The 2008 (and beyond?) Climate Fast

February 18, 2008

Ending last year’s long fast,

I resolved to continue,

   as best I could,

the spirit and intention

of those 107 days

by fasting every Monday

Every Monday

for some undetermined

period of time

on water only.

I’m thinking as of now—

   seven weeks into it,

   seven Mondays since

   the beginning of the year,

   in the late afternoon

   of February 18,

   feeling the effects

   of 18-19 hours

   without food—

(I’ve probably said or written

many score times

over the years

that the hardest part of a fast

is the beginning.

I remember that

just about every Monday,

just about this time,

mid- to late-afternoon,

as my energy level drops

and my stomach

lets me know

it’s waiting—

   “What’s wrong?

   Are you doing this to me again?

   Are you crazy?”–

One of my young co-worker’s moms

used that word, “crazy,”

to describe what I did

last year.

The same mother,

the same beautiful woman

who is now

fighting for her life,

in a hospital bed

in a Washington hospital.

Struck down suddenly

by unexpected illness

while seemingly

in her prime,

middle years of life.

A reminder

to appreciate openly

those I know,

those I respect and love,

never knowing

what the next day,

the next hour,

may bring.

A reminder that all of life

is precious and to be appreciated.

“Every step was a prayer of thanksgiving,”

says the saying on my wall,

describing Native American philosophy

at its best.)

I’m thinking today

that I will probably

continue this fast until

the U.S. government

passes

   Genuinely

   Strong

   Climate

   Legislation.

Not Lieberman-Warner—

   STRONG CLIMATE LEGISLATION.

Until the United States of America

has turned the corner

and is, not a world pariah,

but, at long last, finally, 

a world leader for what’s right.

A world which needs

so desperately

a different USA.

A USA

making contact

with its best traditions,

not just in speeches

but in day-to-day reality.

The revolutionary traditions,

the “give me your tired,

your poor, yearning

to breathe free” traditions,

the “with liberty and justice

for all” traditions.

They’re more than traditions,

unrealized traditions,

they’re living reality

in the lives of hundreds of thousands

right now,

all over the country,

As we struggle for

justice, for peace

and for a clean energy revolution.

In the words of Isaiah, 58, 6-9:

“Is not this the fast that I choose:

   to loose the bonds of injustice,

   to undo the thongs of the yoke,

   to let the oppressed go free. . .

   to share your bread with the hungry,

   and bring the homeless poor

      into your house;

   when you see the naked,

      to cover them. . .

Then you shall call,

and the Lord will answer;

you shall cry for help,

and he will say,

Here I am.”

I thank the Great Spirit

for the many people

in my life

who have made

it possible for me

to make my contributions,

however great or small

they may be.

May I never lose faith or hope.

May all of our efforts

be fruitful, and soon!

Two days ago, December 19th, Congress’ last day of work for this fall, following the House’s vote in support of $70 billion in no-strings-attached money for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and, as a result, in support of an appropriations bill for 2008 that includes almost $30 billion in loan guarantees for nukes and coal, I began to eat solid foods.

The first things that I used my teeth to chew on since September 4th, the day Congress returned from its summer recess, were a regular potato and a sweet potato, followed by some mixed vegetables.

It was good to eat, but it would have been much, much better if the end to this fast were not so bittersweet.

I do give thanks that a pretty weak energy bill was passed which does represent the beginnings of a turn away from our fossil fuel addiction, as limited as that bill is and problematic as parts of it are, particularly its dramatic support for corn-based and other forms of ethanol.

On the other hand, perhaps it was fitting that the continued dominance over this Congress by the oil, coal, nuclear and gas interests was made clear by these last few days of voting. Because of that dominance there was virtually no money for renewable energy in the energy bill that was signed by Bush on the 19th, while an extremely modest effort to repeal tax breaks for oil companies in that bill was threat-of-filibustered out.

And that awkward wording is deliberate. There wasn’t a filibuster, just a threat of one, the tactic used by Republicans over and over this year, the tactic the Democrats only once called their bluff on, and that in a half-hearted way.

When will we have leadership in Congress that stands up to evil?

And these people are evil. I called the Bush/Cheney gang “climate criminals” on Democracy Now during a December 11th interview. That’s what they are, liars, deceivers, obstructionists–evil.

