Ok, But Why Activism?

Why did I become a climate activist?

Because my personal life is excruciatingly  beautiful.  Our laundry billowing colors between the trees across the long clotheslines, the hysterical laughter of my toddler getting tickled by her papa, the autumn leaves spinning down onto scrappy young chickens, my husband playing the piano while I finish up my writing, new patchwork curtains, sewn with our antique treadle sewing machine, hanging beneath a stained glass window which throws fairy-like rainbows on the baby's chin, a cozy candle-lit kitchen after dinner with the stove door barely ajar..and the musk of a smoldering cedar log settling around us, gently intoxicating.  Trust and wonder radiate through my days.

 
Because I am passionate about the well-being of my children.  I am a mama!  I have babies.  Four of them!  And pregant with a fifth.  Birthing them, nursing them, watching them grow, and learn, and develop is my deepest personal gratification.  The love-bond that exists between myself and each child is not ignorable;  rather, it activates me to contribute to their thriving and to design their early home with care.
 
Because god, if you will, tells me that the natural world is sacred, and that it is not mine to sacrifice.
 
Because I have come to terms with the fact that it is not possible to avoid being judged by other people.
 
Because I value the scientific method of the ongoing seeking of truth.  I will not be stumped by wishful thinking, indifference, complacency, or irrational pessimism.  Curiosity.  Learning, especially at the cost of my own prior ideas, is the engine of my personal growth.
 
Because I am courageous enough to accept what is.  I became aware that my species --   particularly my culture-of-origin, "western civilization" -- has accidentally, even carelessly, summoned its own undoing, the medium-term extinction of most earth-life, by way of extreme climate change.  If the runaway natural feedback loops have not yet taken over the warming process from our control, we are palpably close to that threshold.  No matter how tightly we might try to squeeze our eyes shut, it is arriving now.  We have affected radical shift in our habitat, and the natural consequences...the incoming changes in the scientific data... are more dire and are happening faster than any of the scientists had anticipated.  
 
Because I am empowered enough to expect that I can create change.  
 
Because I am inspired by the magic of co-creation/collaboration.  
 
Because I am compelled by my inborn personality to contribute to others, to support the weak, and to uphold the dignity of the innocent.
 
Because I am being guided, by my highest self, to this action.  Every time I search within myself, looking for another course of action which might be easier than this one, more plausible or more likely to affect measurable change, more socially condoned, or more financially feasible...every other path feels like giving up.  It feels like surrending to hopelessness.  Like turning away from my truth.  When I reconsider climate activism, my resolve coallesces again, I feel solid and confident.  Driven.

Because I am my own conscience; my truth is my purpose; Nothing smaller would be worth living for.  
 
Because I know that if I take our existence on this planet as a given, if I take my experience of life for granted, I will not be ready to peacefully surrender to my death.   

 
That is why I became a climate activist.