Diary of a Climate Hunger Strike
A Los Angeles nurse receives praise and distain as she shares her week-long hunger strike on Facebook
On the evening of Sunday, November 17, 2019, I read on Facebook that people around the world were joining in a hunger strike to draw attention to the climate crisis. With little time to consider it, I decided to join them and stopped eating before midnight. I am a registered nurse who works the overnight shift, and I was scheduled to work the first few nights of the strike, which limited my ability to get out and publicize my efforts. However, I was determined to engage people on Facebook and face-to-face when I had the opportunity. What follows is a Facebook diary of my week-long hunger strike.
Sunday, November 17, 2019
Starting in about a half hour I will be joining concerned individuals in many countries on a hunger strike that we hope will pressure governments to address the looming environmental crisis. Hopefully, I will be able to post regular status updates.
Selected comments:
Take care Helena. Thank you for going the distance for all of us.
Really? You think this cruel administration is going to care? They separated babies from their mothers. If your reduction in calories hurt the financial markets then they’d do something.
That is really impressive. Yes please let us know how it’s going.
Monday, November 18, 2019
I’m approaching 24 hours of my hunger strike. I was 108.3 lbs when I started and I’m 106.4 lbs now. I’m surprised to have lost that much weight, despite staying well hydrated. Life is so fragile. If we don’t do everything we can to preserve our delicate ecosystem, it will all be gone, and so quickly.
Selected comments:
Your hunger strike made people think about it one way or another, so consider it very successful!
While I appreciate your devotion to the ecosystem, I wonder how does this change anything? Wouldn’t it be better to go out and clear the plastic and toxic trash away from storm drains?
Tuesday, November 19, 2019
It’s been almost 48 hours since I started my hunger strike. I now weigh 104.9 lbs (down from 108.3). We take for granted that the earth will sustain us, but what will happen if there is no healthy food to eat?
Thursday, November 21, 2019
It’s day #4 of my hunger strike. Yesterday was spent switching over to being awake during the day since I had worked night shift for six days in a row. I usually spend those days napping, refreshing and reconnecting with my family. I baked some oatmeal cookies, my favorite, and they were not at all appetizing. Food looks weird. I went to sleep with my daughter and held her tightly. She asked me if she was going to die because of climate change. I told her that I didn’t know what was going to happen because I can’t predict the future. She laughed and said she didn’t care because she doesn’t want to grow up anyway. She doesn’t want to be an adult. I slept well except for waking up in the middle of the night with a bout of nausea. I think I’m dehydrated.
I appreciate your deep need to communicate the realities of climate change and our slow march to extinction as a species. However, you have personal and professional obligations as I have observed from a distance. Your actions jeopardize the real lives of others. I hope you come to your senses and resume your basic drive for life and nourishment, especially as a nurse.
That’s a shitty thing to say. Everyone’s actions jeopardize the real lives of others. Helena is putting her money where her mouth is … I’m sure she was thinking about what’s overall best for her family and profession in regards to what she thinks is the greatest threat, and she’s doing something about it, and it’s hard. I find her conscious and admirable.
I get where you’re coming from but there must be better ways than harming yourself. I almost starved to death out of poverty three years ago and it is absolute mental devastation. It’s too easy to create a protein deficiency that makes it borderline impossible to think clearly. And the return trip to health is a brutal one. Do not interpret this as any kind of condemnation or disrespect. I am merely speaking out of personal experience and fear of what may happen. And goddamnit, there’s more than enough death to go around.
Keep going.
Selected photo comments:
Go Helena!!! I hope all of the people commenting for you to stop will instead pledge to take some action and make changes in their own lives.
I know you are making a larger, more global point, but wondering if you have specific asks of people watching your hunger strike unfold here (i.e. changes that each of us could make in our own life or specific political actions or policy to support)?
My response: Anything you can do in your personal life is great, in terms of cutting down your use of fossil fuels, plastics, purchasing. But the only way for us to change course is through legislation. Get involved in climate change groups. Extinction Rebellion is a great organization but there are plenty of others.
Friday, November 22, 2019
Today is fay #5 of my hunger strike for the climate. Yesterday I spent three hours on the steps of City Hall. I was, for the most part, ignored. As someone pointed out on Facebook, my strike was not very well thought out and there was no plan in place for media attention. This person wondered what use it was.
However, most of us live our lives on a small scale, touching one person at a time. I had four interactions with people at City Hall. The first was with a gentleman who took pictures from across the street. Eventually, he crossed over, circumnavigated and asked me what my protest was about. We talked from our hearts about our concerns about the environmental crisis. He believes, like I do, that the changes that human beings have brought about are making the planet inhospitable to many forms of life. He had an accent and I am guessing he was visiting from somewhere in South America. He told me that his father chose to live in the village where he was from because the climate was so perfect but now his father reports that it is almost unbearably hot there.
My second, brief contact was with a woman who worked at City Hall. She looked at my sign and said, “Thank you for your work.”
