We the undersigned believe that the colonial occupation and exploitation of Wet’suwet’en lands, and all other unceded lands, is illegal.
Continue reading Pagan statement of solidarity with Wet’suwet’en
Why I Quit 350.org and Started a Garden
“Certain gardens are described as retreats when they are really attacks.”
— Ian Hamilton Finlay
I quit protesting and started a garden. It sounds absurd at first, I know. But bear with me.
Continue reading Why I Quit 350.org and Started a Garden
My Church is Dying, and I’m OK with That
“The movement which many call ‘Unitarian Universalism’ has been dying for 43 years, continues to die, and the fact of its slow but steady death is the elephant in the room that few in the UUA want to face, let alone talk about.”
— David Loehr, “Why ‘Unitarian Universalism’ is Dying,” Journal of Liberal Religion (2005)
A few weeks ago, our interim minister told a group of congregants that, if we didn’t change, our church won’t exist in a couple of decades. It felt like a punch to the gut. But I think he was right. In fact, I would go one step further: My church will probably not exist in 2040.
On Sale Now: “Another End of the World is Possible” by John Halstead
I’m happy to announce that my little collection of essays, Another End of the World is Possible, is now available for sale in print and e-book. All proceeds from the sale will go to Gods & Radicals Press/A Beautiful Resistance. Continue reading On Sale Now: “Another End of the World is Possible” by John Halstead
The Yoga of Despair
This was a sermon or homily I recently gave at Beverly Unitarian Church, in Illinois, and First Unitarian Church of Hobart, in Indiana, on two consecutive Sundays. I began by showing the clip below, from the HBO series, The Newsroom. In the scene, a deputy director of the EPA is being interviewed by a news anchor.
I love that video. It’s funny, but it’s also accurate. Except for the part about permanent darkness, everything the EPA director says in that video is true.
I especially get a kick out of the reaction of the producer, when the EPA director says, “The person has already been born who will die due to catastrophic failure of the planet.” And she says “What did he just say?!”
I had my own “what did he just say?” moment a few years ago. Continue reading The Yoga of Despair
It’s time for the spiritual people to get active and activist people to get spiritual.
The following comments were given at the closing of the April 27, 2019 Prayer for the Planet interfaith vigil sponsored by 350 Indiana-Calumet in Gary, Indiana. Represented at this Earth Week service were Buddhist, Christian, Humanist, Jewish, Mormon, Muslim, Pagan, and Sikh religious communities.
A friend of mind recently sent me a quote:
“There’s nothing more radically activist than a truly spiritual life. And there’s nothing more truly spiritual than a radically activist life.”– Brian McLaren, Naked Spirituality
I believe that, but I’ve struggled to live it. Continue reading It’s time for the spiritual people to get active and activist people to get spiritual.
We Are Keepers, Bearers, and Builders of the Flame
This past Sunday, my family and I led our Unitarian congregation in a community ritual intended to celebrate the different ways we live out our Unitarian Universalist Values.
As congregants came into the sanctuary, they were given one of three cards which read “Keeper of the Flame”, “Bearer of the Flame”, or “Builder of the Flame”. Each of these designated a type of ministry. The Keepers of the Flame are those focused on creating a spiritual sanctuary from a harsh world. The Bearers of the Flame are those who carry the light of UU values out into the world through social action. The Builders of the Flame are the glue that hold it all together.
Continue reading We Are Keepers, Bearers, and Builders of the Flame
Is UU Atheism a Form of White Privilege?
A recent article by Mark Morrison-Reed in UU World, the Unitarian Universalist Association magazine, about the “black hole” in UU history, got me thinking about the connection between UU worship and race. According to Morriso-Reed, for all our proclaimed progressiveness, it seems we UUs have not really ever taken the lead in the fight against racism–internally or externally. I’ve been thinking about this history a lot lately, as my own UU congregation is discussing whether to display a “Black Lives Matter” sign on the church property. One part of Morrison-Reed’s article in particular jumped out at me:
To The Man Who Spit On My Black Lives Matter Sign
A version of this article was previously published at Huffington Post. It has been republished here as part of a 5-part series for Black History Month.
Dear Sir,
This past Sunday, I was standing on the sidewalk in front of my Unitarian church, holding a “Black Lives Matter” sign, when you drove up in your pickup truck, stopped abruptly, and rolled down your window to yell profanities at me.
