8 or 9 years ago, before I had much of a political consciousness, I somehow became aware that the Earth was getting warmer. Due to humans burning fossil fuels and the level of CO2 ratcheting up in the atmosphere, we had created an environmental crisis that risked spiraling out of control. Despite not having the political or historical context to understand how something like climate change could become a reality, I realized that this was a crucial problem. I suddenly experienced an urgency that is easy to lose later in life. On some level, I knew that the climate crisis would define my life and the lives of my generation (along with others). Since, the magnitude of the crisis has only grown.
All politics is moral, or at least ethical, but it takes problems of great scale for that to register. Rev. Jacqui Lewis of the Middle Collegiate Church in New York City recently began a petition through the faith-driven platform Groundswell urging President Donald Trump, Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell, and House speaker Paul Ryan to act on climate change. The petition is titled, “In the case of historic hurricanes, love demands a reckoning with their true cause: climate change,” and Lewis takes the emergency response after 9/11 as an example of how we should respond in times of crisis:
If there’s anything September 11th, 2001 taught us, it’s that we should not give in to fear or succumb to terror. Instead in cases of emergency, we turn to our greatest strength: love. As this 9/11 anniversary is marked by the emergencies that are these hurricanes, we are called collectively to a greater love than many of us have ever known.
Around the world, there are climate and community activists reaching deep into their hearts and drawing on the powerful source of revolutionary love. Climate leaders now include the heads of major faiths, such as Pope Francis and the Dalai Lama. And yet entrenched economic interests have slowed urgent climate action to a crawl. Political figures, such as Trump, McConnell, and Ryan still minimize this crisis or deny that humans have caused climate change at all. Extreme weather puts the lie to this denial‑–hurricanes Harvey and Irma are only the latest domestic examples of disasters likely exacerbated by climate change. Globally, from flooding to drought, the cost of climate change is measured in human lives and the devastation of natural ecosystems. That’s happening right now. In addition, because of the nature of climate tipping points, action or inaction on climate change in the present will determine whether there will still be a hospitable planet to live on in the future.
Whether we will collectively meet this challenge depends on the efforts of those reaching into the activist toolbox and holding economic and political leaders to account. Rev. Lewis’ petition continues with a call to action:
We need leadership. You and I need to lead! We need a revolution, a love revolution. In cases of emergency, we know how to pull together. We rescue each other from burning buildings and from rising waters. We pull down moldy plaster and rebuild. We board up windows together, or fly each other out of danger. We open our doors and our hearts.
We stand up, we march, we sit in, we die in. We change the law. We change the tide. We make it better. We take care of each other. We have each other’s backs. Why? Because we are one human family, inextricably connected to each other. We need each other to live! We remember the emergency of 9/11. We helped each other on that terrible day. In this time of emergency, we must begin a love revolution, one that takes seriously climate change.
You can read the full petition text and sign on here.
The Politics Column 