Today’s Quote

Last week I hosted a music and poetry showcase we held to highlight the climate crisis and a glimmer of hope within it.

One of my closest friends and dynamic musician and storyteller, Average Joey, was in town. His music has always called awareness to the climate crisis and the trauma of living within it. He has been speaking truth to power with his music for over a decade and his upcoming album is entirely centered on the dizzying experience of living in our current times.

After reading the following passage form the book Not Too Late, I was inspired to center this showcase on that very idea. To inspire some hope and action in the climate crisis. We pieced together three artists (Average Joey, Joe fromLongIsland, and then Sand) that created an arc of ripping the blinders off, looking at the problems unflinchingly, and then inspiring some hope that maybe we can do something about it; or at least we can die trying.

Mary Annaïse Heglar writes in the chapter “Here’s Where You Come In” the following:

“The right time to start your climate commitment is always right now.

But the question remains: What can I do? Well, now that you understand that the question is complicated, the answer actually emerges as quite simple: do what you’re good at. And do your best.

If you’re good at making noise, make all the noise you can. Go to climate strikes, call your representatives, organize your neighbors. Vote. Every chance you get. If you’ve got it in you, run for office or volunteer for a campaign. Join something bigger than yourself because this is so much bigger than any of use along. I't’s about all of us, together.

If you’re raising children (and they do not have to be your children— nieces, nephews, and play cousins all count!), teach them to love the Earth and to love each other, teach them the resilience that shows up as empathy. If you’re good at taking care of people, take care of the legions of weary climate warriors. If you’re a good cook, cook. Find the people helping and help them. Make it as sustainable as you can within your means, but more than anything, share it, build a community around it.

The artists I spoke to… lamented the fact that they weren’t engineers or scientists or some other type of “expert.” But, as I told them, it is not their jobt o design the policy plan for rapid decarbonization, to decide which coal plants to shut down first, and what exactly to replace them with. We have people on that. As the writer Toni Cade Bambara once put it, the role of the artist is to “make revolution irresistible.””

This is just the start. This showcase. This newsletter. There is so much work to be done and it’s an inspiring notion that we can each add to climate action with the skills and interests we already have.

We can’t stop climate change. It’s already happening. But what a story it is for us to tell as a species if we can manage to mitigate the damage we’ve done. Learn from these painful lessons and create a better society for our grandchildren to grow up in.

Even if we fail, at least we will have tried. That’s inspiring, at least for me.

Keep Your Head Up!

Thank you for being here. Take care of yourself.

Reply to this email if you have a story to share. I’d love to hear it.

See you next tomorrow!