In between insults, you said you believed that more White people are killed by police than Black people. A friend who was with me tried to calmly explain that Black people represent only 12 percent of the population but are between two and three times more likely to be killed by police than White people.
In response, you exited your vehicle and approached me to continue your verbal abuse. You then spat on my “Black Lives Matter” sign. After observing the results of your defacement ― and apparently deciding it was insufficient ― you drew up a larger piece of phlegm and spat on my sign again. You then returned to your vehicle and drove off in the same reckless fashion as you drove up.
Continue reading To The Man Who Spit On My Black Lives Matter Sign
Our Fear of Black Men is Racist
A version of this article was previously published at Huffington Post. It has been republished here as part of a 5-part series for Black History Month.
Ask most White anti-racism activists how they got involved in anti-racism activism and they will probably tell you about seeing the police kill a Black man on TV or the internet. Eric Garner. Michael Brown. Tamir Rice. Walter Scott. Alton Sterling. These are just a few of the high profile police killings in recent years.
For me, it was Philando Castile. I had been involved in anti-racism work before Castile was killed by a police officer, but seeing that murder had a profound impact on me. It prompted me to take up a vigil outside my Unitarian church with a Black Lives Matter sign on Sunday mornings, while church services were going on, for several weeks in the winter. Standing in the cold while passing drivers yelled at me was all I could think of to do with my outrage.
Bursting the White Bubble of Colorblindness
A version of this article was originally published at Huffington Post. It has been republished here as part of a 5-part series for Black History Month.
The White Bubble
My entire life, I have lived in a bubble — a bubble of White privilege.
Continue reading Bursting the White Bubble of Colorblindness
My Grandchildren May Never See A Monarch Butterfly
Owing to its large size and its distinctive orange, black, and white color pattern, the Monarch is probably the most easily recognizable butterfly in North America. Many people know the Monarch for its annual north-south migration between the northern United States and southern Mexico, a migration which takes two to four generations. Many people may not know it’s also a pollinator species.
And it’s probably going to disappear in my lifetime or my children’s lifetime.
Continue reading My Grandchildren May Never See A Monarch Butterfly
The Real Reason Why Racism Persists: Capitalism
A version of this article was previously published at Huffington Post. It has been republished here as part of a 5-part series for Black History Month.
“Black Lives Matter” and Angry White People
A couple of years ago, I was walking in the Fourth of July parade with my Unitarian church in Hobart, a small town in Northwest Indiana. The church, like the town, is almost entirely white. The church members walking in the parade that day were all White. We had put “Black Lives Matter” signs on one of our trucks and a couple of the members were wearing “Black Lives Matter” T-shirts.
As we walked down the street, some people applauded and shouted approval, but it seemed that many more people angrily shouted (or loudly mumbled), “All Lives Matter!” One elderly woman even came up to one of us and shouted “Shame on you!” And an off-duty police officer loudly proclaimed that we were “hypocrites” who, he seemed to think, didn’t see the contradiction in being White and saying “Black Lives Matter.”
Continue reading The Real Reason Why Racism Persists: Capitalism
The Real Reason White People Say “All Lives Matter”
This essay was originally published at Huffington Post. It has been republished here as part of a 5-part series for Black History Month.
Why “Black” Makes Us Uncomfortable
Dear fellow White people, let’s have an honest talk about why we say “All Lives Matter.”
Continue reading The Real Reason White People Say “All Lives Matter”
Why We Aren’t Growing: An Open Letter to My Unitarian Congregation
Dear friends and fellow Unitarian Universalists,
While in church, I frequently hear the desire expressed to see our congregation grow. Doubtless, our congregation has its own unique challenges, but the stagnant state of our membership rolls is not unique to our congregation; it’s endemic to UUism. Unitarian Universalist membership has been more or less flat since 1961, when the UUA was formed, with a little over 1,000 congregations and a little over 150,000 members. (The high point was 1968.) But if you consider that the U.S. population has almost doubled in that time, then UU membership has actually been shrinking as a percentage of the overall population.
Continue reading Why We Aren’t Growing: An Open Letter to My Unitarian Congregation
Don’t Give Up on Your Conservative Friends and Family
Many people who know me know might be surprised to know that I used to be a political and religious conservative. Continue reading Don’t Give Up on Your Conservative Friends and Family
Anti-racism 101
This post was originally a tweet thread, but quite a few people wanted me to turn it into a blog-post, so here it is. I haven’t changed the order I wrote this in, just added relevant links.
Anti-racism 101. A thread.
