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“Tim Takaro” by SFU Communications & Marketing, marked w CC BY 2.0.
I talk with Tim Takaro, a professor and researcher who spent months sitting in a tree to block construction of an oil pipeline across British Columbia, Canada.
Then at the 20-minute mark, Iowa Senator Brad Zaun (R-Urbandale) joins me to discuss CO2 pipelines, eminent domain, climate change, education, the US Supreme Court nomination circus, and (for the heck of it) Chris Rock vs. Will Smith.
Finally, at the 46-minute mark, Kathy and I address the frightening specter of a grain shortage and increased global hunger, given the continued war in Ukraine.
Eight years ago this month, two dozen of us walked across the Mojave Desert on the Great March for Climate Action. I reflect on that experience today, and share this excerpt from my memoir, Marcher, Walker, Pilgrim:
Campsite under Joshua trees before our Mojave Desert crossing.
We passed a sign earlier today that warned of no services for the next 100 miles. Shortly after, as if sent by a higher power to hammer home the severity of that warning, a man in his 60s driving a beat-up Chevy pulls alongside us. He rolls down his window, stares for a few seconds and asks “What the hell are you doing?” his raspy, caustic voice sounding more annoyed than curious.
“We’re walking across the country to get people to understand the urgency of the climate crisis,” I respond.
“Aw, you don’t believe that climate-change bullshit, do you?” the man mocks, certain of his own unshakable scientific literacy. He pauses for several seconds, glancing up the road toward the vast expanse of the Mojave, toward a landscape that, from my point of view, appears as forbidding and foreign as the moon.
“You aren’t planning to walk across that, are you?”
Playing music with Jimmy Betts during our desert crossing.
“Well, it’s the Great March for Climate Action, not the Great Car Ride for Climate Action,” I dead pan, abandoning the prospect of converting my inquisitor, and embracing this opportunity to let my inner smart-ass frolic.
“You’re f***ing out of your mind!” he yells. “Have you been out in the sun too long?”
“Yes,” is my simple and honest response, as the man drives away muttering more expletives and something about dying in the desert.
“Nice guy,” I mumble.
We laugh off his prognostications of our impending demise. Yet stuck in my mind is Martin Hippie’s more thoughtful, well-intended warning that we won’t make it across the Mojave because we don’t have food and water figured out.
Four marchers approach a massive wind farm near the Mojave Desert.
But I’ve seen how the March community has pulled together these first two weeks, tackling numerous logistical challenges that our staff and I admittedly should have had in place prior to the start of the March. Between the collective brain power and brawn of this determined group of climate warriors, I’m not worried about food and water.
A different concern troubles me, and troubles me deeply — a concern that indeed could prevent us from making it across the desert.
We have no place to camp.
Despite my efforts to reason with BLM officials, they refuse to grant permission for us to pitch our tents on BLM land anywhere in the Mojave. And nearly everything in the Mojave is BLM land.
I crawl deeper into my sleeping bag for one final night of comparatively civilized camping. Tomorrow begins a nine-day trek across a parched, barren landscape hostile to most life on Earth. I consider the very real possibility that BLM officials will order us to leave the desert or arrest us if we refuse, wondering if Martin Hippie and the Chevy-driving curmudgeon might be vindicated after all.
Ed
*******
01:38 – Tree-top activism, with Tim Takaro
20:04 – Eminent domain, education, climate, food, and more with Sen. Brad Zaun
46:43 – War in Ukraine threatens grain harvest, could exacerbate global hunger, with Kathy Byrnes
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Ed Fallon