i remember vividly
when the civil rights movement first
began to
pick up steam
we saw bull connor turning fire hoses on
young
african-american kids and we asked the
older generation
why it's just and fair to have laws that
discriminate on the basis of skin color
and when they couldn't answer that
question the laws began to change
this movement to solve the climate
crisis
is in the tradition of every great
moral movement that has advanced the
cause
of humankind and every single one of
them
has met with resistance to the point
where the many of the advocates felt
despair
and wondered how long is this going to
take martin luther king famously
answered a question during some of the
bleakest hours of the civil rights
movement when someone asked how long
is this going to take he said how long
not long
because no lie can live forever how long
not long
because the moral arc of the universe is
long but it bends
toward justice how long not long we are
close
in this movement we are very close
to the tipping point beyond which this
movement
like the abolition movement like the
women's suffrage movement
like the civil rights movement like the
anti-apartheid movement
like the movement for gay rights is
resolved into a choice
between right and wrong and because of
who we are as human beings
the outcome is foreordained and it is
right to save the future
for humanity it is wrong to pollute this
earth
and destroy the climate balance it is
right to give hope to the future
generation
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it will not be easy and we too
in this movement will encounter a series
of no's the great american poet wallace
stevens in the last
century one of his lines was this after
the last no comes a yes
and on that yes the future world depends
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you