MLK’s lessons for climate justice
To the editor,
Fifty years ago, Martin Luther King Jr. won the Nobel Peace Prize. One of the most striking aspects of his acceptance speech is the hope he expressed in humanity’s ability to overcome war. This was no mere idealism on his part.
Less than five years earlier, the world had come to the brink of thermonuclear destruction because of Cuba. The United States and Soviet Union eventually diminished their threats and, in 1963, signed and ratified an agreement to end the open-air nuclear testing that was blanketing the planet with radioactive fallout. These were small steps, but to King, they indicated that human beings were capable of cooperation, even in the face of something as horrendous as the suicide of the human race.
Today, the annihilation of humanity looms again as a possibility because of climate change. In 1964, King could not have imagined the particular features of global environmental destruction that we now face. Yet, he had reflected carefully on the forms of action needed to avert mass extinction before, so his work can still be useful today in thinking about directions for the climate justice movement.
First, King reminds us to think in terms of the “beloved community” in which we are all interconnected. That means that the injustices that we experience are intertwined. For many climate activists, thinking about racism, sexism or poverty are side issues; after all, if there is no habitable earth, then those problems won’t really matter. King cautioned against the view that injustices could be divided into neat isolated silos. The world, he said, faces the danger of the “evil triplets:” racism, militarism and materialism. These are inter-related features, he thought, that are at the root of wars of aggression, such as Vietnam, against distant peoples for control of natural resources needed to maintain the luxuries of a few.
Climate change activists today need to acknowledge the overlapping systems of injustice that make some people vulnerable to climate damage much more immediately. It will be poor countries, largely in the Global South, that will suffer the most from environmental degradation of air, water and soil. In the U.S., extreme weather – as we have already seen with hurricanes Katrina and Sandy – will disproportionately affect economically fragile areas, usually made up of historically marginalized communities: indigenous 4
people, people of color, immigrants, the elderly, and LGBTQ people. Climate justice activists will need to build alliances around these diverse issues and develop the capabilities to listen to, and lift up, the voices of disenfranchised people.
In his last years, King wrote about the forms of activism that were needed to confront the evil triplets. He warned activists not to get trapped by the usual mix of demonstrations and protest that were hallmarks of the early Civil Rights movement. With these forms of direct action, King believed the movement had fallen into “crisis thinking,” that is, reacting to injustice after it had already appeared. Complex justice would require mass protests, but it also meant getting out in front of social problems, and building alternative civic and economic structures so that people would not have to rely on problematic state or corporate institutions. He called for organizing neighborhoods and creating diverse networks of allies that could support one another. A glimpse of this kind of activism came about when Occupy organizers provided assistance in the wake of Hurricane Sandy in 2012.
Achieving climate justice, then, will mean not only protests against this pipeline or that shipping port, but also working to connect local community gardens, alternative currencies, free libraries and medical clinics, into thick webs reaching across urban and rural areas. This kind of organizing will enable widespread skill sharing and mutual aid, but also deliver a message that was dawning at the height of the Occupy movement: another world is possible, and there are many across the world who desire to work together to build it.
King believed we had it within us to avoid mutually assured destruction; he also thought we were developing the insights and activist resources to radically align our world to the moral arc of the universe. The climate justice movement might become the place where we prove him right.
– José-Antonio Orosco, associate professor of philosophy, Oregon State University
Fifty years ago, Martin Luther King Jr. won the Nobel Peace Prize. One of the most striking aspects of his acceptance speech is the hope he expressed in humanity’s ability to overcome war. This was no mere idealism on his part.
Less than five years earlier, the world had come to the brink of thermonuclear destruction because of Cuba. The United States and Soviet Union eventually diminished their threats and, in 1963, signed and ratified an agreement to end the open-air nuclear testing that was blanketing the planet with radioactive fallout. These were small steps, but to King, they indicated that human beings were capable of cooperation, even in the face of something as horrendous as the suicide of the human race.
Today, the annihilation of humanity looms again as a possibility because of climate change. In 1964, King could not have imagined the particular features of global environmental destruction that we now face. Yet, he had reflected carefully on the forms of action needed to avert mass extinction before, so his work can still be useful today in thinking about directions for the climate justice movement.
First, King reminds us to think in terms of the “beloved community” in which we are all interconnected. That means that the injustices that we experience are intertwined. For many climate activists, thinking about racism, sexism or poverty are side issues; after all, if there is no habitable earth, then those problems won’t really matter. King cautioned against the view that injustices could be divided into neat isolated silos. The world, he said, faces the danger of the “evil triplets:” racism, militarism and materialism. These are inter-related features, he thought, that are at the root of wars of aggression, such as Vietnam, against distant peoples for control of natural resources needed to maintain the luxuries of a few.
Climate change activists today need to acknowledge the overlapping systems of injustice that make some people vulnerable to climate damage much more immediately. It will be poor countries, largely in the Global South, that will suffer the most from environmental degradation of air, water and soil. In the U.S., extreme weather – as we have already seen with hurricanes Katrina and Sandy – will disproportionately affect economically fragile areas, usually made up of historically marginalized communities: indigenous 4
people, people of color, immigrants, the elderly, and LGBTQ people. Climate justice activists will need to build alliances around these diverse issues and develop the capabilities to listen to, and lift up, the voices of disenfranchised people.
