It's been a couple of days now - the Pope is in town, and there's a general happy hubbub and feeling of uplift and optimism in the online (and RL) climate change activist communities.
He's speaking truth to power! He seems to have won over 10 members of the GOP caucus! China's gonna do cap and trade! In 2017, but never mind. China's gonna do cap and trade! We are building a movement! We're going to win in Paris this winter! Hurrah! Climate change? What climate change? We've GOT this!
I'd love to be optimistic, I really, really would. My heart keeps fluttering, doing little happy stutter starts (no, not anything medical) of emergent proto joy... and then I wake up and look around at the state of play in American politics, and I grind back down to a place where all I can think is that some day soon - very soon - someone is going to shout "Squirrel!" and the bright new beam of attention currently shining a spotlight on climate change is going to be gone.
More below the fold, if you've come seeking gloomy thoughts. :-)
If we don't jump on this shining moment of hope and momentum, we'll be back to just the few - the bold and loud and dedicated few - yelling and cajoling while Congress sits on its hands and does nothing. While weeks and months go by and all anyone does is talk. While plans for future action get their tires kicked, but precious little more gets done NOW. While regular non-activist people have their heads turned by the next media "Squirrel!" that replaces climate change on the white hot front burner of popular culture.
Yes, I know that good work is being done right now. I know that renewables are getting cheaper by the day - corporations are starting to wake up to the impact of climate change on their bottom lines - movements and activist groups are springing up right and left - but my overwhelming sense is that if we don't jump on this moment, and jump FAST and HARD, the momentum will wind down and our net gain of speed and commitment will have been small.
The world these days moves lightning fast from one hot button topic to the next, discarding and picking up passions like a petulant, easily distracted child picks up and discards toys.
Once the Pope is gone, those dark forces who have been biding their time, nodding in agreement at the adulation being showered on Francis while not attending to a word he says, will continue their deadly, selfish, destroying work, undaunted.
Does anyone think that if Speaker Boehner were to have stayed Speaker, he would have lifted a pinkie finger to put together some emissions legislation? A died in the wool Cafeteria Catholic like Boehner? Nope.
Does anyone imagine that Marco Rubio or Mitch McConnell or Jim Inhofe or any of the corporate toadies and shills in Congress have heard - really HEARD - what the Pope had to say? Does anyone think that the Koch Brothers, Exxon Mobil, BP, Shell, Sheldon Adelson, Donald Trump, Jeb Bush, Marc Morano, the Heritage Foundation, or any of those many powerful interests who stand firm in their denial because of their crapulous cupidity and fealty to the almighty dollar have been moved to admit that climate change is real, and that humans are complicit, and that the way we do business must change now?
I don't.
I also don't think that the majority of Americans who did listen, and are experiencing stirrings of concern about the climate, will stay tuned in. They haven't been educated well enough about the issue yet to understand that when the Pope issues a clarion call for action and change he doesn't mean next week, or next year - he means NOW. And he doesn't mean that we make small, incremental, COMFORTABLE changes. He means - he SAID - that we need a revolution!
At dictionary.reference.com, revolution is defined as:
1. an overthrow or repudiation and the thorough replacement of an established government or political system by the people governed.
2. (in sociology) a radical and pervasive change in society and the social structure, especially one made suddenly and often accompanied by violence. Compare social evolution.
3. a sudden, complete or marked change in something: the present revolution in church architecture.
The Pope wasn't spewing hyperbole. I am convinced he meant what he said. But the average run of American still thinks we can sit back and let others handle climate change. If they "believe" it at all, they still think that we have time for "market forces" and "sensible, pro-business regulation" to save us.
As many regular readers of this diary know, we don't have time. We have to wind down emissions, stop building carbon infrastructure, reorganize our economy for renewables like wind and solar, build and reinforce infrastructure that can withstand what's coming from the greenhouse gases we have already pumped into the atmosphere, ready ourselves for the coming waves of climate migrants, dial back rampant, unsustainable consumption, and more.
Sure, there are great new technologies in the pipeline. But we can't sit back and expect that anything big enough and effective enough will come online in time. We just can't.
And so now is the time to make sure that we keep the boil on. We don't stop talking. We educate until we want to puke. We run the social risk of seeming pushy, and watching eyes glaze over. We don't let the next media cry of "Squirrel!" divert attention from this most urgent, compelling, existential crisis facing humanity.
It's urgent that the majority of Americans wake up from their torpor of indifference, and realize that this will require them to DO SOMETHING. Call their reps in Congress - repeatedly! Join a picket line. Get out and demonstrate. Join a carpool, or take the bus. Plant trees. Elect representatives - and a President - who place climate change at the very top of their agenda!
Hard work? You bet. But we've got a moment to seize, and momentum to give us a push. Carpe diem! We don't have many left!
1:11 PM PT: Drat! Can't add a question to a poll. Mrcynical suggested that there should be an "I don't know" option. And he's right. :-)