Today, I was a part of my first protest march. Across the nation, young people are coming together under the banner of “iMatter” to take hold of their future and advocate for getting off of fossil fuels. I wore my “Go Green” tee shirt, held up several picket signs with images of trees and flooded cities on them, and chanted with a bunch of people who share my values of stopping climate change. It was really fun and exciting. We were standing near the Farmers’ Market near Cramer Hall and we must have reached a lot of people because several farmers and officials came up to us asking if we could be quiet. “No”, I responded, “We can’t be quiet, but we can be respectful.”
This week’s assigned readings of David MacKay’s “Sustainable Energy - Without Hot Air” is really making me realize the urgency of climate change. I have thoroughly enjoyed reading Paul Hawken’s beautifully written “Blessed Unrest”, but the raw numbers and reality around climate change and fossil fuels that David MacKay has creatively hosted for free online is a much more real call to action. “Blessed Unrest” is in a way very last century. It’s a physical book I had to pay for, it tries to reach into my heart and place ethical descriptions, and Hawken himself is probably making money off of it. MacKay’s online text on the other hand couldn’t be more well-suited for the 21st century digital age. It’s online, it’s free, and it’s advocating for urgent, dramatic changes.
At the end of today’s march, we came to a park where a couple people from our march would enter an amphitheater-like platform and give a small speech. After listening to some friends’ speeches about stopping the use of fossil fuels, it was my turn to get up and say something. Looking out at about 20 people in front of me, off the cuff I started to talk about spreading sustainability. I said, “Even though it is easy and more attainable to talk to our friends who already share the same green lifestyle that we all advocate for, we must go farther than just those people. The only way we will get off fossil fuels is if we start talking to everyone, especially those who don’t want to listen or change their lifestyles. This whole planet is in this together and we will all have to figure out how to get off of oil. This isn’t a democrat or a republican issue. This is a human issue.”
Hopefully, I will be a part of many more marches, protests, and movements to come. Until then, I will be talking to my stubborn family about riding bicycles more often.
The part I appreciate most is that you could not be quiet but you could be respectful! It made me wonder about the choice of location -does one need to protest about climate change and the need to make changes at the Farmer's Market? Placed against your concluding comment about your "stubborn family," and your own speech about needing to educate everyone, I wonder if you need to say no I wont be quiet, I am going to get louder and move vocal, but perhaps at a venue where people have yet to begun to appreciate the numbers (that MacKay presents) or where people have chosen profits, stock options and personal luxuries over the environment and social justice.
ReplyDeleteHi Dr. Tappan, thanks for responding to my blogpost. I agree with your point on placement: I would bet that the majority of the people attending the farmer's market are already onboard for stopping climate change. We need to be gathering attention and sparking lightbulbs that have never flickered before. We should protest at malls, walmarts, and coal plants.
ReplyDeleteIt would be good practice for me to talk to my suburban Utah family about lowering their impact on the planet. I love them enough that I would want to tell them about the impacts of their actions on the planet. They drive a lot, eat industrial food, have big families, and all the stuff they buy is shipped in. Utah is so far from anything! Brigham Young chose a tough state to settle his people in! Lucky for him, fossil fuels were being discovered around the same time and made their habitation of the high rocky mountains viable. I fear for Utah's future without fossil fuels. In my mind, Oregon makes a lot more sense to live in because it is such a habitable ecosystem and there is better infrastructure for urbanites.
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