Is Wanting To Save The World A Niche Thing? Apparently!

2/25/19

In your house, you are endlessly particular and in control, shifting things around until it looks right. The air conditioning, the water filter, where or where not to put the carpet. Until it feels right. In other words, you care about your house. You care about your wellbeing in it. You will change your house drastically even if you haven’t in years if there is a problem you need to solve. Or, fine - apartment. You will move the chairs and add some to a room if there is a party. If there is a gas leak, you will find a way to fix it, no matter how much it costs, because you don’t want to die. You will add an extra blanket to a sofa if it is cold. If it is warm, you will open the windows and let the breeze in. You care about your house.

But your house is not your Home.

There is a threat coming. It is pervasive, the darkness will seep in no matter what lamps you have on inside. The atmosphere itself. Nothing can protect you.

Hey, dipwad, don’t stop reading now. I have good news!

You can fight what’s coming.

If you want. It’s all up to you, really. No one can force you to fight like your life is hanging by a thread (because it does). That requires a certain long-term thinking that not everyone has. Living day-to-day is different than living, period. A friend of mine taught me that.

So.

Now that we’ve decided I’m not going to pull a bag over your head and drag you over to my side of the barricades, do you want me to describe the threat, so you can better arm yourselves? May I humbly ask that you join me in this battle to preserve humanity?

The threat is climate change. “Oooh, scary!” Don’t be fresh with me. It’s not far away. It’s not years off. It’s knocking on your door, rattling the doorknob desperately, attempting to break the whole thing down so it can reach you.

Don’t let it.

I’m not going to talk about how there were two recent thunderstorms in L.A. in the span of a few months (as opposed to one in the span of years), or bring up the polar vortex that brought below -50 degree weather to the midwest and killed more than 20 people, or discuss how it was so hot for Australia this past January that thousands of animals died and the roads melted. I’m not going to talk about it. You already knew, in your heart of hearts.

I’m going to talk about people.

I’m going to talk about people, because according to mainstream Western news and culture, caring about the Earth is a specific thing, a branded thing. Like the Earth is a cult classic, and there’s a group of crazy fans devoted to it (they creep you out). An “everyone has their thing” thing. Nah. The Earth is not a niche interest. I mean, it certainly looks that way now, but that’s because most people can’t see past their own big heads and look at what’s really going on. Everyone should care about the Earth - because everyone lives on it! It is literally that simple! It is not a TV show, or a flavor of ice cream, or dubstep. It is not something “that some people can be fans of.”

It is, instead, one of the only things people actually have in common. It is not my job to care about the earth. It’s all of our jobs, all of our duties, to care, to show we care. You can’t pass it along to one individual, two individuals, an organization. What can I say to you so you get it in your head that this is your problem?

It’s insidious, is what it is.

To people who don’t get it, it’s almost nothing. To people who get it, it’s a sense of wide-eyed fear and anger so strong it keeps you up at night and makes you wonder how others could just drift along living normal lives. It sets you against everything you knew and were comfortable with. It sets you against the system, and the socialized acceptance of global warming. There is nothing acceptable about any of what we’ve done to this land. But I’ve fought so long, so hard, written words of passion over and over…

You are with us, or you get out of our way. Because we are not stopping.

I’m off to do more work with my niche friends, for my niche groups, driven by the Spaceship Earth.

. . .

(Angry Earth by Kevin Carter)