Guest Post: "A Short Rant about LOVE, and the CLIMATE"

When I read Antonia Paquin's "short rant" this morning, I asked her right away if I could post it here for you. Antonia is a young friend nearby who gives her life's energy to ensuring a future for us all. Much love to you, Antonia, with thanks for sharing this with my readers!

Antonia Paquin, in Victoria (with thanks to Creatively United)

A Short Rant about LOVE, and the CLIMATE

Sometimes I find myself disconnecting from the word "climate," because it seems obscure and somewhat nebulous unless you're a scientist who studies this stuff.

I've found the following to be helpful in bringing "climate" into my immediate experience:

• Notice the breath you just took ... now the one you are about to take. You are taking climate into your body.
• Look outside, look around you, really LOOK, noticing the trees, the sky, the soil. You are looking at the climate.
• Feel your heartbeat ... touch your fingers to your wrist, or neck to feel your pulse, or just feel your body moving ever-so-slightly by your heart beating. You are a living creature, interacting with your surroundings. We are also climate.

Remember the Earth is extremely resilient. She knows how to heal herself. Humans are also resilient. We can adapt to change. Though the world feels grim right now, especially with this messy [Canadian federal] election, we are inevitably forced to call into question the major systemic failings that have led us to where we are, which is a good thing!

We are being collectively called to question the ideologies, and the political and economic systems that led us into this mess, the colonial way: "Dominate people, dominate land, YOU SHALL HAVE NO HEART."

This is the movement to end all movements.

We are now being called to decolonize the crap out of ourselves and remember who the hell we are as humans.

Could it be that humans aren't somehow above the natural world?

Could it be that we don't have the right to pillage and rape the Earth?

Could it be that humans are actually inextricably ~connected~ to the Earth?? WOW! You don't say?

David Suzuki, our beloved national man of science, is preaching this message loud and clear. Time to wake up and smell the soil, friends!

Here's how we "fix the climate":

• Tune into what Indigenous land defenders and water protectors have been saying for hundreds of years. Support these movements with your money, time, energy. Uplift voices of black and indigenous folks, people of colour.
• Breathe deep, ground yourself in gentleness and self-compassion so that you feel safe. Then take time to call into question your own belief systems, assumptions, attitudes. We can all do this together.
• Have "adventure conversations" with others. Bring up things like climate, the human condition, hope, guilt, fear, grief, love.
• Vulnerability is powerful. Connect deeply with your fellow humans, know that they probably have similar fears and doubts that you have, and when we share ... it can be so healing.
• Cry and cry and cry, then laugh. It's okay to feel like a mess. [This is my favourite line! JJ]
• Spend time in nature, FOREST BATHING, to remember that Earth is magical and resilient. Every single cell in your body is made of the Earth. The trees and rocks and rivers are your kin. 
• In so many ways you are also magical and resilient. Often our minds forget this, but somehow our hearts can never fully forget this. 

Okay, my rant is over. 

Thank you. I love you. 

*****

And our thanks and love to YOU, Antonia, for these wonderful calls to reconnect ourselves with our first mother.

David Buckel Memorial Day of Mourning for the Climate Crisis

from a 2017 photo of David Buckel by Terry Kaelber

Today, my beloved and his co-author, Elizabeth, spoke at the local Unitarian Church about their book, Unprecedented Crime: Climate Science Denial and Game Changers for Survival. Afterwards, we participated in a webinar with The Climate Mobilization entitled Meditation for Climate Emergency—Grieving the Future You Thought You Had. It was only after the webinar that I realized we hadn't said a prayer for David Buckel, who died one year ago today.

I wasn't blogging much at this time last year. My depression had kicked in, and I remember that I was gardening every chance I got in order to ground my grief and anger about the climate change emergency. If I had been blogging, I would have told you about David Buckel. 

David S. Buckel was a leading LGBTQ+ lawyer in New York City. Then he became interested in environmental issues. He died in Prospect Park (the scene of a huge Extinction Rebellion event today called Extinction Mass: Remembrance for Lost Species) early in the morning after setting himself on fire. The email he left behind read:

“Pollution ravages our planet, oozing inhabitability via air, soil, water and weather. Most humans on the planet now breathe air made unhealthy by fossil fuels, and many die early deaths as a result — my early death by fossil fuel reflects what we are doing to ourselves.”

