The trees have been telling us things. Our eventual devastation is being spelled out in news headlines and natural disasters creeping closer and closer to our hometown. 50,000 dead after a massive earthquake in Turkey. Two million people displaced and forced to live in hotels or public facilities. Land usage in California sends bird populations plummeting. All around the world, the animals that make Earth hospitable to live are dying at alarming rates.
How do you blur the line between pessimism and reality? How do you force people to care about an issue that will, inevitably, concern them? What can one do when presented with a headline like, “Florida Keys Could be Underwater by 2025 due to Rising Sea Levels?”
With the prism of pessimism, climate change will continue to be felt as doom scrolling through life-altering headline after life-altering headline. By thinking small and in a more regional perspective, an emphasis on the local level allows change to happen gradually over time, as opposed to legislation that countries never seem to follow. The Paris Climate Agreement has succeeded and failed on some levels, but America’s relinquishing of it during the Trump administration was one of the agreements’ worst blows.
The 4-H branch in Montclair, New Jersey highlights what happens when a local community focuses on a community. The branch does community gardening for ages K-12 and nurtures children from public and private schools’ gardens on a weekly basis. Their garden hosts tomatoes, peppers, mint, and other seasonal fruits and vegetables. Their farm hosts a chicken coup and a compost pile, which is regularly checked for rats and vermin..
Marissa Blodnik, the 4-H coordinator for Montclair Community Farms brings an air of professionalism and camaraderie to our conversation. Her passion gleams in her commitment to creating a better world for the youth despite the headlines that cycle through our news organizations. As a recent mother, her concern for young people is inspiring as well as memorable.
Fossil fuel subsidies encourage pollution and inefficiently allocate a community’s resources. They primarily benefit stakeholders as opposed to the general public. While they are a substantial aspect of our nation’s GDP ($5.9 trillion in 2020), they benefit a minute minority of our population. Corporations and fossil fuel companions make millions of dollars from selling natural resources, and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has made more countries dependent on fossil fuels for energy to finance their militaries.
Without local organization, our environment is finished. Without local organization, our world will continue to feel like nothing but natural disasters and earthquakes, time and time again. Without local organization, the hopelessness and apathy that sweeps like a tide through generations will make every human on Earth a spectator to their own demise. We cannot rely on our government to save us, as they protect the interests of the wealthy elite time and time again. As a reminder, the average age of a Senator in Congress right now is sixty-five. They are set in their ways and work for lobbyists just as much as they pretend to work for the people. We cannot depend on them.
