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BUGGING OUT AND STEPPING UP
Submitted by KAT on Fri, 11/02/2007 - 3:44pm.
We’re enjoying an extended growing season here in the Northeast—well, some of us are, anyway. Our farmers are happy to be harvesting tomatoes and peppers this late in the year, but there’s something a bit freakish about the zinnias and nasturtiums blooming away blithely in my own front yard.
This October was the warmest in the Northeast on record, and while that scares some of us, others prefer to focus on the upside of rising temperatures. As White House press secretary Dana “Pollyanna” Perino noted in a press conference last week:
There are public health benefits to climate change, as well…many people die from cold-related deaths every winter. And there are studies that say that climate change in certain areas of the world would help those individuals.
Yeah, and it’s helping the caterpillars who’ve been chowing down on my greens, and the mosquitos, and the grubs that are hatching in my soil, promising a second generation of god-knows-what kind of pesky beetle or borer. Our whole eco system is out of whack.
If you have any connection to the natural world at all, you can see the havoc that climate change is already wreaking. But hand wringing and finger pointing will not move the beltway bureaucrats who’ve dug in their heels to deny the mounting evidence--melting ice caps, shrinking lakes, parched soil, burning brush.
So it’s the perfect time for Step it Up, the sequel—Saturday, November 3rd (tomorrow!) Communities all over the country will be rallying to demand action on climate change. Please, please stand up and be counted. As Majora Carter, Executive Director of Sustainable South Bronx, told Daily Kos diarist Watthead, just showing up is “more than half the battle - there is no battle unless we show our numbers and push.”
Carter, also an advisor to eco-activist Van Jones’ terrific Green For All project, is speaking this weekend at Power Shift 2007, “the first national youth summit to solve the climate crisis.”
Power Shift’s goal is to bring together 5,500 young people dedicated to fighting global warming together to descend on DC for a rally in conjunction with Step it Up, followed by a “weekend of training, action, and movement-building in College Park, Maryland.”
Carter told my fellow Kossack Watthead:
This nation's hyper consumption comes at the cost of many people's dignity, health and quality of life. As a creative culture, we can find ways to satisfy our needs and avoid those transgressions. Will it mean some sacrifice during the transition? Yes. But think of what the WW II generation endured here in America. Now think of what they endured in Europe at that time. Fighting Nazis wasn't easy; fighting your planet is simply not possible.
When I think of the youth coming to Power Shift, I hope that they will be the next "greatest generation" and pick up where their parents have failed.
I’m hopeful, too. That’s why I’ll be at the Step It Up rally at Washington Square tomorrow at noon instead of puttering in my garden and grumbling about the grubs. How can you say no to Bill McKibben?
I think a lot of the sacrifices the WWII generation but then I also start thinking about the damage the WWII generation has wrought on the planet. The after-effects of the WWII US war machine have left us in a precarious position. So yahoo for the WWII generation and their sacrifices...but they've also sacrificed the planet and everything on it unless we can clean up their mess.
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