What I Had Wrong About Climate Activism

Dana Fisher actually did the research

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Hello friends.

It’s been a great time over here for massive, mysterious Earthly events that are neither life-threatening, nor terrifying harbingers of ecological collapse; namely, last Friday’s NYC-area earthquake followed by Monday’s total eclipse.

Fastest three minutes of my life

The process of traveling to view the eclipse did trigger some natural-disaster programming that goes back to my childhood in south Louisiana. There was the all-too-familiar anxious checking and rechecking of weather maps, comparing various data models, planning and then scrapping routes, packing the car with drinking water, our extra charging battery, bedding, what turned out to be not enough nourishing snacks. There were the jam-packed roads getting back, and an extremely overwhelmed convenience store clerk in New Hampshire who was trying to close up for the night with about 2 dozen people still waiting in line for her single-stall bathroom.

But instead of fleeing a storm, we were simply optimizing our view of a secular, scientific, Earthly miracle, one that flooded us with gratitude, joy, and awe.

Going the extra mile to experience totality did feel like part of my climate work. Maybe not so directly as for Michael Greenberg and the Climate Defiance activists, who used the eclipse in Vermont to remind people: “Time is running out. We must shake humanity awake. There is no alternative.”

But it was an opportunity to love the planet we’re on, to be grateful for this moment, and kind of like with Burning Man’s Big Muddy last fall, this was “a teachable moment; a trial run for a climate disaster on the easiest possible setting, a learning experience I and others are likely to draw on in years to come.”

I plan to do a post-mortem with my husband where we talk through the decisions we made, based on what we knew at the time, and what we might do differently in similar, but more stressful times to come.

My Time At Burning Man, And Trying To Change

Some Links

I’m presenting a virtual event with Liz Hurtado of Moms Clean Air Force on How To Talk To Kids About Climate Change — April 18. Sign up here! Thanks to Parent Venture, they do great events on all kinds of parenting topics.

Bad news: The three most important greenhouse gases are at an all-time high; New data on how fast Antarctica is warming; March was the 10th consecutive record-hot month; “Over the past 12 months, average global temperatures have been 1.58C above pre-industrial levels.”

Dana Fisher, “Apocalyptic Optimist”

I first became aware of Dana Fisher when she was studying “The Resistance”—the movement to stop Donald Trump that spread from the Women’s March, to local groups around the country. She’s a professor at American U who does empirical research on American social movements, which is something we need more of. As I’ve been writing about lately, I think a big part of the paralysis people feel in regard to the climate crisis, is our individualistic society where we’re encouraged to express our values mainly through consumer choices—which, obviously, are totally inadequate to the size of the problem. Lots of us just don’t know enough about how people power works, and so people end up identifying as “not an activist.” But the climate crisis impacts everyone, everyone needs to be doing their part, and individualistic actions won’t cut it. So we have to do better.