Environmental issues have never been my number one political issue, not because I think they’re unimportant, but because my interests simply don’t run in that direction. And yet I signed on to write a diary in support of the Climate March (April 29th everyone!).
For someone like me, whose involvement in science has been heavy on the social (and public health) and somewhat light on most other types, who can read long essays on the political maneuvering by Evil Bannon and Questionable Kushner, on the Russia-Trump connection and the Russian hacking of our election, whose list of bookmarks under the “Political” heading are way too long to fit on my (large) computer monitor, who can even be fascinated by the weird (to me) alliances in the UK over Brexit, (Scotland and Northern Ireland against, England and Wales for, how about the Inner and Outer Hebrides, huh?), what am I supposed to say about environmental issues?
What am I supposed to write about when I had trouble just getting through a short biographical internet piece on Rachel Carson?
And that’s what I initially thought I’d do – I’d write about Rachel Carson. After all her home is only 15 minutes from mine, here in my unincorporated hometown of Silver Spring, Maryland.
So I did some googling about her, looking for that elusive connection and found this:
She was accused of being a communist sympathizer and dismissed as a spinster with an affinity for cats
Well my father was accused of being an actual communist, so we have some connection there. But I have a husband and kids and not a single cat (though I have a great affinity for dogs).
So okay, I have to face it. The environment will never be my number one interest.
I just won’t be doing the reading and research I do as a matter of course for my interests: women’s rights, institutional and embedded racism, the targeting of immigrants by ICE, universal health coverage, the welfare of children, restructuring our economic system to make it more fair and equitable, and how to set up and weave on an 8-shaft countermarch loom.
But that doesn’t mean that the environmental issues don’t reach inside me in their own particular way. In the context of all politics are local, my own connection to climate change is, like Rachel Carson’s home, right here in Silver Spring, Maryland, in Rock Creek Park, about 100 steps away from my house. From my windows I watch this beautiful wooded park change seasons -- from golden fall (mostly golden in our area, but with a few reds), black & white winter with the barren branches of the trees creating fascinating shapes and silhouettes and the gift of an occasional snow blanketing everything in white silence (no snow this last winter, warmest winter in recorded history), then spring that starts with a rapidly spreading mist of the lightest green, and the full flowering of summer led by the delicate blossoms of our native dogwood trees and the bright and brassy azaleas that even a non-gardener like me has in her yard. I may not be Ms Nature, but I appreciate the beauty of my wooded surroundings and the thought of the increasing damage to this wonderful part of my life and my children’s lives is unbearable.
And in my head and in my heart I know the issues of such great interest to me, the reports and opinions I so eagerly read, I know that even though all of them are terribly important, they are second in urgency to protecting our earth from human destruction. It’s basic logic – if the earth becomes less and less habitable, none of my concerns about various human rights or economic conditions will matter because the great mass of humanity will suffer. The poor and the oppressed will suffer the most (already are). The rich will be okay for a while (aren’t they always?), but even they will suffer in the end.
So I’m here pressing for all of us put environmental issues at the top of our list of need for political action, even if you, like me, can’t read more than a very brief article on the topic without falling asleep.
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Support the Daily Kos SciCli blogathon during the April 22-28 week of action promoting the April 29 People’s Climate March with stories on how science and climate change are affecting our lives and our planet.
For background on the SciCli Blogathon and the Week of action visit boatsie’s diary from 4/17, Besame’s from 4/20, and onomastic’s from 4/21.
Sign up for the Washington, D.C. march or find a march near you.
If you’d like to march with other readers of Daily Kos, visit Connect! Unite! Act! (7:30 AM Pacific) for march locations. Send navajo a Kos mail or leave a message in the comments.
On April 29, let’s march for jobs, justice, and the climate
- Saturday, April 22 all times are PDT
2:30 pm: Cracks in Greenland ice-sheet may link up and break off DarkSyde
5:00 pm: Peoples Climate March just one piece of the resistance against lethal eco-policies. Meteor Blades
9:00 am: People's Climate March next Saturday. Run on Sunday. RLMiller
2:30 pm: SciCli Blogathon: "I can't believe we're marching for facts" Edition (#ScienceMarchSF Photo Essay) citisven
5:00 pm: Climate change: Be Positive. It’s Important. John Crapper
2:30 pm: I Resist in Miami Because We Provide the 1st Glimpse Into Future Climate Mayhem Pakalolo
5:00 pm: Resist,Rebel, and Revolt for Earth, Wind, Water: Climate March on Sat., 4/29 2thanks
10:45 am: Toosdai Critters Speak Out Samanthab
5:00 pm: Had We But World Enough And Time . . . Besame
2:30 pm: Climate Change is Making the World Friendlier for Mosquitoes, Diseases, and Death Dartagnan
5:00 pm: There Is No Safe Place (not even Michigan) peregrine kate
2:30 pm: As of today, we’ve got a number to march for: 100% Renewable Energy Bill McKibben
5:00 pm: WarrenS Man With Sign — 85 Weeks on the Edge
2:30 pm: Tamar
5:00 pm: annieli
Climate Hawks Vote is hosting a training for leaders of the climate movement who are considering running for office on April 30, the day after the People’s Climate March. Read more about the training at People's Climate March next Saturday. Run on Sunday.