— Yvonne Aburrow (@vogelbeere) 21 August 2018
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Harmony Day, CC BY 2.0, photo by DIAC Images.
A Guide to the End of Civilization (in 6 simple maxims), by Christopher Stanley
Editor’s Note: I am pleased to introduce guest contributor, Christopher Stanley. Christopher wrote this in response to my recent essay, “‘What If It’s Already Too Late?’: Being an Activist in the Anthropocene”, and it so impressed me I had to share it (with his permission). Christopher’s six maxims are a guide for sanity in an unsane world. Enjoy!
Civilization is not the World.
Civilization is ending, but the World is not. The World has lived through far greater changes than us. The World was here for billions of years before we came along, and will be here for billions of years after we’re gone. We are not so grand that we can kill Life itself. Continue reading A Guide to the End of Civilization (in 6 simple maxims), by Christopher Stanley
An Open Letter to My Activist Friends
This post was updated on Sept. 22, 2020.
Dear friends and fellow activists,
I am relatively new to activism, but over the last few years I have been pretty actively engaged in a variety of causes, from the environment to anti-racism to gun control. In addition to writing, Most of my activism has consisted of planning and participating in protests and other forms of expressive activism.
When I first started participating in protests, it was exhilarating. It felt empowering. I experienced for the first time in my life the power of masses of people gathered for a cause. It’s not an exaggeration to say it restored my faith in democracy. It offered me an avenue for action outside of the more traditional modes of political participation (like voting), with which I had become disenchanted.
I never expected marching, by itself, to effect revolutionary change. Rather, I saw mass events as opportunities to raise energy and build solidarity, especially among those who participate, but also among those who witness from afar. When people would ask me if I thought events like the Women’s March and the People’s Climate March “accomplished anything”, I would respond that what those events do is to help people realize that they are not alone, that together they have power when they act collectively, and to motivate them to organize when they go back home.
However, over time, I have come to see another perspective as well. There’s three problems that I now see with much of the protesting which we progressives do.
What Counts as “Political” Speech?
For a couple of years now I have been participating in naturalization ceremonies as a representative of the bar association of the state where I work as a lawyer. If you’re not familiar, naturalization ceremonies are where people become citizens. It is a formal legal proceeding, presided over by a federal judge.
At each ceremony, a representative of both of our U.S. Senators and our Congressperson speaks. In addition, a representative of the bar association speaks, and I have volunteered to perform that service several times, including the last two ceremonies which were held on the Fourth of July.
Civil Disobedience vs. Direct Action
Image: Julia “Butterfly” Hill spent 738 days living in an old-growth redwood tree to protest logging in the area.
I’ve noticed how the term “direct action” is being used very loosely by many activists. I’ve heard protest marches called “direct action” and getting arrested while blocking traffic called “direct action”. But neither of these are direct action.
Dissent Is the Highest Form of Patriotism
This speech will be delivered at the naturalization ceremony in Hammond, Indiana on July 4, 2018.
Good afternoon. My name is John Halstead. I am here today on behalf of the lawyers of the state of Indiana and the Indiana Bar Association. It is my privilege to congratulate you on becoming United States citizens.
Each of you has no doubt had an interesting journey to come to this point. For some of you, that journey has been longer and more difficult than for others.
Letters from a Human Being in a Cage
The more I read what Aaron wrote, the more I realized that “What did he do?” is the wrong question. The right question is “Who is he?” Who is Aaron? Not who was he 13 years ago? Who is he now? If we are going to try to justify someone being locked in a cage, shouldn’t that be the question? Not what did they do in the past? But who are they today?
Aaron was only 17 when he entered the prison system. He turned 30 last December. His release date is not until 2037.
Aaron is not the person he was 13 years go. In spite of that, Aaron has no opportunity to show that he has changed. The system, and those who maintain it, simply do not care whether or not Aaron is reformed.
What follows are Aaron’s words. Only minor editorial changes have been made for readability.
Stranded
The feeling of being stranded, As if I was abducted by aliens and woke up to a deserted island, has unfortunately somehow become my life. Scratching my head, trying to recall the answers, hopefully I can find one that would resolve my anger of my new reality.
I scream for help in all directions, until my voice dies in the raspy chord. I shoot a flare, start a fire and spin my…
View original post 2,301 more words
Fight Like a Hobbit! Fight Climate Change!
