All We Can Save: Truth, Courage, and Solutions for the Climate Crisis

Battle describes the experience of looking at flood maps of Louisiana two years after Hurricane Katrina. The land that was being lost due to flooding was the land acting as a barrier from the sea. Her community and others would disappear before the end of the century. Many, if not all, coastal cities around the world are fighting erasure due to the impacts of climate change.

Battle has worked with people who are fleeing climate disasters and seeking refuge. She emphasizes the importance of treating them with respect and caring for them in their times of distress. Global migration is a reality, and we should be preparing for it now. Climate gentrification is another issue: Communities that once struggled to access waterfront properties are now being priced out of safer inland property. Climate change is about more than just reducing carbon emissions and extreme weather—it’s also about displacement and migration.

Battle writes that we must reframe our understanding of the issue: Climate change is not the problem but a symptom of an economic system that serves a small percent of the wealthy by extracting from the Earth. Alongside the regeneration of the Earth, we need a restructuring of social and economic systems.

The poem states that we have to live differently or else we will die in the “old ways.” It calls on Grand Mothers everywhere to rise and become leaders in the world—to come out of the kitchen, the fields, the beauty parlors, and the television and take the role for which they were created, which is to lead humanity toward health and happiness. It calls on everyone who possesses the Grand Mother spirit of respect for life to lead. Men must stand aside and let the Grand Mothers do this important work.

Stokes writes of her realization that energy—as well as the fossil fuels that create both energy and pollution—is everywhere. Our politicians have blocked clean energy while subsidizing fossil fuels; this needs to be stopped if we want to turn the climate crisis around.

Stokes’s first environmental actions started as a kid with small protests; in her teens, her actions expanded, and in college she finally learned that fossil fuels are at the center of climate change (338). She began attempting to change her and others’ energy consumption. Though this did result in modest change, she saw that “changing behaviors was not as powerful as changing institutions” (338), so she spent the next few decades learning how to change energy policy.

Institutions and institutional decisions limit our small, individual actions (e.g., taking a train instead of driving). Fossil fuel companies have undermined cleaner energy options and organized to deny climate change for the sake of financial gain. The pace of clean energy change in the United States is very slow—in 2018, only 36% of US electricity came from clean energy sources.

Many people “flight-shame” others for flying and the major carbon footprint that that leaves, but the same people will not account for the other, inadvertent ways in which they themselves contribute to inefficient energy use. For example, Americans’ taxes fund the US military, which is the institution that consumes the most fossil fuels in the world. Though not part of your individual carbon footprint, this is still a way that we all contribute to the coordinated energy problem of our country. The individual level of change is not enough to make headway in climate change; organized efforts and democracy are the way to structural change.

Our circles will likely start small to “train [ourselves] to see the energy system and how to change it” (343). We can convert our homes to electric energy, lobby our city, county, or state to offer financial programs to support people in this transition, and talk to our neighbors and friends about these options. Next, we can talk about climate change in our communities and join a local or national organization. The widest circle of influence is policy change. This cannot be done alone, but Stokes lists a variety of policies that the reader can try to work on.

The poem describes drinking every morning from Blackwater Pond. This pond was flavored by many natural things, and it always seemed to lessen the discomfort that the narrator felt from the past. The narrator writes that the past is the past, and the present is our life. We should choose what our present is. The narrator invites us to the pond, or “the river of your imagination” or “the harbor of your longing” and says to live our lives with our lips to the world (348).

Stillman, an investigative journalist, remembers an old civil lawsuit that she reported on involving a man named Sony Sulekha. Sulekha sued on behalf of 590 Indian men who came to help rebuild Gulf Coast oil rigs after Hurricane Katrina. The suit describes fraud, coercion, assault, false imprisonment, and more at the hands of Signal International, a construction firm. This is a cautionary tale about climate change and human migration (349): What Sulekha thought was an opportunity to earn money turned into an exploitative example of human trafficking.

Reports estimate that “over the next thirty years, 143 million people will be displaced” within sub-Saharan Africa, South Asia, and Latin America due to natural disasters (350). Climate change has already driven 25 million people from their homes. Most climate refugees come from places that have contributed less to climate change, and yet they face the highest consequences of climate change. Climate change doesn’t spur migration, but it makes communities that are already prone to migrating vulnerable to extreme weather.

Stillman explains the seasonal migration of monarch butterflies and the symbolism of the monarch, which cross borders to survive, for the immigrant rights movement. They also serve as a warning; they’re great at climate adaptation, but changing temperatures have caused instability in their reproduction and migration. They are now considered endangered. Stillman also gives the example of a pod of killer whales who make their home in the San Juan Islands in the summer months. Sightings are rarer nowadays because the whales are not able to find salmon due to warming waters, boats, and toxins. The whale pods have been known to mourn with mothers whose calves die. They travel alongside the mother for weeks as she mourns, carrying the calf with her. When she gets tired, the other whales take over the task of carrying the calf. This model of grieving loss is one that should inspire the climate crisis—we should be willing to witness each other’s grief and carry it for each other when we’re tired.

In the end, the trafficked workers won against Signal International and were compensated for their money and trauma. Some of the men began an organization called Resilience Force, which aims to help rebuild after disaster. Communities can and should plan for climate change and displacement.

Rodriguez found herself in Puerto Rico two days before Hurricane Maria hit in 2017. After working so hard to get out of Puerto Rico years before, she returned to her homeland to be an educator. She prepared for the hurricane and personally witnessed the devastation that it caused to the island. The community was displaced and thousands died in the disaster.

In the days that followed the hurricane, Rodriguez’s neighbors became her family. She saw people taking care of each other, clearing obstructed roads, and cutting down the trees that blocked the way. Seeing this, she reached out to ARECMA, an organization that provided resources to the barrio they were in. She asked to use their facilities, and they agreed. She asked her neighbors who were cooks to cook, and they agreed. An artist agreed to paint signs. Other friends agreed to help clean. Within five days, she and her community launched Proyecto de Apoyo Mutuo, and within ten days, they were feeding 300 people from Monday to Friday. It was all self-organized and self-funded. People from outside started coming in to offer their services; doctors, nurses, and paramedics came to help. Instead of despairing, the community was healing and recovering. When things collapse, our trust in our neighbors and knowledge of one another’s skills is what will save us.