Spirituality and Ecological Hope

Fostering Ecological Hope

Today from Margaret Swedish:

One of the many things I learned over 25 years of Central America solidarity work is that real change almost never comes from above.  Those at the top of the social, economic, and politcal pyramids tend to reinforce the status quo — after all, they are the ones who benefit.  Sometimes they are forced by a variety of circumstances to reform the status quo, but this is often to stave off more profound change.

So, to expect that our fossil fuel dependency issues will be dealt with in any fundamental way by an administration with deep roots in the oil and gas industries would not make a lot of sense, would it?  As always, it is necessary to organize locally, to create the movements and energies-from-below that finally force the changes necessary to protect the common good, to make the changes that these times demand.

Anyway, I was thinking about this as I read this front page article in today’s Washington Post.  As I have written before, the Post is one of the few mainstream media outlets reporting regularly on our climate crisis.  This article notes where the impetus for change is coming now — from the state and local level, a hodge-podge of initiatives and mandatory regulations that will hopefully one day soon converge on a new national political regimen, a focused national commmitment to greet the challenge created by our polluting way of life with the urgency commensurate with the seriousness of the crisis.

This change in the political culture will not come without a staunch challenge from the powerful interests that will necessarily be threatened by the exigencies of the moment.  It is not our job to salvage these industries, or allow them to destroy the earth for the sake of their bottom line, or that of their stockholders.  Our job is to do all we can to quickly reverse the processes that are unraveling the earth’s atmospheric equilibrium.

One example of the battles ahead, car manufacturers are suing California to block its new regulations on vehicle carbon emissions.  Another is the endless battle to save the Alaskan wilderness from futher drilling, even though there is not enough oil there to make a dent in our foreign oil dependency.

The point is to stay focused, to stay on course, to organize communities to press for change, to get local and state officials feeling the political heat and taking action, and making this a central issue in upcoming elections.  We can change this.  It will take the power of us.