By all accounts there is no time to lose. Last May, the UN report on the earth’s biodiversity and ecosystems described the dramatic losses of species, ecosystems, and genetic diversity. This month’s special report on the ocean from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change will likely express equally ominous language. Scientists who fear we will exceed the 1.5 degrees Celsius increase in atmospheric temperature from pre-industrial levels cite evidence that we have reached a tipping point in global warming trends.

 

The response is obvious: Humanity must enact transformative changes so as to restore and protect nature. 

 

The peace movement has long understood that only bold, transformative changes to our economic and societal institutions will allow us to realize a just and peaceful world.In fact, militarism and war have a direct impact the climate emergency. As the largest institutional consumer of fossil fuels worldwide, the Pentagon drives the climate crisis by emitting greenhouse gases on a scale comparable to some industrialized countries. Through war and occupation, it causes death and destruction, poisons the environment, and creates refugee crises by displacing entire populations. 

 

Obscene amounts of money are spent on militarism and war. In 2018, Pentagon spending represented $639 billion out of $1.8 trillion in worldwide military spending. Consequently, societies are deprived of funding for human needs and become enfeebled, exacerbating ever-widening wealth inequality. With the global war now in its 19th year and involving some 80 countries around the world, the US has become in effect a perpetual war state that sees threats in every corner. By definition, the situation prohibits the kind of international cooperation and coordination absolutely necessary to mount a global response to the climate emergency.

 

Peace activists have long pursued campaigns to redirect the military budget towards human needs both as a first step towards achieving the structural change we need. Furthermore, these campaigns that support strengthening the social safety net appeal to diverse constituencies beyond the peace movement and harbor the potential for sparking mass mobilizations. When the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq caused a ballooning of the military budget, peace activists around the country renewed the work to rein in Pentagon spending. 

 

Here in Massachusetts, a referendum for a progressive federal budget calling for cuts to military spending was held in 2012. Everywhere the referendum ran, even in Republican strongholds, a remarkable 75% of voters supported the prospect of a federal budget that would invest in jobs and the social safety net while taxing the ultra wealthy and corporations and cutting military spending.

 

Presently, admirable work to reorient federal budget priorities continues in the “People’s Budget” proposals out of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, the call for a moral budget promoted by the faith-based Poor People’s Campaign and the Global Days of Action on Military Spending annually coordinated by the International Peace Bureau.

 

The urgency of the climate crisis has been thrust into the public sphere by youth-led movements like the Sunrise Movement using effective actions that have disrupted politics as usual, stoked the collective imagination, and responded with the bold policy agenda of the Green New Deal. The GND includes job security, community resiliency, and clean air and water alongside net-zero greenhouse gas emissions and a sustainable environment. More recently, an even more ambitious and elaborate 62-page proposal was put forward by presidential candidate Bernie Sanders.

 

Furthermore, it answers to the constant refrain of critics who ask how we will pay for such a bold program: Along with criticizing the $1.5 trillion annual expenditures worldwide on weapons of destruction, Bernie Sanders’ version of the Green New Deal tantalizingly calls for “leading the planet in a wholesale shift away from militarism.” 

 

As the Global Climate Strike captivates everyone’s attention, there is also work to do in between the protests, walkouts, and direct actions. For example, the Commonwealth Peace and Justice Agenda is a set of nine pro-peace bills developed by a network of peace and justice groups across our state. The bills were crafted together with allied legislators and submitted to the Massachusetts state legislature. Among the bills submitted are bills that call for commissions to evaluate the budget tradeoffs between certain state programs and specific cuts to Pentagon spending. Another directs the state treasurer to provide an annual report on federal and state budget information that would empower taxpayers. Analogous climate legislation in the statehouse could easily be crafted for state or federal bills funding all or part of the Green New Deal. This agenda provides another mechanism by which to educate, advocate, lobby, and otherwise promote bold legislation that can then serve as a model for federal spending bills.

 

There is no time to lose laying the important groundwork to show we can fund the ambitious goals of the Green New Deal by redirecting funds from the military and war.

