The announcement by workers at Amazon corporate headquarters that they would participate in the Global Climate Strike* a week from today got me to thinking: What if all the writers in the world participated, too? We might as well – our books will stop getting distributed if Amazon’s on strike!
Would that “make a difference”? Well, if the Strike includes writers of commercials and advertisements, the global economy will collapse, and the climate catastrophe will be minimized – at least for those born about 7 generations from now. If it includes writers of television programs, talk radio, news programs, etc., it would constitute a serious disruption. A lot of us teach, and maybe some of us won’t, on Friday. That will upset parents with kids in primary and secondary school. Postsecondary, the administrators won’t notice, and the students will be glad. Maybe the administrators will be glad, too. The cessation of fiction-production will stop a tiny gear in the great capitalist machine, which will keep on humming (and emitting) nonetheless. But if you actually “let your life be a counter-friction to stop the machine”** – by, for instance, disrupting the ordinary functioning of commerce by gluing your hands together and blocking a major highway or shutting down a busy airport – then you’ll get the attention of the powers that be. And you may get run over or tear-gassed. Global literacy rates are undoubtedly higher than they were 200 years ago. But are reading rates? As in short stories, poems, essays? I’m not so sure about that one. If we all go on strike, even indefinitely, I’m not sure how many people would notice, or, of those, how many would object strenuously. A protester against Salman Rushdie’s Satanic Verses admitted to a BBC reporter he had not read the novel: “Books are not my thing,” he sheepishly confessed. Having said that, there are a lot of writers in the world – possibly more than readers. If all those folks struck – just walked out – then yeah, that would make a difference. Because writers are also bus drivers, data engineers, nurses, farmers, etc. But I’m not convinced that our work as writers can tip the needle one way or the other. It is only in our lives as citizens, as agents, as people that we can do that – maybe. If you’re serious about doing whatever yr small self can do to resist extinction, I don’t think this is a struggle you will be able to put on your resume. So, how about this?: We stop working & consuming in the fossil fuel economy for one afternoon – including not driving. We bike, walk, or ride our horse to the nearest rally. The rest of the time (if any) we devote to writing about the climate crisis, and we send what we’ve written in an Email to Exxon-Mobil’s Shareholder Relations Dept. Or better yet, we call their Institutional Investor number (+1) 972-940-6724 and read it to them over the phone. (Exxon-Mobil is the largest CO2 emitter among U.S. Corporations) That may not reduce CO2 emissions, but golly will it ever be fun! See you next Friday! ------- * Click on the link to see if there’s something going on near you. For instance, if you live in Lawrence, Kansas, U.S., there is. ** I think some writer said that.
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June 2021
Kristin Prevallet Author/Editor
I'm a writer & teacher in Lawrence, Kansas who actually believes the scientists. I wrote a book of poems called Of Some Sky that seems to have something to do with all this. |