The Saners Are Coming

You and I will rescue our grievously damaged planet.

No authority or leader or government or institution or billionaire is coming to save us.

The climate is collapsing right now before our eyes. All authorities have failed consistently for every minute of the 35+ years since climate scientist James Hansen publicly warned Congress — and all of us — that we need to slash CO2 emissions sharply and quickly — or suffer serious consequences.

The consequences are here. The latest victims include the people of a town in Maui, who’s homes and lives were destroyed. The increasingly frequent and ferocious disasters we are seeing are NOT natural. They are the inevitable results of ongoing crimes against humanity and crimes against Nature.

We all know the identities of the perpetrators. They include oil companies, Wall Street, all kinds of ultra-wealthy fossil fuel profiteers, and those who profit from assisting them — especially politicians and media. We know all about the flow of money from wealthy people and corporations via their lobbyists to politicians. We fully understand that the policies that facilitate their “profitable” trashing of our planet are purchased. Sensible people never refer to those bribes as “donations.”

But it’s not about the criminals. It’s about Earth and Nature and our children and all living things. We must come to the rescue since the people with power and authority and wealth have failed. It’s up to us. Fortunately, together we can do this.

That’s right. We can.

A Well-Worn Approach

We will be using a methodology pioneered by Mohandas Gandhi, and advanced by others. We will use our version of satyagraha.

Satyagraha is the active non-violence promoted and practiced by Mahatma Gandhi, and later others including Martin Luther King. It is NOT a passive approach. It seizes the initiative and forces change by applying moral force.

Moral force is a seriously under-rated power, which is one reason why it is so powerful. Properly applied, it cannot be defeated. Because moral force is built into every human being. It is a part of our Nature.

I am not as capable, smart or good as Gandhi or King. But none of us need to be. They (and others) have pioneered the path, have shown us the way. We need to follow their lead and apply it to the climate crisis and the crisis of human anger, hatred and hostility.

Love can, does and will trump hate. We will make this happen. We cannot be stopped except by ourselves. We cannot fail except by failing to act, and failing to be resolute.

We must not fail.

The Path, Broadly Speaking

We will be powered by love of our Earth, love of our children, love of Nature. We will refuse to allow their destruction. We will identify the people and systems that are causing this destruction.

We will stop them. We will not hate them. We will not harm them. We recognize the humanity of even our adversaries. We will disarm them with love and with exposure of their deadly and foolish actions. We will lead them away from greed and power lust and to community, to caring, to love, and to LIFE.

When you see our planet, our lives, our biosphere, our communities, CLEARLY, you will find it unimaginable to allow climate abuse, to allow greed, to find pleasure in destroying people and animals and Nature to create mere things. Even those who are leading the destruction will, ultimately, see this.

Our wealth is in our lives, our time, our human experience, our relationship to Earth, to each other and to Nature. Our silly systems, obsessed with property and greed and image and competition have eclipsed all that. We will restore humanity as well as Nature.

The specific and important problem of climate destruction is urgent. It’s an emergency. It requires immediate, serious attention. It requires ACTION. But this crisis is inseparable from our need to restore our souls, our humanity, our sense of community, and our caring for each other.

We cannot have a habitable planet when our actions are motivated by greed, when we seek the dopamine high of money and products and frantic stimulation. That’s not life — that’s a rush to death.

There are literally billions of people who oppose the planet-wide march to death. They love their children and their planet and they can see that fools are destroying all of it. They desperately want to stop it.

I am just one of those people. So are you.

WE cannot wait for others. WE must blaze the path. WE must show the way. WE cannot worry about looking foolish, about being embarrassed, about making mistakes, about not knowing what to do.

We know what to do. At least some of what’s necessary.

We know we need to speak out, to keep the focus on what must be done. We know that FOSSIL FUEL production must be QUICKLY slashed and then eliminated. We know this because this is science and chemistry and we were warned and the consequences of those warnings are coming true TODAY.

We know that excuses, delays and diversions are now deadly and we cannot allow them to waste our time. We know that we must be noisy, disruptive and persistent.

We know that we must seize the initiative and the microphone.

I am beginning. I have been working towards this for nearly two years. Yes, I’m a latecomer. I had faith that leaders would come through, would eventually do the right thing. I was wrong.

Please check out WeAreSaners.org. This is where I will be defining an approach, based on satyagraha as I understand it (which, sadly, is imperfectly but I’m working to understand better).

We start by speaking out, by making noise, and by repeating a clear and specific DEMAND:

We demand an immediate worldwide emergency program, led by climate scientists, to end fossil fuels, end climate abuse and repair our planet.