In this Christmas season, the words of Jesus come to mind: “love your enemies.” Yes, we should love these enemies by confronting them, by getting as close to them as we can, and telling them that they need to be “born again” to the truth of what they are doing so that, like Paul on the road to Damascus, they can become powerful witnesses to help the world take the necessary steps so that we and our descendants, the seventh generation, can have a future worth living for, worth living in.

Are there any people with a conscience left within the Bush administration?

Fortunately, outside of that administration more and more of us are stepping it up. That is where my hope for the future comes from. That is why I intend to begin fasting again after the first of the year.

Every Monday, for an indefinite period of time, certainly for many months, I will eat no food and drink water only.

I don’t want to forget or lose touch with the many, many positive things that have happened on this 107-day, 2007 climate emergency fast:

-the expressions of support and appreciation from so many people, friends, relatives, co-workers, people I didn’t know before. All of us need to feel appreciated, and I’m no different. To feel that support was very strengthening;

-the daily remembrance of what is being done to our earth and all of its life forms because of the actions of powerful, evil people; the sense of connection to those suffering as a result; and the heightened appreciation of the need for me to do all that I can to help to change those realities;

-the sense that I was playing as effective a role as I could within the climate movement and the larger progressive movement, that my willingness to take action on a daily basis amplified what I had to say;

-the personal weight loss which, while greater (45 pounds) than what is healthy for me long-term, will hopefully help me to be more disciplined as I return to eating and keep my weight where it should be;

-and finally, the truly amazing things that happened on this fast that never would have if I wasn’t doing it. Like the vivid dream I had on the 12th night followed the next day by an interpretation of it by a prominent Indigenous leader who by some coincidence or by fate was with me at a conference. Or the close friend and fellow activist who asked me to pray to Jesus with him for the strength to carry on, day to day, with this sometimes difficult work. Or the many young people at the Power Shift conference who came up to me and thanked me for what I was doing. Or the sense of connection I had, especially during the water-only, first 25 days, with the plants and animals I encountered as I walked around the neighborhood in Takoma Park, Md. where I was staying.

I hope other people will want to join with me on this every-Monday, 2008 climate emergency fast. We can’t forget that our energies and our commitment are needed now, right now, that 2008 will be a critical year in our desperate struggle to slow, stop and reverse the path toward the cliff we are being driven by those in power.

From October 21-23, 2007, hundreds young and old rose up against war and global warming by participating in an intervention in Washington DC. Their demand:

STOP the war in Iraq and future resource wars by ending our addiction to fossil fuels.

SHIFT government funding to rebuild New Orleans and all communities suffering from racism and corporate greed.

GO green and promote environmental justice with new jobs in a clean energy economy.

Resistance is building, and the call continues. Visit www.nowarnowarming.org to learn more.

I had what I guess was a moment of weakness earlier this evening. I was taking a walk on my way to the store to get some juice and veggie soup but also just taking a walk to clear my head. I started meditating on the question, what should I do now about this fast, given that every indication is that the Senate tomorrow, if they don’t do it this evening, and the House next Tuesday or so will be passing a significantly weakened energy bill. It will still have some good things in it, particularly the increase in fuel efficiency standards for cars made in the USA to 35 mpg by 2020, but on a scale of 1 to 10 it has become something like a 4 or 5 after being more like a 6 or 7 before the Senate took a scalpel to a pretty good House bill, pretty good given the nature of this Congress and the relative strength of the climate movement.

My moment of weakness was to think that since it looks like this is pretty much a done deal right now that maybe I should start eating tomorrow. I’d like to. I’d particularly like to because there’s a staff holiday party for my sisters and brothers who work out of the house in Takoma Park, Md. that’s the headquarters for 15 of us who work for the Chesapeake Climate Action Network and USCEC. I would love to break this fast with these people for whom I have a great deal of love and respect. It would be very special.

But then I realized that this would be almost selfish.

I’m doing OK on this fast. I’ve got a routine down. I’m getting enough nourishment and am able to do the work I want to do. There’s no indication that I’m doing any damage to my body. And most importantly, there’s a lot of damage that could be done by the members of the House and Senate before they adjourn next week, probably at the end of the week.

A few hours ago I got an email alert from Michael Mariotte of the Nuclear Information and Resource Service (www.nirs.org) that there is an effort underway to insert into the huge, omnibus budget bill a lot of taxpayer money for problematic loan guarantees. In Michael’s words,

“$25 billion for nukes, $10 billion for renewables (which is fine), $10 billion for coal to liquids, $2 billion for uranium enrichment, $2 billion for coal to gas,

“While the $10 billion for renewables might be welcome, the package as a whole reflects misplaced priorities and a lost opportunity to address the climate crisis. Indeed, such an energy policy would make things far worse and make it much harder to reduce carbon emissions.

