Is the author an activist? Historically books have incited change in movements from civil rights to environmental and climate justice. If books inspire and instigate change, if books have the power to penetrate another’s mind, to speak to someone in a way that rallying at a podium could not, then books are activism, and the authors that write them – they’re activists. But writing takes time, while pressing environmental issues offer marginal, if any, time.
When Tim DeChristopher of Bidder 70 is told that the past generation has failed him, failed to protect his future from destructive disequilibrium of climate change, he does not despair or adopt “live like you’re dying” approach to the planet. He acts. While DeChristopher’s actions did not immediately stop the oil and gas industry, his story still inspires peaceful protests against the industries he attempts to thwart.
The story lights the movement. The story draws people in. Imagine if the documentary had not been made: I wouldn’t have known of Tim’s actions, learned the power of one person, or thought about the importance of actions matching sentiment. We learn from stories; storytelling is an innate and deeply ingrained form of passing down histories and knowledge. Knowledge is power, and even if knowledge is slow to be shared, there remains power in the slow movement, in the daily actions, the little actions, the slowly crafted stories and films that work their way into our hearts and minds. The heart and mind: Is that not what the environmentalist seeks to change?
I don’t know if this blog is the best place for amateur poetry, but I was feeling the need to creatively compress my thoughts about class so far.
The author is the activist.
Act first you say?
Ideas first, the writer says
writing makes sense of
the clouds in mind
the acts we fail to define.
Who is the true activist?
Write and you will learn
What the initial draft could never teach
See where the words start to turn
masses, you could reach
Write the story.
Visit the act
of the activist
Tell the story.
Speak. On your knees –
For the trees
Like Harriet Beecher Stowe
Like there’s a story we need to know
Like Carson on the silent spring,
Spring us to action
Let knowledge ring!
Too slow is the story you say?
I say, it may not be instant,
But constant
Writing, reading, inciting, dreaming.
The book, the film, the artwork – the acts
that keep on acting
So, pick up your pencils, your cameras, your paints
It’s time for some monkeywrenching.
