We the people have taken so much from this earth, digging beyond our own capacity for profit. That skimming of cream off the top has ended, and now, with desperation looming, there is a fork in the road. Choices are not easy, and making sacrifices can be scary. The 97F temperature in early June, 2025, has normalized in our minds; though about a decade ago, that temperature would have raised a few eyebrows. A wrongful death suit here in Washington State, is going national, sending new aid to the human fight against corporations. Humanizing our climate plight remains crucial, as pointed out by a legal expert at the end of the referenced article above-
“The advantage of this lawsuit is that it puts an individual human face on the massive harmful consequences of collective climate inaction,” Kysar said in an email to NPR. “Not only that, the complaint tells a story of industry betrayal of public trust through the eyes of a particular person.”
We can’t all go join a lawsuit, but we can all think of other ways to invest in helping to fight ecological abuse in our own back yards. So many of our lives are now driven by profit. We some how get trapped in “just getting by” mentality, and to be clear, scraping pennies and budgeting every expenditure to get buy, still debiting on credit-cards, is another norm for most today.
I’d like to target this article to a specific group of us; if you own a car, have home internet, and most of your neighbors are white, you live in some real privilege. Take the money out of it for a moment and reflect. White collar work usually includes healthcare, families get tax exemptions and child credits, single people of similar economic status subsidize that in their taxes. Are you reading this and getting defensive? I sure am. My privilege is paying for others? Yes, and it should be, but unfortunately, even more of my work and income, and yours, goes to tax breaks for a top group of billionaire investors who will never know or care about you or me.
We’re so caught up in economic fairness, worried about fraud and abuse in the government. Thousands of hard working civil servants- the majority of government- just got fired and sent to the public job market, where there is a struggle to keep people employed. The Private sector lays in wait, eager to fire another round of their own workers to snatch up government employees who already work for a lower wadge than most others in their field nationally. I hope your thinking wheels are spinning now, seeing the future of wadges in this country plummet. This is the plan, subjugate through economic kidnapping. We’re all being held hostage and forced to participate. Yay! For us, there is still voice and action that could be heard- through protesting, writing representatives, and voting in local elections- or better yet- running! Who has that time and wants to be a civil servant? SERVANT? So much gratitude to those who do!
We are slowly turning into an autocracy too America. Elections are bought and sold, votes in congress too, thanks to Citizens United, and with the current administration, what’s left of the public sector will be privatized and we’ll be living as feudal corporate vassals- thanks Netflix and Amazon Prime- for those of you already fully institutionalized in this addictive consumer convenience. My shit smells too- I love watching movies and most of them are on streaming services, including AppleTV. I’m also watching the protests in L.A. right now. ICE agents and Federal Marshalls (fascist goons) began beating and chemically hazing the crowds, which feels a little too much like Germany in the 1930s. America was into Hitler for a little while. We really don’t have the best track record in supporting global Democracy, specifically in the Central and South American countries where so many immigrants to The USA come from today.
In L.A., the protestors struggled to stop the illegal seizure of their friends, neighbors, and co-workers off the streets and out of businesses in broad daylight on a Friday afternoon. By Saturday, our POTUS called for National Guard to go into California. False flag for sure, and excuse me if I get a little ticked at the thought of this happening in my town tomorrow, or the next, day, or the next. We are all culpable in the end for pretending we do not see, and the economic toll will come, if not an actual raid on your place of work, school, church, or neighborhood grocery store. How do we push back without being wrongly detained? Who are the people really making these raids? In Oklahoma, a mother speaks out. The terror is real for so many, and fear is spreading. I’m not asking you to go get arrested in L.A., but there are small steps of resistance to take today.
Toiling soil, tending stock, cultivating rich diversity to restore forests, healing rainforest abundance, regenerate and regain partnership with the earth- can that be enough? I don’t think so any more. Not with the suffering and abuse now escalating- I already failed neighbors in Oklahoma by leaving. That State needs liberal healing as much as ecological, but that fight looked too daunting, and the conservative lasso had strangled any hope for the feminist heart I bare. I failed my homelands. The red clay and sandstone canyons remain a love song in my soul, the main part of literal matter that grew my body to what it stands as today- that chemical structure carries the signature of ancient shallow seas imbued in sedimentary sentimentalism, or terra crafted memories etched on this body. (see Developmental chondrocyte heterogeneity)
Making a living while remaining in Oklahoma was not in the cards for this privileged life, I could get out of town, another marker for those of us feeling squeezed financially in these current events. How many times have you moved by choice? How many times was it not your choice? Discuss. Severing our connection to place links us all to that great new term Solastalgia. It’s part of the underlying stress humans carry now, and pulls us into a never ending cycle of hard times in this Anthropocene. Remember, positive mindset is the ultimate survival key, so turn towards abundance and seek in as locally as you can. Root down and invest, trust, plan- make your own community great for yourself, that puts the power in the people, rather than corporate dependency, which we’re all deeply embedded in through social conditioning.
When I worked in a Vermont Coop a few decades ago, people always commented on how much more expensive the organic produce was compared to the conventional, and that’s still a thing today. Why? Cost of living continues to rise for us all, but food prices have only just begun to creep up, sending many into a slight panic. We’ve been paying too little for too long, because of industrial agriculture, and it’s never been fair to farmers. Yet as a small farmer, when I ask for the actual price my food costs to produce here in King County, some people bulk. Why would they pay me when they can pay Costco or Walmart for a real deal? I don’t know, maybe as a way to support the true cost of food and buy from people you know who practice the regenerative farming that could bring back ecological balance to our world? Worthy? That’s up to you, and your wallet, and your choice to invest in what matters most, which is sadly, a price point. Welcome to Plutocracy– where we are ruled by the rich.
I can speak for my own experience here in King County Washington- I live in the most costly county in my state. Washington is the 10th most expensive state in the country to live in. I get a heck of a lot out of that, from social safety nets to one of the top public libraries in the country. King County is extremely expensive for families, but cheaper on the national average for single people like me. Still, I end up paying more in some taxes to support social systems I am not a part of directly, like schools, but hey, educate these kids, because many will stay and work here in future- I hope, so I want them well educated, it makes for a better community. We do have some very good public schools, in affluent cities and towns. The Riverview School District in my hometown gets an overall B+ rating and is #33 in the state out of 242. I’m engaging more as a mentor volunteer in one of our local middle schools and high schools. I hope to learn more and continue supporting and investing in local education. The farm donates a lamb each year to Empower Youth Network to support mentoring in our schools.
For children and community to grow and thrive, there also has to be clean water, soil, air, and food to eat. This is another way EEC Forest Stewardship is deeply invested for human betterment. If we are not restoring our ecology, we will be embracing toxic poisoning. I choose not to embrace that where I can, and it’s hard, because we use a lot of fossil fuels even when we’re not driving. Agriculture is #4 in top polluting industries, while transportation is #2. The food you buy in the store contributes to both, making it #5 on that list. There is a lot to break down here, but this leads me back to why buying local is so important, and paying for local is more expensive- Leafhopper Farm receives NO government subsidies, it stays afloat through it’s own production and my personal financial independence. I do all the work, from raising and caring to slaughter and butchering- all by hand, all with love and care for the poeple who will buy and eat this meat, investing a little more for a long term future. If I calculated my full time working on this farm into the food prices, no one could afford my meat or eggs. The crucial restoration work these animals do is not part of the price either, that bonus goes to the land, which regenerates for long term community health- that’s priceless.
EEC Forest Stewardship 