“Throwing taxpayer money at wealthy utilities is not the way toward a sane, sustainable energy future.

“*Please call your Senators and Representative today! No loan guarantees for nuclear power (nor coal!)! Tell them to reject the entire omnibus appropriations bill if it includes such loan guarantees.

“Capitol Switchboard: 202-224-3121

“If you can make an additional call, then call Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and tell him to stand up to the polluting energy interests and not to allow such a parting gift to retiring Senator Pete Domenici and the outgoing Bush Administration. Senator Reid’’s office is 202-224-3542.”

There are also persistent reports of efforts to put similar things into the farm bill.

It’s not time to give up the fight and slip into that beckoning, laid-back holiday frame of mind. A lot of bad things could happen over the next week if we are not vigilant, if we do not keep up the pressure.

So I will soldier on. I will stay on my liquid diet until Congress adjourns. I will keep making phone calls up to Capitol Hill. And I hope many of the rest of us who get it on the urgency of the climate crisis begin to or keep making calls too.

I was reminded about why I began this fast 100 days ago when I read a column last night about midnight by my good friend Ross Gelbspan, Beyond the Point of No Return (http://gristmill.grist.org/story/2007/12/10/165845/92). It was very sobering, at its root a heart-felt cry by this great man, this hero of our generation, for the world, for those of us who know what is going on, to face up to the truth about climate change. In Ross’ words:

“The truth is that we may already be witnessing the early stages of runaway climate change in the melting of the Arctic, the increase in storm intensity, the accelerating extinctions of species, and the prolonged nature of recurring droughts.”

After a brilliant and incisive, no-punches-pulled elaboration of the evidence for this assessment and the implications of it, Ross’ conclusion about what this means for human society is right on target:

“To keep ourselves afloat, we need to change the economic and political structures that determine how we behave. In this case, we need to elevate the ethic of cooperation over the deeply ingrained reflex of competition. We need to elevate our biological similarities over our geographical differences. We need, in the face of this oncoming onslaught, to reorganize our social structures to reflect our most humane collective aspirations.”

I was talking with another hero of the climate movement, Mike Tidwell, two days ago and I said to Mike that as I saw it there were two major obstacles in the way of our turning around our desperate reality. One is the power of the oil and coal industries in the U.S. and internationally. The other is the need, as Ross writes, for us as a movement, for us as a nation and a world, to move beyond the competitive, money-and-power-first bottom line of the dominant culture to one in which collaboration and working-well-with-others is the cultural attribute most practiced, most upheld as the personal and societal objective to strive for.

These 100 days of not eating on this soon-to-end fast have only deepened this understanding and this personal commitment on my own part to do everything I can each day to help us get to this point.

And I’ve re-learned something else on this fast. It’s that you become more human, more alive, a more positive human being when you are willing to risk something for what you believe.

On this fast I’ve risked damage to my health. I’ve also risked spending long hours in jail by my participation in three acts of nonviolent civil disobedience, yesterday being the latest when Jane Califf, my wife, and I were arrested in the office of Senate Republican Minority Leader Mitch McConnell while demanding that Republican Senators support the inclusion of renewable energy in the energy bill currently being negotiated. The other two were on September 27th, at the U.S. State Department protesting the Bush administration’s sham climate conference of the world’s major carbon polluting nations, and on October 22nd up on Capitol Hill as part of the first No War No Warming (www.nowarnowarming.org) action.

I sometimes wonder why more climate activists, and activists within other progressive movements, aren’t getting arrested. I know that many of us are deeply troubled by what we see happening to the earth’s ecosystem. I know that many of us work hard in our own ways to bring about change. But it’s just a relative handful, a paltry percentage of our movement, really, who have been willing to participate in nonviolent direct action over the last couple of years. My guess is that there can’t be more than a few hundred people at most who have done so over that period of time.

Maybe it’s the influence of an environmental movement culture whose base historically has been overwhelmingly not just white and middle-class but white and upper-middle- and upper-class. For the young people who have come into the movement in just the last few years–and there are thankfully a huge number of them–maybe it’s the fact that there continue to be a growing number of victories on college campuses to get schools to institutionally commit to switching over to clean energy, or the fact that since Al Gore’s movie, An Inconvenient Truth, the climate issue has become a major “in issue” within the media and culture. Maybe this is giving those young people, on the one hand, a sense of hope in the possibilities of change, which is a good thing, but also almost a false misunderstanding about the limitations of those positive developments given the great urgency of the crisis.