After that, a middle-aged man, who was also an employee with an ID that said “Controller,” approached me, and we had an extended conversation. I explained what I was doing and offered my thoughts about the environmental crisis. I asked him if he believed what scientists are saying and he said he didn’t know what to believe. I told him that many of the predictions are dire and I felt that we should act now before it was too late. He shared that he believed that we needed to keep consuming fossil fuels to maintain our standard of living … He did offer that he had looked at some cars with hydrogen fuel cells and was thinking they might be a good option. Then he wished me luck.
Finally, I was asked by a woman on the street what day and time it was. After I told her she approached me and we talked for quite a while. She appeared to be schizophrenic and her train of thought was not always linear. She told me her life story and how she ended up living on the streets of Los Angeles. She did not seem to be on drugs and appeared physically healthy except for sunburn. She did not ask me for anything but I gave her some sunscreen that I had in my purse since I didn’t have any money or food. I asked her if I could help her find a shelter. She said that she didn’t want any handouts or anyone helping her. She wanted to be independent and was hoping to find a job. It seemed very sad to me that she felt she couldn’t seek help when she was so obviously in need. Why don’t we care better for people like her and provide opportunities for them to contribute?
Later I checked my Facebook messages and a friend said that I had inspired them to go to an Extinction Rebellion meeting.
Selected comments:
I think what you’re doing is perfect.
Not eating when you have food is an act of vanity in my humble opinion. Volunteering in a soup kitchen for the working poor may get you out of yourself. Climate change shmange… boohoo stuff ends and stuff changes, what about the immediate suffering that you can mitigate?
I think what you’re doing is great! I VERY MUCH appreciate you writing about it too. Don’t doubt that you are influencing people’s thinking. You definitely are … A few days or weeks or months from now I’m already thinking of joining you … One of the most impressive things to people is someone you know personally taking an action and expressing their thinking about it. Keep it up!
Saturday, November 23, 2019
Today is day #6 of my hunger strike for climate. Yesterday I weighed myself and I was 100 lbs, which is 8 lbs less than when I started. I’m short so this doesn’t concern me. I weighed less than this before middle age. It’s just surprising to me how dependent I am on food for my survival. It’s not something I think about much because I’m privileged enough that it’s plentiful. There is actually too much food around me. I have an unnatural relationship with food because I live in a big city in the industrialized world. Food is something that comes prepared from a restaurant or in a single-use package from a grocery store. Yet the things I eat are part of the complex ecosystem that we live in and that sustains us. Most of it is a complete mystery to me, although I have been learning a little from a Facebook friend, Travis D. Johnson, who posts about his work as a farmer.
Some people have been criticizing me pretty harshly for what I’m doing for many different reasons. I take those criticisms seriously because they are all things I’ve considered myself. They’re not ridiculous.
Some have said that climate change is just some kind of kooky apocalyptic belief or propaganda that the left is using to push a socialist agenda. And maybe they’re right. I don’t know anything for sure. I gave up having certainty a long time ago. But I believe that the science is probably correct, even while knowing that science is fallible and corrupted by politics and culture. Experts have been telling us for decades that human beings are destroying the planet. And while I would characterize myself, generally, as a socialist, I’m not wedded to any particular ideology. I just want what I think most people want: a world where people are cared for and protected and have freedom to express themselves.
Others have been criticizing me for not taking action to clean up the environment by picking up trash or to address suffering right now by volunteering in a soup kitchen. It’s hard to argue with that. I can do more. I can do more to lower my carbon footprint and I can volunteer more to help the poor. But I believe there is suffering on the horizon and if we can prevent some of it, shouldn’t we? Human beings have caused this horrible mess, don’t we have a responsibility to address it?
Holding individuals responsible is not enough. We need collective action and sane laws and policies.
Selected comments:
There is not only suffering on the horizon, there is tremendous suffering right now from the effects of global warming. Climate change is not a future possibility. It is already widely evident and people are suffering now. From the fires in Australia and California to the storms in Venice, Italy, and the destruction of entire island cultures. Anyone who is convinced that the science is a hoax or alarmist is just trying to shirk their own responsibility. People and scientists have been shouting about this for 35 years and been ignored. Now we are in a crisis and most science suggests we may in fact already have doomed ourselves. People need to wake the fuck up! I appreciate your efforts to do that!
I’ve been following your posts and, like I said, I think you are doing a good thing. By making a personal sacrifice (something that most people could not do, myself included) you have brought attention to climate change. I am amazed at the pushback you’re getting from people, for example the idea that you should volunteer in a soup kitchen, as if your effort is worth nothing unless you do all the things or this thing rather than that thing.
Thank you. I think it’s time to take to the streets.
Sunday, November 24, 2019
This is day #7 of my hunger strike for the climate. I thought about trying to march in Pasadena’s Doo Dah parade, but I am feeling too tired and I don’t know what the rules are. Up until today I had been feeling surprisingly energetic …
Thanks for your support and your criticism. I try to think of myself as part of the Earth, not separate from it, and I encourage you to take this perspective. I will stop my strike after midnight. Thanks for reading.
You’ve made me think a lot. You’re strong and thoughtful and I’m glad to know you.
Thank you, Helena! You’re really an inspiration. I so admire your passion and willingness to act. Really, I’m so impressed with you.
Tuesday, November 26, 2019
During my hunger strike I was contacted by the cartoonist Lauren Weinstein who asked if she could draw a cartoon about my experience.
