I stood with my grandson in awe. We were among the “Patriarchs,” towering, ancient western hemlocks, Douglas firs and western red cedars in an old growth grove in Rainier National Park. Some trees were over a thousand years old.
Days later I stood in the Salt Lake Valley surrounded by thousands of residents. Together we breathed in the remains of once vast California forests, inhaling some of the worst air on the planet.
As the smoky white out conditions totally erased the nearby Oquirrh Mountains, this was only one of several reminders nature has recently given us that radical climate change is underway in Utah. Wilting crops, fallow fields, shrinking rangeland and drying reservoirs are others. Regionally, we need only recall the last week of June when temperatures in the Pacific Northwest were 30 degrees higher than normal and we had an estimated 600 extreme heat related deaths.
Michael E. Mann, a lead author of the UN’s 2001 report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) recently stated that, “We have zero years left to avoid dangerous climate change, because it’s here.”
We are now living the new “normal” — year-round forest fires, droughts, floods, rising sea levels and climate induced famines; yet still we go on consuming oil and burning coal. So many of us yearn for promised change: Clean, affordable, renewable energy and better waste processing. They’re always on the horizon, just out of reach. What’s wrong? For the titans of fossil fuel industries it’s business-as-usual when there’s money to be made. They call the shots.
As I looked at the wall of white that had replaced the mountains, my thoughts turned to Chris Hedges, journalist, political commentator and educator. In a recent interview posted on YouTube, Hedges described the United States a one party republic where Democrats and Republicans are simply two wings of the American “Business Party.”
The Business Party is a loose club of elites and their lobbying proxies who have a shared interest in undermining true democracy for personal gain. The pressure of fossil fuel lobbyists and campaign dollars cause many lawmakers to be reluctant to pass significant legislation on climate change. Fossil fuel industry leaders also invest large sums of money to buy the voices of talking heads who muddy the findings of climate scientists with misinformation in an attempt to disengage the American public from doing anything meaningful about climate change. It seems that America’s elite would have us act out our frustrations politically on each other rather than see us unite to force industries to rapidly shift to renewable energy sources.
Self-interested, political and business leaders lack the courage and compassion to make the radical changes necessary avert a total climate meltdown. Like gambling addicts who want to maximize their winnings, the elite will not abandon their exploitation of environments and people until the house (the overheating planet) shuts down the game. None of them wants to be the first to walk away from potential profits. For them it will never be over until it’s truly over.
Hedges stated that one of the few things that the business elite fear is massive, widespread, peaceful protest. We can force business leaders and the investment class to help us slow global warming and assist its victims by organizing well orchestrated protests on a national and worldwide scale to promote democratic reforms and introduce aggressive policies to radically reduce greenhouse gas emissions and environmental destruction.
Protest can take many forms other than street demonstrations. CNN quotes Maria Lopez-Nuñez, deputy director of the Ironbound Community Corporation, a New Jersey-based nonprofit that focuses on climate and environmental justice, saying that you want to take meaningful action on the climate crisis, do some homework on the groups active in your area.
“Find frontline organizations that are in [your] neighborhood, not just the big organizations,” Lopez-Nuñez said. “Go find the people that know the issues of your neighborhood, of your cities, of your state.’”
The alternative is to go along with the present program of destruction until the world ends in flames. If this sounds too depressingly apocalyptic, step outside and take a breath of smoke from the latest forest fire. We may “have zero years left to avoid dangerous climate change,” but we can join others now in saving our planet from the worst of climate change.
Eric Hubner
Eric Hubner, Volcano, Hawai’i, received both bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Brigham Young University, as well as a master of social work degree from the State University of New York. He is a retired mental health therapist and school social worker, who also worked in the addiction field and coordinated services for families at risk of child abuse and neglect.
