Courtney Martin says we need to work together on climate change:
The headlines this week will no doubt be filled with talk of stalled negotiations in Copenhagen and our increasingly hot and bothered planet. Over the past five years, the climate-justice movement has marshaled an incredibly diverse group of people to push world leaders to do the right thing for our world. Everyone — from Al Gore to Pat Robertson, from fifth generation factory workers in West Virginia to first generation college students from Detroit, from scientists to celebrities — is invested in this issue.
Climate change, while arguably the biggest global threat at the moment, is not unique. The ever-exploding human population is increasingly connected, and our world’s most pressing problems are those that affect everyone. Issues like poverty, religious extremism, and the economic crisis cut across party lines and across demographic barriers (class, race, gender, geography). They affect tea-partiers, Free Tibeters, and everyone in between. As such, our future depends on our capacity to resist balkanization—politically, socially, professionally—and continue to learn and collaborate across lines of ideology and expertise.
