First they came for the Arctic sea ice, and I did not speak out—even though its volume is two thirds what it was thirty years ago.
Then they came for our mountain glaciers—Kilimanjaro, Glacier National Park, the Andes, and Himalayas—and still I didn’t speak out. My water supplies were not threatened.
They thawed the permafrost and continental shelves even though these areas could release planet altering greenhouse gases. Still I remained silent.
Then they came after the coral reefs, crustaceans and other ocean life with rates of warming and acidification we have not seen for millions of years. Even though our oceans are being devastated, I did not speak out.
Then they came after our winters, but I enjoyed the earlier springs, so I did not speak out.
Then they came for the boreal forests of North America with bark beetles and wildfires. They ravaged our tropical forests, the lungs of our planet and home to most of its species. I love and need trees, still I did not speak out.
Then they came for our coastlines, slowly, inch by inch. It adds up over the years, but like the fool on the hill I kept perfectly still.
Then they came after our wheat, corn and livestock in the record 2012 US drought and 2011 floods. Even when heat waves decimated grain harvests in Russia and China, my supermarket shelves remained full. I had no reason to speak out.
I did not speak out when thousands of species I’d never heard of began moving and vanishing each year, even though the rate of extinction could surpass anything we’d experienced in fifty million years.
Then they despoiled our gulf, farmlands and communities with drilling rigs and pipeline spills, fracking and mountain top removals, and dangerous storage ponds of toxic wastewater. It wasn’t happening in my neighborhood so I kept quiet.
They hijacked our water supplies to operate their nuclear and coal plants—for fracking and tarsand production. Even though a warmer planet will mean severe water shortages for hundreds of millions of people, I did not speak out.
When they came after the tribal lands of our Native Americans with their uranium and coalmining, I was speechless.
They’ve been coming after our governments for decades, manipulating politicians across the US and in other countries with money, lobbying firms and “grassroots” movements so our leaders won’t speak out.
Now they’re coming after our minds, distorting and reducing the amount of science in the news, even in our children’s schools and continue to attack climate scientists and their credibility to keep them from speaking out.
They’ve rebranded and treated those who did speak out as “terrorists” and I had good reason to be afraid of speaking out.
They continue to stall and undermine international negotiations and agreements, hoping that even if we speak out it won’t make a difference.
Now what they’ve done is threatening the habitability of the planet for our children and grandchildren. We must speak out for their sake while there is still time.
We’re not backing down in the face of Trump’s threats.
As Donald Trump is inaugurated a second time, independent media organizations are faced with urgent mandates: Tell the truth more loudly than ever before. Do that work even as our standard modes of distribution (such as social media platforms) are being manipulated and curtailed by forces of fascist repression and ruthless capitalism. Do that work even as journalism and journalists face targeted attacks, including from the government itself. And do that work in community, never forgetting that we’re not shouting into a faceless void – we’re reaching out to real people amid a life-threatening political climate.
Our task is formidable, and it requires us to ground ourselves in our principles, remind ourselves of our utility, dig in and commit.
As a dizzying number of corporate news organizations – either through need or greed – rush to implement new ways to further monetize their content, and others acquiesce to Trump’s wishes, now is a time for movement media-makers to double down on community-first models.
At Truthout, we are reaffirming our commitments on this front: We won’t run ads or have a paywall because we believe that everyone should have access to information, and that access should exist without barriers and free of distractions from craven corporate interests. We recognize the implications for democracy when information-seekers click a link only to find the article trapped behind a paywall or buried on a page with dozens of invasive ads. The laws of capitalism dictate an unending increase in monetization, and much of the media simply follows those laws. Truthout and many of our peers are dedicating ourselves to following other paths – a commitment which feels vital in a moment when corporations are evermore overtly embedded in government.
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