Prayer
Look at harshness, look at pain, Look at life again.
Look at hungry babies crying,
Listen to the rich men lying,
Look at starving China dying.
Hear the rumble in the East:
" In spite of all,
Life must not cease. "
In India with folded arms,
In China with the guns,
In Africa with bitter smile —
See where the murmur runs:
" Life must not cease,
Because the fat and greedy ones proclaim their thieving peace. "
Their peace far worse than war and death —
For this is better than living breath:
Free! To be Free!
Listen!
Futile beauty-makers —
Work for a while with the pattern-breakers!
Come for a march with the new-world-makers:
Let beauty be!
Knowledge
Last week I talked about a few hopeful advances in technology that will be tools in the toolbox for our future fight against climate change. We need a lot of different tools in the toolbox. There is no single climate change cause. There is no single climate change resolution. There is no single tool that will fix it.
In the action column last week, I asked how we can work better with the “different greens.” Not only is there not one cause of climate change, but there is also no one single approach to fixing it. We need every voice – even the ones that challenge us.
I read of a woman who is working WITH fossil fuel companies in an attempt to make green energy technology profitable for them. This is not an avenue I would take, but it could be a tool for the toolbox.
Recently I became re-acquainted with the Blue Green Alliance. This organization “unites labor unions and environmental organizations to solve today’s environmental challenges in ways that create and maintain quality jobs and build a clean, thriving, and equitable economy.” In the past, labor unions and environmentalists were often adversaries. The Blue Green Alliance is helping these groups identify shared goals and facilitating conversations between groups that otherwise might not have come together.
Consensus building is always a slow process and is made even more difficult by our rather polarized society. But there are those out there who are not letting the size of the challenge stop their attempts. It shouldn’t stop ours either – whether those attempts are small, like personal purchasing decisions, or big, like challenging entire systems. We go forward with the confidence that we are a part of a whole.
Action
Check out Blue Green Alliance. You will find informative articles on how we can build a green future along with a good economy. You will find calls to advocacy there on a regular basis that are well-researched.
Engage with others who are on a different level of understanding than you. We all have things to learn and things to teach.
If you are willing, be that weirdo who challenges others to think about their choices in light of the environment.