My Idaho activist friend Bill Chisholm has pointed me in the direction of Sarah Gelder’s YES! interview with Tim DeChristopher, which I read earlier, and then got waylaid by something else, or I would have posted it then.

So difficult, this constant whipsawing between one item of apparently total, critical importance and another, and another, both in my homestead, and in the exploration I carry out on this blog, trying to identify what is really going on underneath the hype and to understand all of it from higher (and lower) perspectives. Which is, of course, impossible. So then I get pulled into my own past, and into healing with my son, and wondering whether written work I did 25 years ago should see the light of day now. . .

And then, I keep coming back to permaculture, permanent culture, what it takes to get there, where we are, or are not, in the process, and how on the one hand things seem utterly hopeless, we are definitely doomed, and on the other hand, a powerful surge of Earth-centered awareness and practice is burgeoning up everywhere. Both/and. Both at once. The worst and the best.

And then, in the midst of all these kaleidoscoping attention-grabbers, I reflect on how everybody is always overloaded, not just me; it’s a wonder that we still do manage to find time to listen to each other, respect one another, care for one another . . .

Breathe, Ann!

So, back to Bill. I agree: “His [Tim’s] perspectives via this interview are insightful and somewhat disturbing.”

I can only say that I found myself nodding my head yes with every word Tim said at the time I read the interview. As a pre-boomer (born during World War II, not afterward), I can also attest to the lack of activist oomph in older generations, and to the anger that lies just under the surface of younger ones.

On the other hand, aren’t those (young or old) who pour their energies into demonstrating a new way of life in communion with Earth and Earthlings (including humans) just as “active” as those who take to the streets?

Excerpt:

That’s something that has always bothered me in the discourse around climate change; those who are choosing their own profits over people’s lives say, “Well, it’s just business.” They make it cold and calculating.

It’s only “just business” for the people making profits. For a young person looking at climate change, it is personal. It is an older generation trading our lives for their own short-term interests, whether that’s fossil fuel executives trading our lives for profit or whether that’s baby boomer liberals trading our lives for their own comfort and convenience because they don’t want to take the risk of fighting back.

van Gelder: That’s provocative! Do you want to expand on that?

Tim DeChristopher: The Boomers “Failed” Us