Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
Perhaps 2020 vision could unveil to us that life matters and is sacred. That honored boundaries allow fires to chart a healing course and give breathing room to the full diversity and dignity of life. What if the lives of those most often suppressed, eradicated, ignored, coopted, most readily resistant actually mattered?
Today, our series host Vicki Robin answers the question herself of “What Could Possibly Go Right?” In interview with Amy Buringrud of Post Carbon Institute, Vicki shares what she’s learned from the series’ guests so far.
As of right now, climate justice does not have a unified definition. Its meaning changes depending on who is using it so let me make my vision very clear. Climate justice is collective liberation by another name.
The good news is that a pioneering generation of time rebels is now emerging to challenge the myopic political presentism at the heart of representative government, where politicians can barely see past the next election or even the latest tweet.
It is both reasonable and even moral, I think, to long for, to look for the embodiment and instantiation of (and, yes, to memorialize through song and statuary, with the understanding that statues can come down and, just as Hamilton did, songs can be resung), one’s people and place, one’s vine and fig tree, one’s home.
As stated in A Renewed Call for Feminist Resistance to Population Control, we call for ways in which climate change can be tackled at the same time that we challenge racism and social injustice, including issues of sexual and reproductive health.
Art, non-violent civil disobedience and protest do work. While I am proud of the action, I want to talk about a part of this work that few folks are discussing — how we can and must continue the work where it is needed most: IN THE JAILS.
It is fashionable today to say we are all “racist”, but if we can get past our programmed social conditionings (and yes, there are complex historical layers), at our roots this is not true. In our bones and in our heart, we know we are not apart from each other. It is up to us who have lost them, to go to those roots.
We will need more resourcefulness, capacity for divergent thinking, and self-initiative in future events related to climate change and economic slowdown.
Beyond the divides of black-and-white thinking, can humanity realize its one shared human heart, and rise up together in action on behalf of all life and the planet we all call home?
If you want to leave it all and start a community, you should focus on inner work first. If you focus only on action, you risk building yourself another prison. You might just change one form of unhealthy lifestyle and toxic relations for another as a result.
If there is one thing a virus cannot kill, it is a rebellion. Nevertheless, there is no way to begin this collection of essays on Extinction Rebellion, at this time, other than by acknowledging the remarkable, mind-bending moment at which these words are written.
