Call to Action
Check out REGENERATION: Ending the Climate Crisis in One Generation by Paul Hawken or visit the companion website www.regeneration.org to find a handbook for making a bigger difference for the world’s sake.
Survey the impacts of climate change in your corner of the world and determine what you want to help to fix.
Start talking out loud about this in your networks to find some like-minded folks who also want to make a difference. Organize using Hawken’s book as a gentle guide and share the book and website widely.
Electoral politics are at a frustrating stalemate regardless of how Congress sorts out Joe Biden’s Build Back Better plan. In legislatures across the country Trump Loyalists are rolling back electoral gains from 2020 and we await developments from COP26, the big climate convocation in Glasgow. We cannot ignore these events but, frankly, there is not that much that we at MWR can think of, at the moment, to mobilize opinion and move the needle.
We will continue to fight for voting rights protection and abortion access and to organize to keep the House and the Senate out of the hands of the January 6 insurrectionists. But as we wait for the next round of electoral action, let’s take stock of the biggest crisis facing us: human-caused global warming and the need for a human-powered response to it.
Take time to check out Paul Hawken’s new book, Regeneration: Ending the Climate Crisis in One Generation. His restorative climate change framework focuses on environmental concerns AND the interconnecting social justice issues. The book and web site provide accessible information on all the major environmental issues, as well as guidelines for acting personally and collectively. There are links that point to how to join the national and global folks who know, as we do, that we must all make a difference now.
The invitation from Hawken and his team is to engage in collective action to stop the damage and heal what has been harmed by working at levels where you can make a difference: in your family, neighborhood, community, workplace and elsewhere. The call is to include and go beyond recycling, solar panels and hybrid cars to bigger collective efforts that have greater power to end the climate crisis. When we engage in this work with others, we build the communities we long to live in, increase our commitment to the long arc of the work, hold ourselves accountable, benefit from different perspectives and amplify the impact of our efforts.
My Weekly Resistance came together as a response to the Trump election of 2016 and the resurgence of authoritarian political power in America. Trump’s election represented an unexpected political emergency. Unfortunately, Joe Biden’s victory did not end that emergency. While we will be fighting these battles for the foreseeable future, we should always be working on the fundamental issues of climate change and social justice - personally and in our communities. Hawken’s book and website provide important tools for that essential work. Check them out and spread the word throughout your networks.
We will share our take on electoral politics and citizen lobbying soon. In the meantime, read, reflect, join others and re-organize!