The Shadow of Sauron
This year, the summer solstice falls on Thursday, June 21st. The summer solstice is the longest day of the year, and the sun is at its zenith. Many ancient and contemporary pagan religious traditions light fires to celebrate the solstice.
But in spite of all the fire and light imagery of the solstice celebrations, my mind inevitably turns to the shadows cast by those fires, shadows which will lengthen in the following months as the days get shorter.
Earth Blessing by Jack Manno
May earth’s song reach us in our deepest and wildest places.
May it be heard as we move upon her, as we partake of her sustenance,
as we nestle in her waters and grasses
May we hear the voices of the stones, the winds and waters,
creatures and plants, above the human chatter,
softly but not silently, so we can heed them when we must.
May all those who try to conquer earth’s powers learn instead from
compost and humus and take from them humility,
knowing any force conquered is lost forever to the conqueror.
May compassion wrack the polluter’s heart,
so stunned by earth’s gifts their poisons cannot be released.
At long last, may earth’s protectors throw grand parties
where victory is declared in a mighty sigh of relief.
May this exhalation resound in ocean depths,
reverberate in humpback flesh and please all the watery souls.
May whales and wolves rejoice with weird shouts that all is well.
May we have a world’s celebration where everyone stays put,
our roots seeking amusements together deep in the earth,
our branches entwined in the winds.
May our grandchildren’s grandchildren share legends of when
we brought about the end of the time of arrogance and waste.
May they toss stones from shores, hearing our names echo in the ripples.
So May it Be.— Jack Manno —
Rituals for moving home
[originally published at Dowsing for Divinity]
I have just moved from Oxford, England, to Cambridge, Ontario, Canada. As you can imagine, this will cause some emotional upheaval. I feel very rooted in England, and am concerned about the issue of land stolen from Indigenous people in Canada, and the effects of colonialism on their wellbeing and way of life.
What is “Spirituality”?
What is spirituality? A friend recently asked me this and, in spite of decades of reading and writing about the topic, I found myself fumbling with a Justice Potter Stewart-style “I know it when I feel it” answer.
My friend had a ready answer and listed off three or four characteristics of a spiritual experience. His answer was only partially satisfactory to me. So I sat down to give this some thought and here’s what I came up with me.
This is not intended to be authoritative or prescriptive for anyone. This is simply a description of the kind of experiences that I have which I call “spiritual”.
Bridging the Divide Between Politics and Spirituality, by Jason Espada
It took a Sufi poet to put into words for me what I had been feeling for some time, about the limitations, or dysfunction of religions in America. It was about seven years ago that I read this verse by Unis Emrie:
Unless you can see the whole world
in a single glance,
anything you do is wrong,
even with all your religion
Continue reading Bridging the Divide Between Politics and Spirituality, by Jason Espada
Review of “The Reluctant Radical”
This past Earth Day, two of the activist organizations I am a part of sponsored a screening of “The Reluctant Radical”, a documentary about Ken Ward, by Lindsey Grayzel.
Ken Ward is one of the “valve turners” who was arrested and prosecuted for closing the emergency valve on oil sands pipelines in October 2016. He argued in court that the urgency of climate change compelled him to act. “The Reluctant Radical” follows Ken as he struggles to find an effective way to combat the fossil fuel industry. Director Lindsey Grayzel was also arrested and charged for her role filming Ken’s actions.
21 Ways to Celebrate Earth Day: Beware of Lists
Each day of the month of April leading up to Earth Day (April 22), I will be offering a suggestion for how we can really honor the Earth this year. This list will go beyond the usual suggestions to change your light bulbs and take shorter showers. Instead, the focus is on collective action working toward radical social change.
My last bit of advice is to beware of lists, including this one, but especially those premised on an individualistic value system and those that sound suspiciously like advertising.
Continue reading 21 Ways to Celebrate Earth Day: Beware of Lists
21 Ways to Celebrate Earth Day: Take Care of Yourself
Each day of the month of April leading up to Earth Day (April 22), I will be offering a suggestion for how we can really honor the Earth this year. This list will go beyond the usual suggestions to change your light bulbs and take shorter showers. Instead, the focus is on collective action working toward radical social change.
Caring for the Earth can be overwhelming sometimes. If you’re just getting started, don’t try to do it all at once. Find a place to start. Find your focus. Not every cause must be your cause. Find a cause you are passionate about, something that fuels your spirit. Here’s a Starter Kit to get you going.