Maybe conditions just haven’t ripened enough yet to the point where there’s the kind of explosive upsurge that, all of a sudden, makes revolutionary change seem very real, very possible. History shows, without a doubt, that sooner or later these kind of qualitative leaps forward do happen.

Maybe 2008 will be the year that this upsurge happens. In these last few days, however many more it turns out to be, of this climate emergency fast, I pray with all my heart that it will be so.

Sit in continues at Senator McConnell’s office

Ted Glick, coordinator of the US Climate Emergency Council (USCEC) and on the 99th day of a climate emergency fast, along with a number of other people, continues their sit in at the office of Senator Mitch McConnell. They are demanding a meeting with Senator McConnell to discuss the need for a strong renewable energy package to be included in the Energy Bill currently being negotiated within the Senate.

Senator McConnell’s office is scheduled to close at 6 PM. Glick and others plan to refuse to voluntarily leave at that time and will risk arrest if necessary to press their demands.

Glick can be reached in Senator McConnell’s office at either 973-460-1458 or 973-930-0549. Senator McConnell’s office is Room 361-A in the Russell Senate office building.

Courier Journal Coverage here

###

This Tuesday morning the 11th, around 10 a.m., on the 99^th day of my climate emergency fast, I’m going to the Senate office on Capitol Hill of Mitch McConnell, the top-ranking Republican in the Senate. And I’m going to stay there for a while, attempting to draw attention to the anger that a lot of us feel about this latest outrage by Republican leaders in Washington out of touch with even their own rank and file. According to a recent Zogby poll, 77% of Republicans agree that utilities should be required to produce some of their energy from clean sources such as wind and solar.

Despite this reality, McConnell led the Republicans in a successful effort Friday morning to defeat a surprisingly good—for this Congress—energy bill passed by the House on Thursday. A key part of that bill, and a part singled out by Republicans as a main reason for their opposition, was a requirement that 13 years from now, by 2020, utility companies must get 15% of their power from renewable sources, from the sun, wind, tides, the earth’s heat and other clean sources.

Never mind the fact that half the states have already passed legislation mandating something similar, some of them with stronger requirements. Never mind the fact that there was a 20% reduction in the amount of sea ice in the Arctic between the end of this summer and the end of the summer of 2005. Never mind the fact that the House renewables requirement is actually quite modest, as is true for other parts of the bill.

It is absolutely clear that what we need is not a 1% a year increase in renewable energy, or a 3/4 of a mile per year increase in fuel efficiency standards, which is what the CAFÉ provision of the House bill provides for, to an average of 35 miles per gallon by 2020. After all, mpg for cars is over 40 for Europe and 35 for China right now!

What we need is a full-fledged, deep-seated, through-going clean energy revolution. If we’re going to have a chance of avoiding the catastrophic climate change that we’re staring down the gun barrel at right now, we must make that qualitative and quantitative shift as soon as possible. We must do on the energy issue what we did in 1942 when the U.S., following the December 7, 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor, rapidly shifted from a peacetime to a wartime economy in the battle to defeat Hitler and Japanese fascism.

This time, we need to defeat the oil and coal interests and their enablers in other parts of the economy and in Congress. Those are the corporate interests who are behind what McConnell and his partners did on Friday.

I was asked yesterday by someone I was trying to recruit for this sit-in idea what I thought could come of it.

One thing that might come of it is an intensification of grassroots pressure—calls, faxes, emails, visits—to the offices of Senators, demanding that they must include support of renewable energy in any energy bill they pass. An energy bill without significant support for renewables is like sex without love, religion without God, or democracy without free and fair elections.

Another thing that should come of this is that some Republicans and, for that matter, weak-kneed Democrats might think twice next time before they do something like this again.

But perhaps more important, what an action like this can do is give hope and courage to those thousands of young people who attended the historic Power Shift conference over a month ago, encourage their taking action where they are. It can help to build a spirit of resistance within the broader environmental, climate and progressive movement that we are going to need going forward into 2008 and 2009 when the absolutely decisive showdowns in Washington, D.C. will be taking place over a new U.S. government climate policy.