 

Maryellen Kurkulos serves on the board of Massachusetts Peace Action and lives in Fall River.

 

 

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Facing challenges in climate change preparedness, Mass neighbors assist neighbors

 

Human civilization is living in difficult and unprecedented times, the likes of which we have never seen before. There are many injustices happening in our world today that manifest in forms of racism, sexism, ageism, classism, xenophobia, environmental devastation, and other forms of oppression. 

 

The preeminent social justice issue of our time is climate change, a long-term change in global temperatures and weather patterns. The planet is in a great state of distress because of the climate change crisis, which represents an urgent and existential threat to civilization. As such, an international consensus of scientists agrees that humanity must reduce greenhouse gas emissions 45% by 2030 and reach net zero emissions by 2050 if the world is to limit warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius without endangering the existence of humans.

 

From shifting weather patterns that threaten food production to rising sea levels that increase the risk of catastrophic flooding, the impacts of climate change are global in scope and unprecedented in scale. The effects are devastating in nature and dangerous in reality to the natural ecosystems. Climate change is the defining issue of our time and we are at a defining moment. If human beings don’t take drastic action today, adapting to these impacts in the future will be more challenging and costly.

 

Climate change is not a single special interest issue but rather a complex crisis affecting public health, foreign policy, jobs and the economy, labor, civil rights, immigration, agriculture and the food supply, housing, transportation, the survival of nature, and every facet of human lives.

 

 

Achieving the goal of limiting warming to 1.5 degrees C will protect 10 million people from losing their homes to extreme weather and sea level rise; assist the many Massachusetts coastal communities that are already being damaged; reduce the portion of the world’s population experiencing water scarcity by 50%; save hundreds of millions of people in frontline communities from climate-related poverty; impede catastrophic storm and wildfire damage; and prevent the extinction of many of the world’s insects, plants, birds, and other animals.

 

My name is Rev. Vernon K. Walker and I am a resident of Boston. Originally I was born and raised in West Philadelphia; I relocated to attend graduate school at Boston University in 2012. Since moving here, I have experienced the beauty of the state by visiting many historical landmarks, experiencing Martha Vineyard, seeing Cape Cod, and meeting folks who are committed to doing various kinds of justice work; and I have also witnessed the challenges facing the state, the list of which includes gentrification, urban violence, economic inequality, the opioid crisis, flooding, challenging winter weather patterns, and overall the impacts of climate change.

 

I am the program manager over the Communities Responding to Extreme Weather (CREW) program based in Cambridge, Massachusetts. CREW is a newly formed grassroots organization that aims to build equitable, inclusive neighborhood climate resilience in Massachusetts and New England through hands-on education, service, and planning. CREW is under the organizational umbrella of the Better Future Project.

 

One of CREW’s chief functions is to help prepare people for the extreme weather that is coming as a result of climate change. As we witnessed recently with Hurricane Dorian’s impact on the Bahamas, extreme weather can leave a community in ruins and be a major disruption to life. The way we prepare people for such weather is doing emergency preparedness powerpoint workshops at libraries, faith communities, and community centers that show people how to create emergency backpacks We also are able to do emergency preparedness workshops in other venues as well. 

 

CREW has volunteer teams in Somerville and Arlington that are recruiting and are involved in projects throughout the year to create awareness of climate impacts. The purpose of these teams is to build climate resilience communities by developing social resilience. There is a book out called Heat Wave: A Social Autopsy of Disaster in Chicago by Eric Klinenberg that tells the story of a terrible heat wave in Chicago in 1995. That incident killed 700 people, mostly low-income elderly, while Klinenberg found that the elders who did survive had a social network of people to check in on them. So, part of the CREW team mission is to connect with neighbors and build such a social network to ensure that no one dies because of extreme weather.

 

CREW is interested in partnering with organizations that have physical space to offer to convert into a cooling center during heat waves and a warming center during winter emergencies. Such conditions would greatly impact poor frontline communities where every person does not have central air in their homes or air-conditioning units, and these resources can increase the likelihood of people surviving during weather emergencies. CREW hopes to help mitigate the impacts of climate change by connecting people to community resources and to each other.

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