if we each can look, clear eyed, at the science, settle our minds and see what makes sense and feels good for each of us to do; finding our courage, our boldness or retreating, when it is necessary … well, I believe this is our only hope for the best possible outcome now.

Goddess bless.

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As a mother, and a sister to all of you in the human family, as one member of one species on this magnificent planet we call Mother Earth, I thank you deeply for taking the time to read this essay.

As always, I encourage corrections and additions (from reputable sources only) in Comments. And I would love to hear your response to this essay below.

If you would like to support my work, and feel inspired, follow me here and “clap” for this article. You can also subscribe to my YouTube channel at “Heart of America,” below.

Ami Chen Mills-Naim is a three-time author, former, award-winning investigative journalist, a poet and current radio show and YouTube host; as well as an ongoing coach, trainer and speaker in a simple, innate-resilience and “spirit” based psychology called the “Three Principles,” founded by Sydney Banks.

She is also a co-founder of her local Extinction Rebellion (XR) chapter, a former member of the international XR Global Support Regenerative Cultures Working Group, a member and former lobbyist for Citizens Climate Lobby, and an organizer of local climate strikes and marches in September of 2019. She has also helped organize protests against Chase Bank’s funding of fossil fuels, and against pipelines through native territories in Canada and the US. Find her work at www.AmiChen.com.

RESOURCES:

“Heart of America” video on “What to Do About the Climate Crisis” … a companion to this essay. Please like, comment and share.

Citizens Climate Lobby (US and some other countries)

Treaty People Gathering and Stop Line 3

Winona LaDuke and White Earth Land Recovery Project

Extinction Rebellion (Search also by location)

Soil Health Institute, toward large scale, Regenerative Agriculture in the US and soil science support for the world

“Kiss the Ground” documentary (below)

See full film on Netflix … Or try here for free

Please see Ami’s other Medium essays on spirituality, climate and US politics

For all of Ami’s work, including past and new radio programs at KSQD (KSQD.org): See her website at www.AmiChen.com

Important Books and Papers

This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. The Climate, Naomi Klein

“Deep Adaptation,” academic paper on the state of the climate crisis and what we face, Jem Bendell, University of Cumbria

Climate: A New Story, Charles Eisenstein

“The Corporate Problem,” Natural Resources Defense Council

Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants by Robin Wall Kimmerer

Project Drawdown, including the book by Paul Hawken

Chase Bank (J.P. Morgan Chase) “special report” on the climate crisis, projecting the collapse of human civilization: “Risky Business: the climate and the macroeconomy”)

Other

Please see the very important film and consider organizing a watch party for: The Condor and Eagle about native and POC movements to protect Earth and water for all

The “Deep Adaptation” Professional Forum, established by Jem Bendell of the University of Cumbria, and run primarily by volunteers, is an attempt to bring together the best thinking around the probablity of gobal collapse, as well as practical, philosophical and spiritual resources offered by many experts to address such. There is also a very active Facebook group at: https://www.facebook.com/groups/deepadaptation

Books and videos by Greta Thunberg, Roger Hallam and Gail Bradbrook

“Awake: A Dream From Standing Rock,” documentary about the indigenous resistance to oil pipelines at Standing Rock, North Dakota

“A Different American Dream,” about oil and fracking wells on native land in the Dakotas.

Spiritual Ecology: The Cry of the Earth, edited by Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee

Please share your suggestions in Comments, below.