We Will Not Forget.
a speculative speech to the Regent’s Meeting. I’ll be blunt. We, the activists of the Climate Action Movement and our allies with us standing in Solidarity, will not forget.
When all of us in this room are either dead or too old and decrepit to bemoan wrongs made too long ago to fix, we will not forget.
When our children come to us, begging for answers, justice, and a simple drop of water, we will not forget this meeting. We will not forget who ignored our peaceful pleas, protests, and proclamations.
When the new Dust Bowl has eroded away the foundations of this institution and only our ashes remain, and hollow-stomached masses born into a burning world demand justice against the wasteful generation that asked if climate justice was worth the cost in dollars instead of lives… they will not forget what you did or didn’t do at this meeting.
The scientists are not coming to save you with a miracle cure-all.
The artists and entertainers will not come to comfort your dying days.
Neither priest nor pundit will be able to point you to the source of all this worry.
The crisis is here. It is in our air, our water, our bodies.
And the time is over to question when is the right time to act, when is the right time to announce your next exploratory committee to consider possibly maybe one day enacting some ambiguous action eventually if the never-there funding is there or the eco-conscious campaign will be worth it in the free marketing. When to act? When, was at least twenty years ago. When, was far too long ago.
It’s all a question of when.
When will you decide to act. Now? What does acting now even look like?
It looks like this, like speaking out for the justice you know in your hearts is necessary.
The justice you know that is costly, but not as costly as your inaction - which isn’t inaction at all, but a sustained act of violence against this Earth you stand on - stretching long before this institution first stole this land from it’s indigenuous peoples.
It looks like breathing in the polluted air belching from our Central Power Plant, filtering it through your lungs, and having that oxygen travelling to your brain with carcinogens planting themselves along the way.
With every breath, every exhalation, you wait to be the one on the committee to create action.
Look around to your committee chairs and you’ll see them thinking the same thing.
Is it worth it?
Is it too late?
Will one of us falter?
Ignore them. Think of yourself, think selfishly. There is a lot of talk about America and being great nowadays. Do you want to be remembered as actually something great? Do something worthy of greatness, like rising to one of the greatest challenges ever faced, even if that meant changing the policies of a single University. Because greatness is relative and I ask you, who is holding you back from greatness?
Who is putting pressure on you to ignore the role your institution may play?
Who is asking you through hushed tones, innuendo to not take us seriously?
Who is preventing you from being that member of the Regents who decides enough is enough and action is not only necessary but is the tradition and lifeblood of this University?
We know who would be gracious, thankful, laudatory if you made decisive and just action on climate change.
But we don’t often hear who is thanking you for the backpedaling, stalling, and the delays. I don’t particularly feel like hearing about them, because frankly they are being selfish, wanton, and not particularly great, people.
But if you do something worthy of greatness, we will not forget you. I beg that you do not forget us.
There is an unforgettable story being made in this very moment: across the globe and in this room, the story of a brief generation of people who were faced with the greatest crisis the world has ever seen. The story of a generation of scientists, storytellers, and citizens confronted with a global problem in a newly globalized world, who had to act up from the ground up, in every town hall, regents meeting, and around every dining room table.
And I honestly don’t know if that story, or this University’s brief chapter in that story, is a tragedy or a comedy yet, because we have not been allowed to write it. The pen, for now, is in your hands, and time is running out to write.
I will never forget the endings of my favorite stories.
And I won’t forget this one.
We hope you don’t either.