Cross-posted from Grist.
As an activist who has been arrested for civil disobedience, organized national climate mobilizations, protested outside of coal plants and worked for Greenpeace, I am calling on my friends and colleagues to fight for the Kerry-Boxer “Clean Energy Jobs Act” and a strong global treaty in Copenhagen. On Monday Senator Barbara Boxer and Energy Secretary Steven Chu said there is a chance of passing a climate bill in Congress before the international talks in Copenhagen this December. Many of us have spent the better part of a decade preparing for this moment. While supporters of the Kerry-Boxer legislation fend off well-financed attacks by the fossil fuel industry, they simultaneously face opposition from progressive voices within the climate movement.
It’s time for radicals and moderates to come together around what are for. Being right isn’t enough. Each of us must be loud and strong and boisterous in defense of our cause. Oppose offsets and giveaways to the fossil fuel industry. But let us fight hardest for what we believe in – a strong climate bill and a stronger global treaty – than what we fear.
In November 2000 I had the privilege to be one of 200 young people from the U.S. and Africa invited by Greenpeace to lobby delegates at the UN Climate Negotiations in The Hague, Netherlands. We stood below a stage listening to four middle-aged Inuit women, who had traveled outside of their homeland for the first time. They were coming from Alaska, a place where winter temperatures had increased 6 degrees since 1950. Fighting back tears we listened as the women told us of men falling through melting ice while traversing age-old caribou hunting routes. They spoke of dwindling food supplies from altered seasons and seeing mosquitoes in a region that had never known such things. They felt the climate crisis first-hand and were reaching out to us in partnership.
Instead of leaving us in fear, the women joined together in a traditional dance. At that moment we knew what we were fighting for: a strong global climate treaty – to preserve hope, love, community, tradition. The lesson for me: in a crisis, fight hardest for what you believe in, not what you fear. While we should never be afraid to oppose weaknesses and flaws in a policy, they should not rule our agenda or define our movement.