Continue reading 21 Ways to Celebrate Earth Day: Take Care of Yourself
21 Ways to Celebrate Earth Day: Face Your Death
Each day of the month of April leading up to Earth Day (April 22), I will be offering a suggestion for how we can really honor the Earth this year. This list will go beyond the usual suggestions to change your light bulbs and take shorter showers. Instead, the focus is on collective action working toward radical social change.
A genuine re-connection with nature inevitably leads to a confrontation with death … and with our own deaths. All around us in nature, there is as much death as there is life—for life feeds on death. And we are a part of that same cycle. We will all of us, one day, die and feed other forms of life.
Continue reading 21 Ways to Celebrate Earth Day: Face Your Death
21 Ways to Celebrate Earth Day: Let Yourself Grieve
Each day of the month of April leading up to Earth Day (April 22), I will be offering a suggestion for how we can really honor the Earth this year. This list will go beyond the usual suggestions to change your light bulbs and take shorter showers. Instead, the focus is on collective action working toward radical social change.
“This is a dark time, filled with suffering and uncertainty. Like living cells in a larger body, it is natural that we feel the trauma of our world. So don’t be afraid of the anguish you feel, or the anger or fear, because these responses arise from the depth of your caring and the truth of your interconnectedness with all beings.” — Joanna Macy
As you learn about the climate crisis and work for change, there will be times when you are overwhelmed with grief. Grief is not the same thing as despair. Grief is a natural and healthy reaction to the human desecration of the earth and its biosphere.
Continue reading 21 Ways to Celebrate Earth Day: Let Yourself Grieve
21 Ways to Celebrate Earth Day: Restory the World
Each day of the month of April leading up to Earth Day (April 22), I will be offering a suggestion for how we can really honor the Earth this year. This list will go beyond the usual suggestions to change your light bulbs and take shorter showers. Instead, the focus is on collective action working toward radical social change.
Humanity’s paralysis over the impending environmental collapse is a function of the psychological strength of the myth that things will always be the same. The sun always rises in the morning, and winter predictably (less predictably now) follows autumn which is followed by spring, and privileged people like myself go to work during the week, rest on the weekend, and go on being good consumers, largely unperturbed by war and famine and plague.
It’s easy to believe that things have always been this way and always will be … but they won’t.
It’s likely that our children or grandchildren will live to see a day when our everyday experience, living in in a developed country today at the beginning of the 21st century, will be entirely foreign to the children being born at that time. This is not apocalyptic catastrophizing. It is simply a recognition of the reality of change, specifically climate change. And that recognition is the first step toward making the system-level changes which are needed to address the environmental disaster which is already happening.
Continue reading 21 Ways to Celebrate Earth Day: Restory the World
21 Ways to Celebrate Earth Day: Fight Capitalism
Each day of the month of April leading up to Earth Day (April 22), I will be offering a suggestion for how we can really honor the Earth this year. This list will go beyond the usual suggestions to change your light bulbs and take shorter showers. Instead, the focus is on collective action working toward radical social change.
One thing you can do to honor the Earth this Earth Day is to educate yourself about the connection between climate change and capitalism.
Our capitalist economic system is fundamentally incompatible with a healthy planetary ecosystem, says Naomi Kline in This Changes Everything. We live on a planet with finite resources, but our economic system is premised on infinite growth. Capitalism demands unfettered growth of consumption, but our survival and that of many other species requires a contraction of humanity’s growth and consumption. Our choice, says Kline, is to fundamentally change our economic system, or to allow nature to change it for us. The first will be hard, but the second even harder.
So we must change our economic system.
This means challenging some of our most cherished myths: the myth that capitalism and democracy are equivalent, the myth that capitalist societies are the most happy, the myth that capitalism was proven to be the “one true economic system” with the fall of the Soviet Union, the myth that consumers have all the power in a capitalist system, and that most pernicious myth of all, the myth that there are no alternatives.
We can unlearn capitalist ways of thinking. Capitalism infects all of our relationships: with other people, with other-than-human beings, and with the Earth. Consider the way we “value” other people and how we sometimes calculate whether what we get from them is more than what we give in return. Think about your relationship to the place you live. Is it a place you “use”, or is it a world you inhabit, cherish, and care for? We learned these ways of thinking, and we can unlearn them.
21 Ways to Celebrate Earth Day: Reconnect With Nature
Each day of the month of April leading up to Earth Day (April 22), I will be offering a suggestion for how we can really honor the Earth this year. This list will go beyond the usual suggestions to change your light bulbs and take shorter showers. Instead, the focus is on collective action working toward radical social change.
