Connecting Climate Change to Everything
Prior to Diane Shisk’s proposal, I would have sessions about climate change every once in a while, but it didn’t seem like a priority issue for me. I’ve already made long-term commitments to other liberation issues, and it didn’t seem like I had the energy or thinking capacity to add one more.
Diane’s proposal moved me to discharge more often on facing climate change, to read about it more, and to think about it more intentionally. I appreciate Ela Thier’s suggestion that caring about the environment is something we can fold into our other liberation workshops.
Folding it into my wide world work seems more doable for me. In the wide world I work with immigrant families who are striving to build new lives in the United States. I’ve started talking to coworkers, friends, and family members about how climate change could force many more millions of people from Central America and the Caribbean to migrate north, due to the sea level rise. People have a right to not be forced to migrate from their lands. I’ve noticed that folks are interested in talking with me about climate change and its impact on immigration. These are new conversations we’ve never had before.
This got me thinking about connecting climate change to everything I think about: ending sexism and climate change, backing [supporting] my family members and climate change, ending racism and climate change, Catholic liberation and climate change, Community building and climate change, and so on.
Whether or not we ultimately add the proposal to the one-point program, I appreciate this opportunity for us to have sessions about it. I can see that it is moving our thinking forward already.
Los Angeles, California, USA
Reprinted from the RC e-mail
discussion list for leaders
of wide world change