TUESDAY, MARCH 21, is the day for our big national action against the giant banks that are backing the fossil fuel industry.
Why March 21? Because it’s — if you think about it — 32123, simply too good a palindrome to pass up. It’s a countdown to the end of something (our economy’s blithe support for energy sources that scientists tell us we must now forego) and a count up to the real start of a possible transition.
We’ll be out in force across the country, picketing Citibank, Chase, Bank of America, and Wells Fargo branches: Those four giants lead the world in lending to Big Oil. Their offices look like benign tenants of strip malls across America, but in truth each should have a giant smokestack coming out the top, to remind us just how much carbon they produce. (If you have $125,000 in one of these institutions, which lends it out to build pipelines and frack wells, then that money is producing more carbon in a year than all the heating, flying, driving, cooling, and cooking of an average American.)
We no longer need to be expanding this industry; we need to wean ourselves off fossil fuels as fast as possible. Which, of course, is entirely possible: To give just the easiest example, we were all reminded earlier this year that turning off the gas cooktop in the kitchen would be a good idea. It not only contributes to climate change, it also gives off pollutants that cause childhood asthma. A lot of asthma: hundreds of thousands of cases in the U.S. alone. We possess easy replacements: magnetic induction cook-tops are better than the gas they replace, and there’s money in the new Inflation Reduction Act to help families install them.
But the fossil fuel industry doesn’t want to do that — they’ve been spending millions of dollars hiring actors and “influencers” to spread the blue-flame gospel — and the big banks continue to be their enablers. So, we need to stand up to them. The original impetus for 32123 came from Third Act, which some of us have formed as a vehicle for activism for those of us over the age of 60 — but it’s been joined by other groups around the country.
Including of course, lots of faith leaders. One of whom, Rob Mark of the Church of the Covenant in Boston, wrote to me with the text of Lamentations 3:21-23. Here’s that 32123 message: “But this I call to mind, and therefore I have hope: The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases, his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.”
It’s not an easy moment for hope, especially on the climate front. But we of faith are able to hope for new mercies each morning — as long as we work for them.
Bill McKibben, founder of 350.org, is the author most recently of The Flag, the Cross, and the Station Wagon: A Graying American Looks Back at his Suburban Boyhood and Wonders What the Hell Happened.
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