Catherine talked with me this morning about what she was reading in Timothy Morton's, Being Ecological. The issue being discussed was how "we", the human species, need to act collectively even though we are so divided along so many fault lines, because it is "we" who are the cause of the climate crisis, not sea horses. This led me to wondering:
Do those of us who insist on the requirements for justice impede the work for effective climate action?
I re-listened to words from Mark 14:7 as spoken to me - not from Jesus but from a sea horse: "You will always have the poor with you ... but you will not always have me."
Jesus was right. The need for correcting injustice will never go away. And there will always be occasions when insisting on justice prevents doing what this moment is calling for.
It is increasingly clear to me that the past 50 years of climate justice action that I have been involved in have not accomplished the scale of responses that are needed. And were based on assumptions of timing and stability that no longer are true. We need to stop asking, "Is this just?" And start asking only question, "Will this eliminate the burning of coal, oil, and gas?" This is the question the sea horse needs an answer to. Because if we don't quickly get this right we will no longer have the sea horse with us.
David Ewart
