Strolling Through the Warm Embrace of the Climate Crisis
Thoughts and observations about the climate crisis, the pandemic, and the growing need for solidarity to salvage human existence.
The following story is published for Rust Belt Revolution. Please join the ground zero struggle for human survival and stop the fascist slide into ecocide.
On the last Sunday afternoon in March, I went for a long walk under clear skies and a warm sun. The thermometer read 74℉, but the trees were brown and the breeze lacked the pollinated aromas of spring. A friend sent me a text message. “It’s so lovely outside. Isn’t this great?” I wanted to share in her enthusiasm but could only muster a despondent reply. “It’s March. This is what the collapse of seasonal integrity looks like.”
Through the first weeks of self-quarantine during the Coronavirus pandemic, I’ve made a habit of going for long, lonely walks as a way to stretch the muscles and remind myself the world is larger than a backlit screen. As the TRUE Readers of my books know, the cement slabs that make up the sidewalks in Pittsburgh are my informal university. They are the wild spaces where I study the human spirit. Right now, those sidewalks are deserted. The hums of passing cars are rare. While some of us have ignored health concerns to visit friends and families, the live marketplace for the meaningful exchange of ideas has all but closed. During each day’s afternoon walk, I can almost hear the faint, exasperated calls for personal protective equipment from exhausted hospital workers.
No one knows when we’ll come out of this time of health insecurity. Members of the political establishment are test-driving various messages that confuse the public and please the ruling class. That manufactured fear is measurable on social channels, where one can easily read reports of hate crimes, boutique medical opinions, and tales about infected families.
During my warm stroll, I reminisced about what healthy seasons once resembled. As a child, the March kickoff to spring in Southwestern Pennsylvania carried a spiritual awakening after the brutality of each Rust Belt winter. Snow remained on the ground, but temperatures hovered around the mid-thirties, which allowed us to remove our scarves and mittens. Some of the local boys went as far as to boldly unzip their winter coats in a show of casual machismo. The girls enthusiastically modeled their new spring fashions far too early. Our goose-bumped arms and legs revealed an impatience for the coming rebirth and the Easter holiday. It’s not surprising that inside each of our hearts pumped an intense desire to rush along that coming joy.
Aside from the occasional destabilization of the polar vortex, the season we once knew as winter and the distinct feelings of spring rejuvenation are gone. We can wax nostalgic about yesteryear and manufacture those feelings again, but the reality of what was will never return.
After strolling about three-quarters of a mile, I turned around and headed home, this time on the other side of the street. While the route remained the same, I believe it’s important to give oneself a different perspective. After all, the foundational parts of life we often take for granted, when seen from a different angle, can expose fractures that require our attention.
I consider that simple truth when contemplating the Earth’s fragile ecosystem. The greedy drive for profit and power through fossil fuels has destabilized seasonal integrity. Because of all the mining, drilling, and burning, we are stuck in a global warming feedback loop that we can possibly mitigate, but cannot escape.
The people who’ve found sustainable employment in natural gas fracking are overwhelming climate crisis deniers. The frackers I’ve met in life or online have all regurgitated industry talking points spun out by right-wing media figures and elected political bootlickers who profit from the ignorance of their followers.
“Climate change is a hoax.”
“The climate changes all the time.”
“Fracking is safe and doesn’t leak natural gas.”
…and so much more…
Listening to nonsensical word salads spill out of the mouths of the unenlightened is frustrating when attempting to engage in honest communications. However, the psychology that influences the adoption of mindless drivel is completely understandable.
When the work we perform to provide a quality of life for our families and ourselves turns out to be a craven form of ecocide that murders our families, the human mind makes a choice. We can choose to walk away from financial security, allow immoral behaviors to drive us into madness, or we can rationalize our actions. In this bleak scenario, rationalization and avoidance really are the healthiest options.
That’s why we must rally around the renaissance of American manufacturing in the Green New Deal. When I go for my daily strolls, I regularly fantasize about Pittsburgh regaining its status as world leaders. The former steel epicenter that built the planet’s infrastructure could become the leaders in sustainable energy manufacturing. When moral options for stable employment emerges, that’s when our society can finally find common cause to heal the fractured environment each of us takes for granted. We can also heal our propagandized, over-stressed minds.
Our only impediment to charting the new frontier of manufacturing clean energy is the wealth and power of the fossil fuels industries, and their political talking heads.
In this effort, our working-class brothers and sisters must find solidarity across political divisions. That is the only way we can build the movement for popular democracy and finally drive out the greedy serpents that have poisoned our communities.
Upon reaching the backdoor of my house at the end of my walk, I stopped to enjoy the weather a little longer. I know the dumping of methane and carbon into the atmosphere is slowly destroying organized human life. I understand these actions will ultimately lead to the failure of democracy. In that moment, however, a part of my mind dismissed the truth. I simply allowed myself to enjoy the warm embrace of the climate crisis as it cradled my body and my soul.
Note to Readers: The Greater Pittsburgh area is ground zero in the nationwide struggle to stop the fascist slide into ecocide. Rust Belt Revolution is a grassroots platform to take on the long fight for environmental, labor, and civil justice. We must raise public consciousness to end fracking and usher in the American renaissance of union manufacturing under the Green New Deal. Your support is required.
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Solidarity forever!
