The Heinze family
Thank you to Rick Heinze, a CCJ member and supporter, for this contribution to our What’s on your mind? blog series!
It’s a little frustrating that my retirement activities aren’t what I dreamed they would be. In my dreams, I was going to visit exotic places, improve my birding skills, learn to play the banjo I bought 25 years ago at a garage sale, take interesting college courses on the internet (e.g., western PA history), and learn to throw my atlatl. The rest and relaxation that I had earned through working in my younger years would now become my life.
I have always considered myself an environmentalist. I saved water, recycled items, bought a car that gets good gas mileage, reduced/reused/recycled, and took part in other actions that I hoped would make the world a better place. Then the climate crisis became real, and it was obvious that doing those activities was not nearly enough. The Paris Accords, the report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), and many other scholarly studies and discussions on the climate made this abundantly clear. I could no longer rest and relax during my retired life knowing that the planet my grandchildren were to grow up on would be so dramatically different than the nature and the outdoors that I had so loved during my own life. For example, millions of people will be (and are being) uprooted from their homes. Others will no longer be able to grow food because of the warming environment and the uncertainty of rain (or an excess of rain).
So I decided that, for the sake of my precious granddaughter and the children of her generation, I must get more involved in teaching people about this crisis and helping them to understand that, though we thought this crisis would happen 30 years from now, we are already experiencing it. I have always done the easier things, such as educating myself on climate change and donating money to the right causes (CCJ, Sierra Club, Climate Reality). But, as we are learning, this is not enough. Money is helpful, but our time is precious! I am trying to get out there and become really involved in supporting the changes that will be necessary to reverse or slow down the damage we have caused. I am doing things that I am not comfortable doing, such as running in an election and knocking on doors in my community so that I can talk to people. Right now I’m trying to build up the courage (and find some support) in order to picket my state senator’s office after her party passed some very troubling legislation which will increase water pollution in our area. Will any of my activities matter? Who knows, but I have to try. I can only hope that anthropologist Margaret Mead was right in her assertion that we should “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.” With the support of CCJ and you, I can become a committed citizen and hopefully make a positive difference!
