Fire and Rain: Reflections on a Warming World

Last weekend, I was going to write something about rain. On Saturday night and early Sunday morning, we had some rain here in the Bay Area. What began as a reflection about rain's significance in a time of drought became a much wider inquiry into climate change, the future of humanity and the planet, and our role in the current crises we face.

I like to think of myself as someone who works on the land. I coordinate a school garden program and grow food with inquisitive, sometimes exhausting but ultimately inspiring elementary age kids. I've been doing this work for over four years, and since then, I've become more and more in tune with the workings of nature. Farmers, many have written, are on the front lines of climate change. Across the world, those of us who grow food from the land are facing changing weather patterns which is making agriculture more difficult. Unlike most farmers, I don't rely on what I grow either for sustenance, like the campesinos I had the privilege to study with in Nicaragua, or for income like the farmers I know here in the United States. They are the first to feel directly the impacts of climate change, especially the millions of subsistence farmers in the Global South whose ability to feed their families and produce a little extra for income remains tenuously tied to the vagaries of climate. Those of us whose incomes come from grants, or who sit in offices, are not immune, either, though we may feel removed and therefore less aware of the problem. We all must eat. The increasing prevalence of drought and flooding is putting our food security at risk, and this is a direct result of climate change. The facts, at this point, are indisputable.

Last night at a dinner party, I found myself staring for a moment, mesmorized with the burning coals in a barbeque pit. I have always loved fire: on camping trips as a youngster, I used to put sticks into the heart of the flames, then pull them out and wave them around--a sure way to raise any parent's blood pressure. Our love of fire is one of the things that makes us human. Humankind's use of fire as a tool is one of the most important features that distinguishes us humans from the rest of the animal kingdom and has allowed us to create technologically sophisticated civilizations. We have become very good at making fires. Power plants burn coal and natural gas to produce electricity, and cars combust gasoline to drive engines. But burning things releases carbon dioxide, and our myriad ways of combusting things is raising atmospheric CO2 concentrations to alarming levels. At the current rate, we will essentially set the world on fire by the end of this century. Many of the experts agree that large swaths of the planet will dry out, turning former forests into tinder. Last summer, I remember waking up to the smell of smoke coming in from outside the house. I assumed that something in the neighborhood had was ablaze, but it was smoke from the large fires that eventually scorched thousands of acres in Big Sur, the Santa Cruz Mountains, and Mendocino County. All but the most hardened pyromaniac should be alarmed at the prospect of such large blazes which I fear are a harbinger of what's to come in the next century if we are unable to come to terms with our love of fossil fuel combustion.

The situation is clear, and somewhat dire. We must change our carbon-releasing ways if we wish to have a planet humans can continue to live on. The effects of climate change are accelerating and the time to act is now. I take hope in our new president, Barack Obama, who seems to understand the grave threat that climate change poses to humanity. I think it is possible for us to have an energy revolution that frees us from the bondage of a carbon economy. This must happen soon. But we--especially us Americans--must acknowledge that we're a major cause of climate change. America is no longer the world's largest CO2 emitter--China now holds that dubious distinction. Per capita, the Chinese release one fourth of the carbon of the average American. Furthermore, the Chinese and the Indians are attempting to industrialize and lift millions out of poverty. It is a bit hypocritical for us to tell them to cut back while us Americans continue to burn so much carbon. Our greatest shame as Americans--and I most certainly include myself in this group--is that we consume too much and feel entitled to that, that it is somehow our right to drive a humvee, live in a house with a five car garage, eat steak every night and take a plane flight to a tropical land (yes, I am guilty of this one especially). Can Americans really admit to and begin to curb our outrageous consumption? Will we ever be able to understand how arrogant and misguided it is for us to use so many resources while millions in the Global South (and here in the US) live in poverty? I have hope, but I am also not deluded with the belief in happy endings that so many of my fellow Americans hold, that somehow, 'everything will work out fine' and we can just keep on doing what we've done over the past fourty years.

Many thinkers and commentators--especially Thomas Friedman, who has written some excellent articles on the subject--have reflected on the connection between the current recession and the reality of climate change. I want to explore the connection between these crises as well, especially in light of recent comments by Brazil's leftist President, Luiz Ignacio Lula de Silva. Lula de Silva blamed the current banking crisis on 'white skinned, blue eyed people' who run the financial system. He is basically right. The financial world may be a bit more colorful, racially speaking, than it was 20 years ago, but it is an anglo institution and a descendant, I believe, of 500 years of white racist imperialism. Lula stated as well that it was not 'blacks or indigenous people' that created this problem, and he is right. The current recession is a crisis of the neoliberal project which has pushed blind faith in unfettered free markets above all else. Like all models that attempt to explain the complex world of humans and perscribe a system we must live under, neoliberalsm has failed in many important aspects. Housing, agriculture and the enviroment are three striking examples. Unfortunately, it is predominately people of color, women, indigenous people and the poor who are suffering most from the ravages of the neoliberal system, throughout the world and in the U.S. I spent a few hours yesterday doing outreach to families in foreclosure in a predominately Black and Brown neighborhood in East Oakland. It is communities such of these whom banks took advantage of and who have been hit hardest by the housing crisis. Lula's comments could have easily have applied to the climate change crisis, for which neoliberalism is in part responsible. Like the current economic crisis, climate change's first victims are not the ones who are primarily responsible for causing the problem. Bangladesh, a populous, low-lying nation that has one of the lowest per capita carbon emissions in the world is not the source of the rising sea levels and increasingly vicious cyclones which are wreaking havoc across much of that country. It is people like me--white skinned people--who are responsible for causing this problem which brown people in South Asia and Black folks in New Orleans are now having to deal with. We as white folks especially must face up to the racial dimension of this injustice, as well as our own hypocrisy.

It is easy to become despondant in the face of the magnitude of global climate change. I myself have come a bit late into this game; many intelligent thinkers and activists of all shades have been working on solutions and have been campaiging ceaselessly about this issue for many years. I have been aware of the problem for years but somehow have not totally come to terms with the actually reality and immediacy of a warming planet. Climate change always seemed either too late to solve, or somehow too distant in the future to really take seriously. As a consequence of this denial, I continue to live in many unsustainable ways. I travel, often by plane, and I am not looking for someone to say 'oh, it's OK'. I am not looking for sympathy or someone to make me feel better about all this. I am a sinner: an overconsumer who has taken many privelges for granted over the years, who is coming to terms with the realities in the world around me, who is making a confession and who is looking for redemption. I don't want to be ignorant of either the magnitude or the complexity of climate change and issues of poverty and race.

I am thinking of ways to move forward. I believe that our overconsumption, our drive to ever-insulate ourselves and our lives lived in fear are not healthy for ourselves or for our planet. We have a chance to re-make ourselves and the world we live in at a variety of levels. I am going to eat lower on the food change, local, vegetarian and vegan as much as possible. I am going to drive less and bike more (I must admit, the coming of Spring to the Bay Area makes this a much easier prospect) and I am considering giving up a car all together. I have some plane trips already booked and paid for, but in the future, I will travel by train, bike and carpool when I go long distances to visit family and friends. I will continue to explore the priviledges I carry with me and how they relate to climate change and inequality. I will find ways to take meaningul action that address the root causes of these problems. I will savor the beauty of the world around me, especially that which is close to home, and the moments spent in the company of people I care about.

Thanks to anyone who has read all this, please leave your comments.