I know that there’ll be others with me on Tuesday morning, hopefully a lot of us, and I hope that there’ll be similar actions this week at the district offices of Senate Republicans who voted with McConnell and for the corporate polluters on Friday . McConnell’s office is room number 361-A in the Russell Building on Constitution Avenue up on Capitol Hill.

Resistance is forming, no war, no warming!

Yesterday was the 91st day of this fast, and I spent it on Capitol Hill, on a very windy late fall day. It was a day on which I began to feel that this fast could actually have a relatively happy ending with the passage of a pretty good energy bill. Over the weekend, press reports indicated that Nancy Pelosi is leading an effort to make that happen, and she has to be given credit for that. Although it’s still unknown to most of the world exactly what her and others’ work is going to end up with as far as a piece of legislation, there are positive signs.

I’ve been back in D.C. for several days and intend to be here for a couple more weeks, until the House and Senate vote on this energy bill. Today and throughout this week I’ll be going back to Capitol Hill to do all that I can in this crucial last phase of the fast, at this important time for our climate, to have an impact with key elected officials. Especially important for pressure right now are “moderate” Republican Senators in these states: New Hampshire, Maine, Alaska, Minnesota, Nevada, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, South Dakota, Oregon and Tennessee.

Now is the time for all of us to be calling Senators and Representatives with the message that we want a strong energy bill: 35 mpg cars, mandate at least 15% renewable energy for utilities, cut tax breaks for big oil, extend tax credits for and support renewable energy, no loan guarantees for nukes. Those are the key issues.

Of course, this bill, in the words of Energy Action leader Jessy Tolkan in a press release put out by 8 climate groups yesterday at our Capitol Hill press conference, should be understood as not the end-all but as “a down payment on the urgent task of addressing the global warming crisis. Passage of a strong bill should be seen as just the beginning of a continuing campaign to end our country’s fossil fuel addiction.”

Even the best possible energy bill from this particular Congress will not change the hard reality that the USA is behind most of the the rest of the industrialized world on this issue. Europe’s cars already are getting an average of over 40 mpg, and for China it’s 35 mpg, and in this developing energy bill the USA wouldn’t reach 35 mpg until 2020.

I don’t believe we have that kind of time on this issue, I really don’t, and I also don’t believe that there’s any good reason to move slowly. I read yesterday evening of new developments with compressed air powered cars that are about to go into mass production in Australia. Short bursts of compressed air can do what gas, air and sparks from sparks plugs do in our engines right now: power the pistons. And there’s zero carbon pollution from air.

We can move much more quickly to much more significant and dramatic changes away from our fossil fuel addiction.

I am totally, 100% convinced, that if the world collectively puts its intelligence, energies and resources into solving the climate crisis–which of necessity means a turn away from wars for oil and natural gas and the huge sums of money and human energy put into them–that we can prevent catastrophic climate change. We cannot prevent years, decades, of disrupted and often highly destructive weather, but it can be ameliorated and, working together, the world can be about economic and infrastructure changes that help those most impacted by these changes over the coming decades.

Every day, every day of our lives going forward, we need to take action, we need to speak up about the need to conserve energy, the need to make the clean energy revolution. We’re on the edge of that fundamental shift. Now is the time to get the 110th U.S. Congress to make what, for them, would be a dramatic statement that they’re prepared to step up to the plate and join the world. Let’s work the Congress this week and next until they do the right thing!

Wanting Food

Making a veggie soup

in my kitchen

and I open

the refrigerator door,

see the cheese,

and feel a

Very

Strong

Longing

to eat.

That hasn’t happened much

on this now 84-day fast.

As I said today,

when asked about

how I dealt with

being around people

eating turkey

and the rest

over Thanksgiving,

“I’ve turned off my brain

to food

until this fast is over.”

Brave words,

human being,

“man of actions,”

“national leader.”

Right now,

all I want is—

   what?—

I want food—

but not more strongly

than I want

a clean energy revolution.

For the first national steps

to be taken

down that road

of hope and promise.

For the sake of that

Absolutely

Essential

Turning

I will will my appetite

back into the place

it’s been usually staying

for almost three months.

Submerged,

back burnered,

turned off,

overcome.

It is easier to overcome

the pangs of hunger

than the coal and oil lobbies,

but I stay strong,

knowing they are the past.

Ted Glick

Nov. 26, 2007

Only One Life

 November 25, 2007 “Those who do a coward’s toe dance through life may please the immediate audience, but history acclaims those who are willing to march for their beliefs, even though the terrain may be rough and there will be missteps.”