Comparing his death to the self-immolation of Tibetan monks protesting oppression by the Chinese government, he continued:

“This is not new. Many have chosen to give a life based on the view that no other action can most meaningfully address the harm they see. Here is a hope that giving a life might bring some attention to the need for expanded actions, and help others give a voice to our home, and Earth is heard. I hope it is an honorable death that might serve others.”

May David Buckel's suicide inspire courage in the rest of us — the courage to be of service in all the different ways that can fight the climate crisis. (I'll leave you with a list below.)

WHAT YOU CAN DO NOW

• Don't fear sacrifice. Grieve what has to be given up ... and then get busy being a climate change activist.
• Become politically active. Create political will by writing, emailing, faxing, phoning or visiting your elected officials — at all levels. Ask them (if they haven't already) to declare the climate change emergency. And then ask them what climate action they're supporting. Don't vote for anyone who isn't putting climate action first.
• The most important demand to make of our government leaders? They must stop subsidizing fossil fuel industries around the world to the tune of $5+ trillion every year (according to the IMF) in direct and especially indirect subsidies. Make the polluters pay the costs of the social (health) and environmental damage they create. The moment these subsidies stop, that (in)famous “invisible hand” of the market will swing investments over into clean, renewable, everlasting energy technologies.

And don't forget to, you know, conserve water (a huge percentage of a city's energy usage is for pumping domestic water!), drive less, and eat lower on the food chain if you're not already vegan.

UPDATE: Here's a recent article about David Buckel in The Guardian. (Warning: graphic content.)

*** I want to add a note about Wynne Bruce, an American climate activist who set himself on fire in the plaza of the US Supreme Court Building in Washington, DC on Earth Day, 22 April 22. The fatal self-immolation was characterized by Bruce's friends and his father as a protest against the climate crisis. My heart goes out to those who lost such a deeply caring loved one. I cannot fathom the courage that his act of protest took.

We are the "Architects of the Future"

Buckminster Fuller (1895-1983) was an architect, writer, systems theorist, designer, inventor and futurist. He once said, “We are called to be architects of the future, not its victims.”

People, at least in my circles, seem to be finally talking about the climate crisis. But there still aren't many who are actually taking some action — action that will create the future. 

So, in the interests of the new year, and new year's resolutions, here is a short list of actions that you can take to do your part in 2019 to help safeguard the future.

1. Create Political Will

• write a letter 
• sign a petition
• send an email or a fax
• make a phone call
• visit your elected officials, at all levels, and ask them what they're doing about climate change
• vote in the candidates who understand climate change and who include viable climate change solutions in their campaign
• talk to others about how they can create political will

2.  Make the Following Demands of Your Elected Officials

• declare the climate change emergency (if London, England can do it, then your municipality can, too)
• end fossil fuel subsidies

3. Meet with Like-Minded and Like-Hearted Members of Your Community

• it's important (for our mental health) that we learn to mourn and lament all the sadness and "climate grief" surrounding this greatest crime ever against humanity
• cry, laugh, and come up with solutions for local resilience together over tea
• support a local coffee shop or library as a meeting place

4.  Set an Example for Others

• choose a plant-based (lower greenhouse gas-emitting) diet; go vegan (and share vegan foods with your friends and family)
• grow some of your own food using no-till, no synthetic chemical methods
• be an early adopter of new (lower/zero carbon) technologies, if possible (and if not, learn about them so you can promote them in your community)
• be seen with your low/zero-carbon technologies (renewable energy, transportation ... like walking!)

5. Seek Out Courageous and Compassionate Ways to Make the Conversion to Zero Carbon

• there are so many possible (viable) solutions to the climate crisis — and we need them all ("clean coal" is not viable)
• spend some time to do some research; become passionate about some of the solutions
• do this for all the children, of all species
• ignore the deniers — or, if you've done enough research, stand up to them (but, be forewarned, it's time-consuming)

After all, as Peter Drucker says, "The best way to predict the future is to create it." And it's our future to create.

 Plant something in 2019!