The thing is…
it depends on how you define environmentalists.
If you define them as the recyclers and the “good-doers,”
the vegan eaters who see nature as something outside
of New York City’s walls, then I am with you, my friend—
I am tired of them.
Don’t get me wrong,
I nod my head to them—
but I bow my head, low,
to those teaching me
in this moment of climate catastrophe,
as my mom figures that, “Yeah,
my fall flowers may die
in this 90 degree late-September heat
but they look okay, now,”
that this is a fight for justice.
Look up the social pyramid
and you will see them:
another man with bottom line on the mind,
another woman standing up for him.
Another man calling out why feminism is
“A scam. We’re all equal here.”
It’s in the oil.
It’s in the system
that we were all born into.
It matters how we got here, oh yes.
It matters how we fight so that our children,
our children’s children and their children, stay around.
Can you really see them, Mr. and Mrs. Man, from way up there?
The system was rigged long ago,
and we have so much to carry already.
Shame is too heavy.
We need our hands to fight;
We need our voices to scream.
We need our eyes to see into the very near future,
into a world where the insects lay dead* and
and the birds in the morning don’t sing like they use to
and the fish in the ocean don’t swim like they used to
and the bread on the table don’t taste like it used to
because we cannot go back.
We can only hold those high up fuckers accountable,
rebuild,
and move on.
Industry heads, government leaders, blog readers: we are way past deciding whether climate change is something to be “believed.”
A highly recommended read: https://popula.com/2019/08/19/the-case-for-climate-rage/
*and a note: https://e360.yale.edu/features/insect_numbers_declining_why_it_matters
September 24, 2019
