Juneuary blues
Having just moved back to Washington state from Hawaii, it’s cold.
Growing up in this area, the weather was far different. Climate disruption has changed every season, but summer feels the most altered. Last year at this time we had a Heat Dome that killed a few people, and millions of plants and animals. The accompanying drought killed many more for month after month. Yet, so far this year we are well into what, when I was a kid, we called “Juneuary.” That is a name given more for its unusual cool than for its regularity.
What does the weather have to do with inequality, you may wonder. Everything. Homeless people, particularly, are at high risk. Those without options during intense heat, or even the people out there today that are sleeping outside, are braving very bad weather.
Living near Seattle has become close to impossible since the traffic and homelessness issues continue to get worse and worse. Yet, many people — and places — have no say in what conditions they face.
Everywhere you look, however, you see even the weather is politicized. This has to stop, because at a billion different intersections ( yes, some more dangerous than others) we are all in this together.
Summer in the city
Cities are notorious for inadequate housing, urban heat zones, food deserts, and more pollution overall where the disadvantaged are forced to live and breathe. As time goes on, water shortages and the food supply chain is more and more impacted.
We are seeing only the beginning right now.
Greening our cities will conserve water, fight heat, provide gardens where we once had empty lots and parking garages. We need every person who eats and breathes, however, to realize equality requires a say — protected voting and representative democracy, and participation, an equal opportunity to create and have healthy food, strong community, and access to healthy lifestyles and healthcare itself.
And all these things, of course, require an education system based on truth, actual history, and a safe environment at school.
In other words, we have a lot of work to do.
Equality can’t happen in an uneven climate
The wealth gap, and things like the pandemic, must get much worse before they get better.
A revolution for equality is the only answer, according to some.
Polarization is a sure path to more destruction because when we choose sides we are not collaborating on pragmatic solutions. The answer to dealing with enormous challenges such as pandemics and climate disasters can only come with uniting for a common cause.
A revolution may happen, but its cost would be quite high. We can also look to history to see how inevitable change, collaboration, innovation and ongoing adaptation happen more often than French Revolutions. We may also do well to recall that France, and indeed all of Europe, went through some real terror before the dust settled into liberte’, egalite’ and fraternite.’
If we are not careful in our search for representative equality, we could well end up with an emperor who has no clues, but who does have a lust for power that is as huge as his ego.
Right now some people note that Putin fits that description, but we also have would be tyrants in our own nation that are better at pointing fingers than they are at creating unity and real patriotism.
To address the actual climate, we have to fix the political climate. We have to work on both at once.
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This post was previously published on medium.com.
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You may also like these posts on The Good Men Project:
White Fragility: Talking to White People About Racism | Escape the “Act Like a Man” Box | The Lack of Gentle Platonic Touch in Men’s Lives is a Killer | What We Talk About When We Talk About Men |
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Photo credit: Oleg Gospodarec on Unsplash