In his last years, King wrote about the forms of activism that were needed to confront the evil triplets. He warned activists not to get trapped by the usual mix of demonstrations and protest that were hallmarks of the early Civil Rights movement. With these forms of direct action, King believed the movement had fallen into “crisis thinking,” that is, reacting to injustice after it had already appeared. Complex justice would require mass protests, but it also meant getting out in front of social problems, and building alternative civic and economic structures so that people would not have to rely on problematic state or corporate institutions. He called for organizing neighborhoods and creating diverse networks of allies that could support one another. A glimpse of this kind of activism came about when Occupy organizers provided assistance in the wake of Hurricane Sandy in 2012.
Achieving climate justice, then, will mean not only protests against this pipeline or that shipping port, but also working to connect local community gardens, alternative currencies, free libraries and medical clinics, into thick webs reaching across urban and rural areas. This kind of organizing will enable widespread skill sharing and mutual aid, but also deliver a message that was dawning at the height of the Occupy movement: another world is possible, and there are many across the world who desire to work together to build it.
King believed we had it within us to avoid mutually assured destruction; he also thought we were developing the insights and activist resources to radically align our world to the moral arc of the universe. The climate justice movement might become the place where we prove him right.
– José-Antonio Orosco, associate professor of philosophy, Oregon State University
Relishing the sounds of silence
To the editor,
I really wish you all would quit plugging that stupid cellphone app that allows people to listen to TV programs at bars. Bars are supposed to be places where we go to socialize, meet people, talk and avoid loneliness. Not isolate ourselves in cocoons of corporate advertising, U.S. government-sponsored claptrap and other noise pollution.
There is a little device one can obtain fairly cheaply online called “TV-B-Gone.” One version looks like an iphone and will silence any TVs operating in a 100-meter radius. Buy it. Use it anywhere people have installed public televisions. Enjoy the silence. No one will know why the ambience feels so different. And why now they are forced to bear the company of their own thoughts and – heaven forbid – other people.
– P.J. Reilly, Durango
I really wish you all would quit plugging that stupid cellphone app that allows people to listen to TV programs at bars. Bars are supposed to be places where we go to socialize, meet people, talk and avoid loneliness. Not isolate ourselves in cocoons of corporate advertising, U.S. government-sponsored claptrap and other noise pollution.
There is a little device one can obtain fairly cheaply online called “TV-B-Gone.” One version looks like an iphone and will silence any TVs operating in a 100-meter radius. Buy it. Use it anywhere people have installed public televisions. Enjoy the silence. No one will know why the ambience feels so different. And why now they are forced to bear the company of their own thoughts and – heaven forbid – other people.
– P.J. Reilly, Durango
Don’t let can-curiosity kill the cat
To the editor,
Have you ever seen a tin can stuck on a starving cat’s head? I have, and it’s a sad, sad sight, not to mention a slow and horrible way to die. It only happens when lids are left attached to the can in one spot. The cat pushes easily past the sharp lid edge to get at the good smelling residual food in the can, but when it tries to pull out, the lid cuts into it’s neck. I thought everybody knew to take the lid all the way off. But I found a can like that in my neighborhood last Thursday, just waiting for a curious or a hungry cat. I know everything goes into the recycle now-a-days, but obviously sometimes a can rolls out of the bin on its way to the truck. And I shudder to think of all the small animals prowling around garbage dumps who wind up in the same predicament without being discovered and helped.
So, unless you’re an ugly, evil, rotten scoundrel who enjoys torturing small animals, please, please please ... REMOVE LIDS COMPLETELY FROM ALL CANS BEFORE DISCARDING AND MAKE SURE TO RECYCLE!
Have you ever seen a tin can stuck on a starving cat’s head? I have, and it’s a sad, sad sight, not to mention a slow and horrible way to die. It only happens when lids are left attached to the can in one spot. The cat pushes easily past the sharp lid edge to get at the good smelling residual food in the can, but when it tries to pull out, the lid cuts into it’s neck. I thought everybody knew to take the lid all the way off. But I found a can like that in my neighborhood last Thursday, just waiting for a curious or a hungry cat. I know everything goes into the recycle now-a-days, but obviously sometimes a can rolls out of the bin on its way to the truck. And I shudder to think of all the small animals prowling around garbage dumps who wind up in the same predicament without being discovered and helped.
So, unless you’re an ugly, evil, rotten scoundrel who enjoys torturing small animals, please, please please ... REMOVE LIDS COMPLETELY FROM ALL CANS BEFORE DISCARDING AND MAKE SURE TO RECYCLE!
P.S: And while we’re on the subject ... avoid buying six packs with plastic rings, and if you do, make sure to cut open every hole before throwing it in the trash. Have you seen pictures of baby animals growing too big for the plastic ring stuck on their limb or neck that begins to cut off circulation?
P.P.S: And if you do happen to be an ugly, evil, rotten scoundrel who enjoys torturing small animals, may your punishment be to spend all eternity with a tin can stuck on your head and cutting into your neck.
– Robin Wallace, Durango
– Robin Wallace, Durango
Better to pay ticket than cost a life
To the editor,
The letter from Mr. John Teferi expresses dismay at the speed limit of 20 mph around the Mancos High School, the resulting cost for going over this limit, and the insinuation that somehow Mr. Cox or the Town is benefiting financially from this arrangement.
For most of us, going 20 mph requires engaging the brain to observe this speed. That is the idea. To make you conscious that as an adult, you must look out for the kids in the area. Second, the amount of money acquired in this process is unlikely to cover the cost of Mr. Cox’s time but will sting sufficiently to arouse howls of pain sufficient to avert a repetition, and letters such as yours that remind us all to keep our wits about us around the school. Personally, I would rather be caught in this manner, than have to explain to my friends and family how I ran over a child.
– Happy New Year, Jim Law, Mancos