“Probably no society has been so deeply alienated as ours from the community of nature, has viewed the natural world from a greater distance of mind, has lapsed into a murkier comprehension of its connections with the sustaining environment.” — Richard Nelson, “Eskimo Science”
How then do we reconnect with the earth?
Continue reading 21 Ways to Celebrate Earth Day: Reconnect With Nature
21 Ways to Celebrate Earth Day: Ground Your Religious Rituals
Each day of the month of April leading up to Earth Day (April 22), I will be offering a suggestion for how we can really honor the Earth this year. This list will go beyond the usual suggestions to change your light bulbs and take shorter showers. Instead, the focus is on collective action working toward radical social change.
Ecologist Dolores LaChapelle says that ritual is essential to creating intimate, conscious relationship with the places where we dwell. It is no coincidence that native societies tend both to be ecologically sustainable and to have a rich ceremonial life.
Continue reading 21 Ways to Celebrate Earth Day: Ground Your Religious Rituals
21 Ways to Celebrate Earth Day: Learn Old Skills
Each day of the month of April leading up to Earth Day (April 22), I will be offering a suggestion for how we can really honor the Earth this year. This list will go beyond the usual suggestions to change your light bulbs and take shorter showers. Instead, the focus is on collective action working toward radical social change.
I previously suggested that building community can be one thing we do to honor the Earth this Earth Day—specifically, building local, sustainable and resilient communities.
Resilient communities are those can better withstand the shock of environmental change and economic collapse. One part of building resilience is re-skilling.
Continue reading 21 Ways to Celebrate Earth Day: Learn Old Skills
21 Ways to Celebrate Earth Day: Talk About Climate Change
Each day of the month of April leading up to Earth Day (April 22), I will be offering a suggestion for how we can really honor the Earth this year. This list will go beyond the usual suggestions to change your light bulbs and take shorter showers. Instead, the focus is on collective action working toward radical social change.
Despite the overwhelming weight of the scientific consensus about anthropogenic (human-made) climate change, it can be daunting for a lay person to talk about it publicly. One thing you can do to honor the Earth on Earth Day is to learn how to talk about climate change.
Continue reading 21 Ways to Celebrate Earth Day: Talk About Climate Change
21 Ways to Celebrate Earth Day: Support Front Line Communities
Each day of the month of April leading up to Earth Day (April 22), I will be offering a suggestion for how we can really honor the Earth this year. This list will go beyond the usual suggestions to change your light bulbs and take shorter showers. Instead, the focus is on collective action working toward radical social change.
While climate change affects us all, there are some populations who are more vulnerable than others, including low-income communities, communities of color, coastal communities, and communities on the front lines of fossil fuel extraction. One way you can honor the Earth this Earth Day is to fight for front line communities.
Continue reading 21 Ways to Celebrate Earth Day: Support Front Line Communities
21 Ways to Celebrate Earth Day: Build Community
Each day of the month of April leading up to Earth Day (April 22), I will be offering a suggestion for how we can really honor the Earth this year. This list will go beyond the usual suggestions to change your light bulbs and take shorter showers. Instead, the focus is on collective action working toward radical social change.
When we think about climate change, we have been socialized to think about individual actions, especially our choices at the market and gas pump. There are many ways we can change our individual consumption habits in response to climate change. But we need to understand that no slave was ever freed by individuals choosing to purchase products that are free from slave labor.
Continue reading 21 Ways to Celebrate Earth Day: Build Community
21 Ways to Celebrate Earth Day: Eat Local
Each day of the month of April leading up to Earth Day (April 22), I will be offering a suggestion for how we can really honor the Earth this year. This list will go beyond the usual suggestions to change your light bulbs and take shorter showers. Instead, the focus is on collective action working toward radical social change.
Many people may not realize that a major source of carbon emissions and pollution is the food industry—especially the transportation of food. Locavores are people who try to get all of their food within 100 miles of where they live.
21 Ways to Celebrate Earth Day: Source What You Consume
Each day of the month of April leading up to Earth Day (April 22), I will be offering a suggestion for how we can really honor the Earth this year. This list will go beyond the usual suggestions to change your light bulbs and take shorter showers. Instead, the focus is on collective action working toward radical social change.
By virtue of living in a modern industrial society, we are largely alienated from the material conditions of our existence.
