LITTLE ROCK — What difference does it make?” is a common refrain expressed by some, who consider it hopeless to confront the tide of global environmental degradation that now seems close to insurmountable.
However, others become activists in contrast to their fellow residents, who have assumed fetal positions of surrender. Passionate people will fight on for different reasons, and like any other defenders of the common good, we should respect what they do for us all.
Fayetteville has seen activism in a great number of civic environmental upheavals such as the solid waste incinerator issue 25 years ago, landfi ll and quarry wars, defense of wetland and green space areas, tree planting and preservation work, solid waste concerns, road widening and boulevard debates, sewer plant locations and stench issues, herbicide spraying, hillside development, watershed and stream protection and land-use impact clashes over development.
National and state issues draw less direct resident action because of the lack of personal closeness and perceived risk people experience with distance.
In Arkansas, for example, those in the center of the state dealing with the consequences of gas well fracking do not get much help from those of us up in the northwest corner who don’t grasp what this damage really means to all of us.
On the national level, global warming or “climate change,” if that phrase makes you feel better somehow, finally seemed to be getting some traction when the president actually mentioned the topic in his State of the Union address. It seemed for one shining moment perhaps hurricanes, drought and melting glaciers had fi nally made an impression on the collective body politic. A week ago, an estimated 35,000 to 50,000 people attended the Forward on Climate rally in Washington, D.C., which focused on an immediate threat, the Keystone Pipeline to be built from western Canada across the middle of the U.S. to Texas refi neries and gulf ports. Thousands more rallied in other cities including Chicago, San Francisco, Seattle and Los Angeles.
When processed, transported, refi ned andburned, the oil from the Canadian tar sands, gouged from miles of earth, will add more carbon to the planet’s atmosphere than can ever be reversed. It will be “game over” as James Hansen, head of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies, has so succinctly and famously put it. To add insult to injury, this oil will be largely for foreign sales so the claim of it providing us “energy independence” is a cruel hoax. It is also an economic travesty.
Up until this rally, our local activism on climate change has seemingly been more academic than physical, and the OMNI Center for Peace, Justice and Ecology has served as the local educational hub on the topic. Their website explains simply that 350 parts per million (ppm) of carbon is the level “that the climate and environmental systems of the earth as we know them can be maintained. As a point of reference, it was 1988 when the earth’s atmosphere contained 350 PPM of CO2.” Currently the carbon dioxide level is 392 ppm and rising about 2 ppm every year (Informative websites: 350.org and priceofoil.org).
At least 17 people from Fayetteville and seven from Little Rock are known to have made the long and expensivetrip to Washington to attend this rally. One reported, “(There were) some surprises ... size of the crowd and the diversity in bitter, bitter cold where even wearing fi ve layers, fingers felt they were falling off ... people smiling, not angry .... people feeling joy and happiness, dancing, taking pictures, the energy and the can-do attitude of the new generation.” She said there were “college coeds in heels and many mothers, who said their pre-teen kids made them come ... bus loadsfrom the east coast ... Jewish synagogue groups, Quakers, Christians, Hindus, Muslims.
Almost all religious groups were there, all ethnicities, Asians, Latinos, native tribes, older, younger, handicapped, and people even brought their dogs and small children and families.”
She continued, “I am glad I went. It was completely safe.
I made a difference, and it does matter when you show up in person and each of us can make a diff erence.”
I hope she’s right. Mr.
Obama did not bother to stay in town and show respect for these thousands of cold, committed and concerned visitors. According to the Huftngton Post, he was in Florida playing golf with oil and gas industry fellows. I still want to know where they get their rarifi ed air.
FRAN ALEXANDER IS A FAYETTEVILLE RESIDENT WITH A LONGSTANDING INTEREST IN THE ENVIRONMENT AND AN OPINION ON ALMOST ANYTHING ELSE.
Opinion, Pages 11 on 02/24/2013