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| Marching to Battery Park |
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| They just keep coming! |
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| Grade school kids having their say! |
A river of humanity, young, old, and everyone in-between, representing about every demographic and identity one could imagine--as only New York City can--rallied and protested yesterday. The scene was a mixture of carnival and the utmost seriousness (reminding me of demonstrations in the early 1970s). Of course, diversity also means disagreement. I'm one to look at a poster and ponder whether it's accurate and most often its not--at least not entirely so. But these demonstrations are about symbols and numbers. A vast number of people around the world are frightened about the increasingly real peril that climate change poses to our shared well-being as a civilization (now global) and as a species. At demonstrations, we focus on slogans, symbols, and personalities ("Greta Thunberg for President!" "We Love Greta!" and so on). All well & good for the present, but we have to translate this concern into policy--and here we'll encounter conflict. And here the challenge is to engage in meaningful political action: in other words, speech. We must act to find common cause and to sort answers, all in good faith (and knowing that good faith is not always in play). Whatever changes we make (or don't make), someone's ox will get gored (as my medieval history prof used to say about attempting to discern the motives of political players in medieval history). Or, to put it another way, some will be made worse off, some better off. It's a moral and political and economic question of the highest order. So, the hard work lies ahead. The U.S. Congress and the executive branch must mobilize to act, and that will occur if there's a tidal wave of popular sentiment conveyed to those folks.
So, now write, call, email, & converse with every elected official you can. Keep talking with your friends and neighbors. We'll either address these issues through talk or by violence. Let's make the right choice.
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