Continue reading 21 Ways to Celebrate Earth Day: Source What You Consume
21 Ways to Celebrate Earth Day: Use Your Privilege For Good
Each day of the month of April leading up to Earth Day (April 22), I will be offering a suggestion for how we can really honor the Earth this year. This list will go beyond the usual suggestions to change your light bulbs and take shorter showers. Instead, the focus is on collective action working toward radical social change.
If you haven’t experienced at least one privilege check in the last few years, you really haven’t been paying attention. We all need to examine how we are privileged. Look in the mirror … what do you see? Are you male? Are you heterosexual or cisgendered? Are you white? Are you able-bodied? Do you have some degree of job security? Are you educated? Do you have disposable income? Do you have a home? Are you legally married? Do you live in a “first world”/industrialized-developed country? These are all forms of privilege.
Continue reading 21 Ways to Celebrate Earth Day: Use Your Privilege For Good
21 Ways to Celebrate Earth Day: Protect Biodiversity
Each day of the month of April leading up to Earth Day (April 22), I will be offering a suggestion for how we can really honor the Earth this year. This list will go beyond the usual suggestions to change your light bulbs and take shorter showers. Instead, the focus is on collective action working toward radical social change.
We are in the middle of the Sixth Great Extinction of animals and plants, the highest rate of species die-offs since the extinction of the dinosaurs 65 million years ago. Extinction is a natural phenomenon which occurs at a natural rate of about one to five species per year. Scientists estimate we’re now losing species at 1,000 to 10,000 times the the natural rate—literally dozens of species are going extinct every day.
Continue reading 21 Ways to Celebrate Earth Day: Protect Biodiversity
21 Ways to Celebrate Earth Day: Get Money Out of Politics
Each day of the month of April leading up to Earth Day (April 22), I will be offering a suggestion for how we can really honor the Earth this year. This list will go beyond the usual suggestions to change your light bulbs and take shorter showers. Instead, the focus is on collective action working toward radical social change.
When we talk about taking action to protect the Earth, our home, we are conditioned by capitalist culture to think only about our reducing own consumption. But the choices we make at the store and gas pump can only take us so far. The biggest contributions to global emissions are not the result of the choices of individual consumers, but the choices made by industry and big corporations.
Continue reading 21 Ways to Celebrate Earth Day: Get Money Out of Politics
“An Inescapable Network of Mutuality”: Martin Luther King’s Ecological Thought
“A Single Garment of Destiny”
In his penultimate sermon, delivered on March 31, 1968, at the National Cathedral in Washington, D.C., Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., spoke of our interconnectedness:
Continue reading “An Inescapable Network of Mutuality”: Martin Luther King’s Ecological Thought
21 Ways to Celebrate Earth Day: Organize Your Community
Each day of the month of April leading up to Earth Day (April 22), I will be offering a suggestion for how we can really honor the Earth this year. This list will go beyond the usual suggestions to change your light bulbs and take shorter showers. Instead, the focus is on collective action working toward radical social change.
One thing you can do to honor the Earth this Earth Day is to become an ecological voice in your community. You can organize a meet-up or a local group to plan an action, host a workshop, or petition your elected representatives.
Continue reading 21 Ways to Celebrate Earth Day: Organize Your Community
21 Ways to Celebrate Earth Day: Support Direct Action
Each day of the month of April leading up to Earth Day (April 22), I will be offering a suggestion for how we can really honor the Earth this year. This list will go beyond the usual suggestions to change your light bulbs and take shorter showers. Instead, the focus is on collective action working toward radical social change.
One thing you can do to honor the Earth this Earth Day is to participate in direct action. Every effective political movement throughout history, from the struggle for the eight hour workday to the fight for women’s suffrage, has used some form of direct action.
Continue reading 21 Ways to Celebrate Earth Day: Support Direct Action
21 Ways to Celebrate Earth Day: Vote Responsibly
Each day of the month of April leading up to Earth Day (April 22), I will be offering a suggestion for how we can really honor the Earth this year. This list will go beyond the usual suggestions to change your light bulbs and take shorter showers. Instead, the focus is on collective action working toward radical social change.
When we think about what we can do to protect the biosphere and the web of life, we are conditioned to think about our reducing own consumption. But individual choice only gets us so far.
Continue reading 21 Ways to Celebrate Earth Day: Vote Responsibly
21 Ways to Celebrate Earth Day: Support Divestment
Each day of the month of April leading up to Earth Day (April 22), I will be offering a suggestion for how we can really honor the Earth this year. This list will go beyond the usual suggestions to change your light bulbs and take shorter showers. Instead, the focus is on collective action working toward radical social change.