“There is no scarcity of people who are oppressed. There is only a scarcity of men and women with eyes clear enough to see and hearts big enough to act.”

       -Paul Simon, in “Freedom’s Champion, Elijah Lovejoy”

The very first national “movement” conference in Washington, D.C. that I ever went to was in the fall of 1968. It was a national conference of the peace movement against the Vietnam war. The one thing I remember about it is being in a workshop with Joan Baez and her then-husband, David Harris, a leader of the draft resistance movement.

Something they talked about has stuck with me ever since. It was that each one of us has only one life to live, one lifetime to do with as we will, one chance to have an impact upon other people and the world. Ultimately, that’s all any of us have.

I thought about this after reading a book, Freedom’s Champion, by the late, former U.S. Senator from Illinois, Paul Simon. The book is about someone who I previously knew nothing about, Elijah Lovejoy, the first white person in the USA, according to Simon, who was killed because of his public opposition to slavery. He was killed in the middle of the night on November 7th, 1837 while attempting to prevent a racist, pro-slavery mob from destroying the printing press on which he published the firmly anti-slavery Alton Observer in Alton, Illinois, across the river from St. Louis.

Lovejoy was a product of his times and his upbringing, and he was not without prejudices. He was a bigoted anti-Catholic. Up until the last year or so of his death at the age of 35, he was against slavery but saw the solution as the return of enslaved Africans to their home continent, not abolition, freedom and “40 acres and a mule.” However, he was a devout Christian minister who tried to live by his beliefs no matter what the cost.

As Simon reports, Lovejoy’s death had a tremendous national impact. “Those who killed Lovejoy and destroyed his printing press thought they were helping the cause of slavery, but they could not have helped the antislavery cause more. His death became one of the two greatest boosts the antislavery movement had from the day of independence to the outbreak of the Civil War, the other being the publication of Uncle Tom’s Cabin. . . Within weeks after Lovejoy’s death, membership in antislavery societies multiplied, and antislavery sentiment increased.”

At a meeting in Union, Ohio following the murder, John Brown made his public commitment to the antislavery cause, saying, “Here, before God, in the presence of these witnesses, from this time I consecrate my life to the destruction of slavery.”

Following Lovejoy’s death, Wendell Phillips in Boston gave up his law practice to join William Lloyd Garrison’s group of abolitionists. Phillips became one of the most eloquent and consistent,  national abolitionist leaders and a prominent labor movement supporter.

Simon cogently puts Lovejoy’s death in its proper context: “Most changes in history are not made by intellectual giants who sweep across the pages of our history books but rather by people who do not seem fitted to stand foremost in a great struggle; they simply have certain beliefs and are willing patiently but firmly and courageously to support them.”

A more recent example is Cameron Austin of Shelbyville, Illinois, who died after a years-long struggle with hepatitis a couple of months ago at the age of 54. In the words of rank-and-file labor leader Mike Griffin, Cameron was an autoworker who was “a devout member of United Auto Workers Local 751, representing workers at Caterpillar in Decatur, Il. During the labor wars in the nineties, as a rank and file member, Cameron became a leader and an international ambassador on behalf of his besieged local. He was instrumental in keeping top UAW officials from selling out the more than 150 illegally terminated strikers fired by Caterpillar in a ruthless assault on its employees nationwide . . In the more than six years Local 751 worked without a contract, Cameron fought valiantly to bring justice to thousands of Caterpillar workers throughout the Cat chain.”

Griffin explains in his moving obituary that “in the Caterpillar plant, Cameron served as an employee assistance representative who worked tirelessly to lift his brothers and sisters from the trappings of alcoholism and drug abuse. There is no question that Cameron saved many fellow workers from losing their jobs and families, and was always available to counsel fellow union members discreetly and in confidence. . .

“In the end, when the physical heart failed Cameron, the heart that he gave to his precious union, to his fellow man, never wavered, and it was that heart that defined the existence of Cameron Austin.”

Follow your heart. That’s the way forward for us as individuals and as a progressive movement for fundamental, revolutionary change. Follow our hearts, live by love, work for a society and a world in which love is the motivating force guiding how we organize our economic, political, social and cultural life.

And act on your beliefs no matter what the cost. Let conscience be our guide. Build a supportive movement culture that enables more and more people to do this. These ways and these ways only keep us on the right road, allow each of us to use properly the one thing we are all given, our one life.

Ted Glick is on the 83^rd day of a Climate Emergency Fast.