A Call to Action
I am sure by now we have all heard of the wildfires that ravaged the Smoky
Mountains. Well, Sevier county is my hometown; I lived and worked in the
Gatlinburg / Pigeon Forge area my entire life until I moved here to
Murfreesboro for school. Recently, particularly during the previous election, I
had the misfortune of seeing many political posts on my social media feed (that
is, whenever I dared to peer into that void in the first place…). And when I
would, I would see a surprising number of people posting about climate change, which
should be a good thing, right? Unfortunately, the vast majority of these posts
were either complete climate-denial or some flavor of the stance “I mean, I
guess climate change is important, but I would rather our president focus more
on what’s important to me, which are jobs and tax cuts.” So, if you are looking
for a silver lining, I suppose it could be that at least people are talking
about climate change, which is an important step I’ll admit, but this is hardly
constructive. If only they knew just how important the climate truly is to
them, whether they acknowledge it or not.
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| Image by Clay Jones |
And
now, these same people are lamenting the tragic loss of nature, beauty, etc.
from the recent wildfires. How bitter the irony is that it takes their entire
back yard to be engulfed in an inferno before they care about the
environment.
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| Image from www.wdbj7.com |
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| Image from WATE |
Perhaps
this could be a pivotal point of change though. Maybe all of the
Not-In-My-Backyarders will reevaluate their stance. Previously, when
propositioned with having windmills or solar panels erected in their local
area, many of these people claimed they were too ugly, or even just “inconvenient.”
But now that they see one of the potential alternatives may be a hellish
firestorm in their backyard, those windmills and solar panels may not appear so
ugly. Which of these appears to be less convenient?
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| Image from The Atlantic |
However,
if this recent tragedy cannot shake these people from their dogmatic slumber,
what WILL it take? Will the powers that be gently and ever so subtly pull the
wool back over their eyes with their powerful rhetoric, or perhaps by
convincing them that another “problem” in this country, such as immigration, is
the more important task to focus on? Will the entire planet need to be engulfed
in flames before enough of us care to do something about it? And will Trump and
his cronies be the match that will start it all?
I
sure hope not, but I do believe that change is going to be inevitable in a few
short years, and it is up to all of us, not just young people, not just
hyper-rich philanthropists, and not just political leaders, but all denizens of
this planet to come together and ensure that the change we get is one that
truly benefits the Earth, and in turn ourselves.
Our
previous president promised us change, and even though he may not have fought
as hard as some of us may have liked him to in some battles, he is using the
end of his term to help try and bring climate change into the spotlight. Hopefully
it works, even though we only got about five and a half minutes of talk over the course of all three presidential debates this year.
The
issue with promised change like this, is that many people feel as though it
takes responsibility off of their hands to see to it that the changes they want
to see in the world are brought to fruition. This applies to much more than climate
change; it can apply to election reform, tax cuts/increases, and even police
and military reform. When politicians promise to take care of a problem, they
are only going to solve it to the degree that it appeases the greatest amount
of people and does not step on the toes of their financial backers. This is one
of the many reasons that we simply cannot rely on top-down change for any major
revolution or reevaluation of a topic, particularly climate change, because any
change in favor of saving the planet (and thereby ourselves) is doing more than
just stepping on the toes of most of the major financial backers of
politicians, it majorly cuts into their profits, because they profit off of the
destruction of the planet, completely disregarding the death and destruction
that follows close behind them.
With
this in mind, it would appear that that responsibility ultimately lies within
each and every one of us to “be the change you wish to see in the world” –
Mahatma Gandhi. And while the evidence is abundantly clear that climate change
is a problem that each and every one of us will have to face in the coming
future, there are many other important battles to be fought. There are many
underlying problems with society and government that allowed the climate
problem reach the crisis level that it has, so whatever cause it is that you
decide to champion, I implore you to let nothing stand in your way, and “if you’re gonna preach, for God’s sake preach with conviction.” It is important for all of us to keep in
mind that governments, or any other institution, can only have power over us if
we let them, and that history has shown us time and time again, that when a
critical mass of people come together unified by a common, core belief, any
change is possible.
Total Word Count ~1000
Links to the others' posts that I commented on:
It's comparable to material out of a book.. almost poetic right? It takes a beloved city to burn down for people to understand the severity of climate change chain of events. I grew up in Knoxville so Gatlinburg was always that escape city for my friends and family and I know everyone I grew up with was horrified at this but it's like.... hey, this is going to happen at a much larger scale, more prevalent than now, you know? Care about more than just one city, please.
ReplyDelete"The issue with promised change like this, is that many people feel as though it takes responsibility off of their hands to see to it that the changes they want to see in the world are brought to fruition." - exactly so. We really need to break our addiction to electoral politics as our salvation, and commit to becoming the change ourselves. It can happen. Keep hope alive!
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