Street roots., April 06, 2018, Page 9, Image 9

Street Roots • April 6-12,
News
Page 10
CLIMATE, from page 5
they’re facing with such energy, intelligence,
heart and courage! Those are the people we
need to be pointing our own children to, and
even adults to, because they are profoundly
engaged in ways that are actually making a
difference.
What I would tell anyone 13 and up is that
we do have solutions and we do have a dire
problem, and we have to get to the root
problems, and that’s going to take
everybody.
E .G .: What would you say to someone who
community. Put up a sign about it, make it
fun; make it colorful.
says that i f you really care about climate
change, you shouldn’t have become a parent in
the first place?
M .D .: I think that’s a very unrealistic
point of view. I see life in a much broader
context of humans being part of a natural
system, and part of a natural impulse to
giving life. That said, we also have a crisis
right now of too many people trying to share
a dwindling number of resources.
One of the ways that I believe we need to
approach this is from a pragmatic point of
view. Who wants to have children, and who
is in a position to or doesn’t want to have
children? Both of those sets of women or
couples - are they empowered in their
choice?
At the same time, I think it is important
for us to be aware of the impact that First
World families in general have on the
climate crisis. The American lifestyle is
destructive to the planet, and it’s a lifestyle
that’s been actively cultivated by the
E .G .: As sports have come to dominate
many aspects of family life, you point out that
there are unintended carbon consequences as
parents cart their kids from one out-of-town
game to another. What’s your advice for all the
soccer moms and dads out there?
■
A X
. . :
PH O TO CO URTESY OF M A R Y D EM O C K ER
Mary DeMocker participates in a rally at the courthouse in Eugene.
"in d u stry arid c o rp o ra te w orld tow ard
consumption.
There is often focus and blame put on
families for existing, for wanting children,
for wanting babies in their lives, which is a
beautiful thing to want. It’s a natural thing
to want, and I think we have to be careful
not to villainize people who have children,
when really the issue is that we have a
larger culture of consumption that is
destroying the planet. It’s not our babies
destroying the planet; it’s the culture of
consumption that’s destroying the planet.
And that’s where we should be focused.
The fact that I did have two babies, and
my babies are now consuming because
they’re not babies anymore, I’m aware of
that. And I think that’s something that I
struggle with in terms of just looking at my
own carbon footprint - it’s bigger than it
was 25 years ago
E .G .: There was a lot o f information in
your book that surprised me. For example, that
the typical American family dog has a larger
carbon footprint than a person living in Haiti
or Afghanistan. Why is that, and what can we
do to rein in our pets’ carbon “paw prints” as
you put it?
M .D .: That was a quote from Larry
Schwartz in Salon magazine, and that
surprised me, too. I found the reason dogs
in particular have a large carbon footprint is
they’re often big, they eat a lot, and they eat
a lot of meat. And the cereals that are in
some of those foods have palm oil or a palm
oil derivative in them, and they’re really
tricky to find. Some of the names of palm oil
are really cleverly disguised these days, so
it’s hard to trace. But for dogs, one of the
ways to shrink the carbon footprint is to
really examine the ingredients, look at all
the derivatives of all the cereals that are
part of that food.
The main thing is the food, but there is a
whole industry now that has grown up
around pets as part of the family. There’s a
huge industry for pet collars, and there are a
lot of plastic chew toys. There is much more
medical care, grooming care, products - and
it’s not just for dogs. There are elaborate
things for cats and for all kinds of animals. A
lot of the smaller animals, guinea pigs and
such, or even chickens - the shavings that
we are giving our chickens for their nesting
area, thoserare from trees. So part of it is,
look at the deforestation or what may be
happening with whatever pet you have and
start to trace back what it is you’re buying
and where it comes from and what the
carbon footprint actually is, for whatever
animal you have living with you.
E .G .: What are some small steps you think
even the busiest of parents might be able to
take to get their kids thinking about climate
change or engaged in the movement?
D .M .: One of the first things would be to
inspire them, and let them meet other kids
who are engaged already. And that could be
through Earth Guardians, it could be
through Our Children’s Trust, sharing a
video or reading about William Kamkwamba,
the boy in the book, “The Boy Who
Harnessed the Wind.” I think stories are a
great way to start.
Another would be to know what’s
happening in the local community.
Find your local fight. Check out 350.org,
they have a national map online. Here in the
Northwest, we’ve choked off every proposal
in recent years for new fossil fuel
infrastructure. All through North America,
people are stopping those dangerous
projects one by one, by forcing local officials
to deny permits. Learn about your local
fossil fuel resistance fight, and talk about it
in age-appropriate ways with your kids.
If there is a vote coming up in your town,
show up for it. You don’t have to go to
meetings, you don’t have to knock on doors
or join the campaign per se, but you can
show up when it’s important. Just show up
for a public hearing. My kids did that; it
literally took an hour and a half, and we
went down on a Monday night, and we were
there for the vote. When your local
grassroots group has a campaign and they
say, “Hey, this is when we need people,” be
one of those people that show up.
Show up for a protest. That’s every now
and then on a Saturday afternoon. Help your
family put their bodies where they can see
other people and be part of a group that’s
making their presence known at a time that
matters.
Give money to grassroots groups fighting
for clean energy. If nothing else, make a call
to your local official or agency to demand
they oppose permits for new dirty energy
projects.
Another thing I would say is to do
something creative with your children. Make
one sign that’s colorful. This could literally
take 10 minutes. Stick it in your window,
stick it on the back of your car, stick it on
your bicycle trailer. Somewhere, put some
public statement that says something that’s
important to you and your family. It might
be “Exxon knew.” It might be “One less car
ride,” “I’d rather be on the bullet train,”
“This family is for wind energy,” “This
family is against pipelines,” whatever it is
that’s important to your family that links to
something that’s happening in your
M .D .: There’s a writer, Bruce Feiler; he
says it beautifully: Youth sports industry is
colonizing family life. What we have done to
try and minimize that is to point our kids
toward sports that aren’t as all-
encompassing as some of the year-round
travel teams. And we were in those year-
round travel teams with one of my children
for about four years. There are many ways
that it was wonderful because it was a very
tight community. We spent a lot of time
together with those families, and it was
wonderful for my child. At the same time, it
was pretty all-encompassing.
I made an effort to point my child toward
sports that were a little more balanced.
When my child left the soccer world, we
went to martial arts for a while, and then to
ultimate Frisbee. And ultimate Frisbee, in
general, is a lot more balanced for family
life. There are several sports that are. One
of my kids was in lacrosse, and it only met
for one season, and then the rest of the year
they were off. Look for sports that are only
one season, or that are through, for
example, the YM CA . It’s affordable, and it’s
only once or twice a week instead of five or
six days a week.
The other thing I would say is to delay it
as long as possible. That’s getting harder
and harder, so I know that’s hard for parents
to do because all the other families are
doing it. But if possible, delay it, especially
those year-round clubs.
E .G .: One chapter I could relate to my
childhood was “Let K ids Play with Knives. ” I
just don’t see kids running around the
neighborhoods the way they used to. B ut how
does encouraging unstructured outdoor play
tie into climate activism?
M .D .: There is more and more research
about how unstructured play allows children
to naturally develop their capacity for
personal agency and problem solving and
even conflict resolution - this is in Richard
Louv’s book “Vitamin N .”
One of the big things we’re going to be
handing our children is a lot of conflict in
this climate crisis. If you look at what
happened in New Orleans with Hurricane
Katrina, it was devastating in terms of the
kind of human conflicts that came out of
that and the kind of duress that families
were put under after that flood.
If you look at Houston, that’s the fourth-
See CLIMATE, page 11