A request from Kim Acker, member at University Lutheran Church in Palo Alto, to be public witness:
I know you accept the reality of climate change, but what to do about it may remain unclear. Here is my request:
Please take a moment away from the rush, the day-to-day relentlessness.
Pause to feel what’s present for you about climate change. Drop into your vulnerable heart.
Within that space of openness within you, consider my invitation:
We don’t yet know how to talk about climate change. To talk about it in the same breath we talk about Trump, doesn’t do it justice. To talk about the planet our children are inheriting (my children are your children) requires courage and vulnerability. Whether we are conscious of it or not, many of us are feeling the effects of living in the context of ecological degradation and even the prospect of extinction. Our feelings include fear, guilt, and grief. And sitting beside those feelings, there is also joy—joy for the wonder and breathlessness of our natural world and the best of who we are together.
We are experiencing the end of the fossil fuel age.
Many of us are also victims of the fossil fuel industry’s playbook: Create doubt and hopelessness. Doubt the solutions. Debate them. Believe that it’s too late and our personal actions won’t make a difference. All these strategies make us strange bedfellows with the power structures of fossil fuel.
What those powers don’t want us to remember is that we are the sleeping giant. We have power as a people, but we have forgotten it. We don’t feel it when we are alone behind our screens. We have forgotten it because we largely live in isolation from one another and cherish our freedom and independence.
The ending of the fossil fuel era invites us to create a new world of not only using less energy and renewable energy, but also to live in greater relationship to one another and to acknowledge the truth that we live in an interconnected web of life.
In the last few months, I’ve been organizing the 3-day The March for Fossil Fuel Freedom. The march is designed to:
1. build community, develop local leaders, and build local capacity for the movement as a whole (not just this march).
2. show our legislative and corporate leaders with our physical presence on the streets that we stand for the new world, and the ending of the old.
3. use a divestment strategy asking Wells Fargo to be the first American bank to divest from funding new fossil fuel development.
The local indigenous community led by Pennie Opal Plant with Idle No More SF will stand at the head of our march. Having the opportunity to learn from the experience of local indigenous activists like Pennie has nourished and humbled those of us organizing the march. The international women who are leading the indigenous movement have already had success in Europe by working their way into the boardrooms of five European banks to demand divestment. This march follows in their footsteps.
My Invitation:
Join this movement. Be part of this community in any way you can. Yes, we need money, but money isn’t enough. We need bodies.
This is your community—it’s local.
These are your leaders—invest in them.
Do this for yourself. Marching will help you remember that we are part of something more powerful than we can imagine alone. Acting together feels good.
How you can support our effort:
· March for all or part of the march (Sunday marchers are particularly needed)
· Come to a dinner. On Saturday, I will be speaking about my passion–divesting from the industrial food system and supporting local farmers growing soil that sequesters carbon. We will celebrate with good food, music, song, and fellowship.
· Come to the rally on Monday, March 18.
· Reach out to your community, share this message, and invite them in.
· Offer your skills (we are in short supply of media professionals)
· Sponsor a marcher.
Thank you for taking time to consider my invitation to be part of building our power as a people.
Kim Acker