If the Re:WIRED GREEN event on tackling climate change drew to a close yesterday, the weather underlined the urgency in the most horrifying way possible.
As climate activist and attorney Colette Pichon Battle spoke from a podium in the blue sky of San Francisco, Hurricane Ian continued its destructive path through southwest Florida, underscoring its already urgent call to action. “I just want to make sure you pay attention to what’s happening in the Gulf of Mexico right now,” Pichon Battle said. She encouraged the public to learn about climate events around the world, from rains in Baton Rouge and Houston to deadly floods ravaging Pakistan and Cape Verde.
Pichon Battle, chair of the climate justice group Taproot Earth, spends her days on the front lines of the climate crisis. She lives on the bayou in Louisiana, where the rising waters are already washing away the communities. And she knows her home will be lost to the rising seas, no matter what she does. The goal of Pichon Battle is to try and save the parts of the world that can still be protected. Her closing speech was a generous but ruthless plea to the privileged, asking them not to turn away from the need for profound systemic change.
Photo: Kimberly White/Getty Images
With tears in her eyes, Pichon Battle challenged the public in San Francisco to be honest with themselves about the actions they must take to fight for a hospitable planet for all — actions that must go far beyond a plastic cup in a trash can. throw or buy an electric car. “My job today is to bring the truth,” she said. “Even if it’s not what you want to hear.”
For Pichon Battle, individual steps such as voting for politicians who care about the climate are all well and good, but they must be accompanied by hard work for collective action that challenges existing economic and political systems. Access to clean water and healthy food, she said, should not depend on how much money a community has.
At the end of her speech, Pichon Battle asked the crowd to reject climate projects that reduce emissions, yet exploit and extract marginalized communities. Instead, she says, people should embrace more radical and equitable approaches to climate change. “We also need to stop telling ourselves this lie that the transition from one form of oppression to another will save us,” Pichon Battle said. In other words: Greenwashing is injustice. “It’s time, my friends, to join us with your heart and soul and your feeling,” she said.