It’s no secret that burning of fossil fuels is transforming our planet into a place where it will be increasingly difficult for humans (and many other forms of life) to survive.
Continue reading 21 Ways to Celebrate Earth Day: Support Divestment
Use Your Privilege for Good
I can trace my transformation into an activist back to one article: “Twenty Things YOU Can Do To Address the Climate Crisis!” . Continue reading Use Your Privilege for Good
Winter is Coming (Part 2 of the Snowflake Chronicles)
In my last post, “Ain’t No Snowflakes Here”, I said that the gun control advocates whom I have met are anything but snowflakes. From the septuagenarian mother of a gun victim with her poster board sign who was prepared to be run over by gun-toting, pickup truck-driving, Confederate flag-flying yahoos, to the kids who faced down parents, principals, and peers a few days later to make their voices heard about gun violence in schools–these people are tough!
Continue reading Winter is Coming (Part 2 of the Snowflake Chronicles)
Ain’t No Snowflakes Here (Part 1 of the Snowflake Chronicles)
Following the Parkland massacre, I began organizing a protest at a gun show in my home town. The gun show has been going on at the county fairgrounds for years. While federally licensed vendors are required to do background checks, private sellers are not. Because of a state preemption law which prevents counties and cities from regulating gun ownership or commerce in guns (and which creates civil penalties for any county or city that tries to), my county has been unable to do anything to stop it.
Continue reading Ain’t No Snowflakes Here (Part 1 of the Snowflake Chronicles)
You Can Do Both! Protest and then …
Today, students around the country are walking out of schools to demand common sense gun laws.
Chocolate Milk and White Supremacy
Last week, Illinois Governor Bruce Rauner participated in an object lesson about diversity which had an unintended lesson.
Why I Support My Child Participating in the School Walk Out on March 14
I know there are some parents who have concerns about their children participating in the school walkouts planned for March 14. They are valid concerns and I share them. I was on a planning call with the national organizers last night with my child (this is organized by the Women’s March) and some of these issues were discussed. Here is how I would respond to the two main concerns: safety and school administrators’ reaction.
Continue reading Why I Support My Child Participating in the School Walk Out on March 14
“If We Just Talk of Thoughts and Prayers”
We sang this at my Unitarian church yesterday. It was powerful! In light of the most recent school shooting, the message is very timely.
Pray Working
There are vigils being held around the country right now for the victims of the latest school shooting. I think these vigils are important: They bring home the tragedy of what has happened. Without these rituals, there is the risk that these terrible events will just sweep by us in the 24-hour news cycle, leaving us unchanged.
But vigils and prayers are not enough.
Well-Behaved Protesters Seldom Make History
Yes, I Drove My SUV To The Environmental Protest
In August 2017, my teenage daughter and I joined hundreds of protesters on the streets of Lincoln, Nebraska to protest the KXL pipeline. To get there, we took a bus from Chicago with other activists. As we rode the bus 12 hours, I was conscious of the fact that we were using fossil fuel to go to a protest of the fossil fuel industry. I chose to take the bus instead of driving (which would have been shorter and would have spared by knees) in part because it was the more environmentally responsible choice, i.e., the cumulative impact of taking the bus was less than everyone driving individually.
Continue reading Yes, I Drove My SUV To The Environmental Protest
10 Things Marching Accomplishes
In January 2017, my family—consisting of myself, my wife, my 18 year-old son, and my 14 year-old daughter—drove from Indiana to Washington, D.C. and joined a half million people for the Women’s March. An estimated 3 million people participated in 500 sister marches around the world. L.A. and New York had about a half million marchers each. Chicago had a quarter million. The turnout was historic and unexpected. All in all, one in every 100 Americans participated! That’s amazing! Continue reading 10 Things Marching Accomplishes
4 Things Every New Activist Should Know
One thing I quickly learned when I became active is that it’s easy to get discouraged. There’s four myths about activism which I think contribute to this. These myths are perpetuated by critics of activists as well as by activists themselves.
The Spirituality Of Protest
“It is time for spiritual people to get active and the activist people to get spiritual. I think we need both now. In order to build the alternatives to our collapsing system which is built on structural violence we need to have a total revolution of the human spirit. We need to combine the inner revolution with the outer revolution.” — Pancho Ramos-Stierele, age 26, arrested at Occupy Oakland while meditating.
Pray With Your Feet 