A dialogue with Martin Luther King, Jr. on Climate Change

Have you ever seen a quote and it spoke to your condition?  As regular readers of this blog know I am a climate activist.  I recently read over a long list of Martin Luther King quotes and many of them spoke to me and related in my mind to the current Climate Crisis.  I share with you today, on his birthday a sort of dialogue I made up of my questions or comments as answered by a real quote from Dr. King offered in the 1960s.

Doctor King, I want to call you that in acknowledgement that to receive the higher education to get a PhD has not been an easy path for African Americans whose path was blocked in many ways.  So I want to honor and not ignore your accomplishments.

Dr King, I have been an activist all my life and your legacy has shaped my activism.  I now work on climate change an issue which at the time of your death was only just becoming known to oil companies which kept this secret from the public.   So you did not address this issue during your life, but your words speak to me because of the eternal nature of many of the things you said.  They speak to our current struggle to try to protect our planet and life for our children and their children.

What would you advise us as we look at the issue of climate change?

We must live together as brothers or perish together as fools.

What would you advise this group of people who have gathered here today of all different faiths, races and classes, to honor your name, about this issue of climate change:

“If we are to have peace on earth, our loyalties must become ecumenical rather than sectional, our loyalties must transcend our race, our tribe, our class, and our nation: and this means we must develop a world perspective. 

Dr. King, Naomi Klein has said that climate change cannot be solved unless we take on the web of interlocking injustices that face us at this time.  What would you say?

”Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny.  Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly.”                       

And what would you say to her point that capitalism is the heart of the climate problem?

“Capitalism does not permit an even flow of economic resources. With this system, a small privileged few are rich beyond conscience, and almost all others are doomed to be poor at some level. That’s the way the system works. And since we know that the system will not change the rules, we are going to have to change the system.”

What would you say to the corporations, such as DAPL and Kinder Morgan, who speak for their right to profit over the concerns of the public?

Property is intended to serve life, and no matter how much we surround it with rights and respect, it has no personal being.  It is part of the earth man walks on it is not man.”

Documents now show that they have waged campaigns of disinformation and withheld the science that shows us the danger we are in.

A lie cannot live.

People of color stand to be much more profoundly effected by climate change, should that divide us in the struggle to stop climate change?

We may have all come on different ships but we’re in the same boat now.

Dr. King as we in this room face the crisis of betrayal by corporations, politicians at all levels of society and even our own friends and family caught in the web of habit what should we do?

“If any earthly institution or custom conflicts with God’s will, it is your Christian duty to oppose it. You must never allow the transitory, evanescent demands of man-made institutions to take precedence over the eternal demands of the Almighty God.”

I have been working hard at this Dr. King, for years now, but it is hard sometimes to speak up when I see my friends casually engaging in carbon burning, earth destroying habits or to confront public officials.

Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about the things that matter.

Most of us must work for a living so it is hard to find time to fight this battle on top or the normal demands of life.

We must use time creatively, in the knowledge that the time is always ripe to do right.

But Dr. King, there are children to drive to things, there are holiday preparations to tend to, there are church responsibilies, and overtime at work, and sometimes the sun shines in Seattle

An individual has not started living until he can rise above the narrow confines of individualistic concerns to the broader concerns of all humanity.

I wish everyone felt that way, we need more help, we are such a small number against well financed and powerful corporations.

“Human progress is neither automatic nor inevitable… Every step toward the goal of justice requires sacrifice, suffering, and struggle; the tireless exertions and passionate concern of dedicated individuals.”

Almost always, the creative dedicated minority has made the world better.”

What would you say Dr. King, to those among us who know that Climate Change is a threat, but do not make the time to act on this?  To those who feel there is nothing they can do about climate change because we are dependent upon fossil fuels and the politicians won’t act?

He who passively accepts evil is as much involved in it as he who helps to perpetrate it.  He who accepts evil without protesting against it is really cooperating with evil.

Sometimes Dr King, I am angry.  I am just so angry about the way our planet is being destroyed and our childrens future being curtailed.  What should be do Dr King?

"History has taught...it is not enough for people to be angry--the supreme task is to organize and unite people so that their anger becomes a transforming force."

We have been organizing, but we have also encountered some huge defeats and set backs with the election of the climate denying, profit loving Mr. Trump.

I believe that the unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word.  This is why right, temporarily defeated, is stronger than evil triumphant.

It is so disappointing at times

We must accept finite disappointment but never lose infinite hope.

Some of us in this room have family members who do not believe that climate change is real or view our actions and beliefs as crazy.

“But though I was initially disappointed at being categorized as an extremist, as I continued to think about the matter I gradually gained a measure of satisfaction from the label. Was not Jesus an extremist for love…Was not Amos an extremist for justice…Was not Martin Luther an extremist…So the question is not whether we will be extremists, but what kind of extremists we will be.  Will we be extremists for hate or for love? Will we be extremists for the preservation of injustice or for the extension of justice?”   

Dr. King how can I have courage in the face of all of this?

“Courage is an inner resolution to go forward despite obstacles; Cowardice is submissive surrender to circumstances. Courage breeds creativity; Cowardice represses fear and is mastered by it. Cowardice asks the question, is it safe? Expediency asks the question, is it politic? Vanity asks the question, is it popular? But conscience ask the question, is it right? And there comes a time when we must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular, but one must take it because it is right.”

We are organizing people to do nonviolent direct action against the fossil fuel companies, but for some of us to break the law is a big leap.

“One who breaks an unjust law must do it openly, lovingly …and with a willingness to accept the penalty.  I submit that an individual who breaks a law that conscience tells him is unjust, and willingly accepts the penalty by staying in jail to arouse the conscience of the community over its injustice, is in reality expressing the very highest respect for law.” 

Others don’t always see it that way. Forinstance, the people of ND saw the DAPL protestors as trouble makers and law breakers.
“We who engage in nonviolent direct action are not the creators of tension. We merely bring to the surface the hidden tension that is already alive.”

Dr. King where is God as we face this struggle for survival?

“The God whom we worship is not a weak and incompetent God. He is able to beat back gigantic waves of opposition and to bring low prodigious mountains of evil. The ringing testimony of the Christian faith is that God is able.”

What then should I ask of God?

Use me, God.  Show me how to take who I am, who I want to be, and what I can do, and use it for a purpose greater than myself.

Thank you Dr. King for sharing your wisdom and your inspiration with us today.

To see the source for these quotes: http://www.keepinspiring.me/martin-luther-king-jr-quotes/