July 27, 2023 • 48 mins
What if our individual actions and social movements could change the course of the climate crisis? Today's enthralling conversation with Chuck Collins, a prominent campaigner and author, challenges us to contemplate this very question. He shares his wisdom on the power of activism, the importance of building resilience, and the urgent need to take action in our fight for environmental justice. Through his new novel, Altar to an Erupting Sun, he prompts us to consider the moral and ethical implications of our current climate predicament.
In this conversation, we challenge the unchecked authority of the fossil fuel industry and its impact on our society. We delve into potential forms of resistance like physical disruption, capital divestment, and the exposure of dark money. Our discussion is not just about the global stage, but also about local action. We discuss the commendable sustainability endeavours of Sonoma County, using it as a beacon of hope for other communities. The intricate web of corporate power and money is laid bare as we scrutinize the influence of the Koch Brothers on our political landscape.
Join us as we dig deep into the issues surrounding the climate crisis and the struggle for environmental justice. We navigate through the convoluted realms of corporate power, while also gratifyingly highlighting the power of individuals and communities in this battle. So, tune in as we explore the importance of stepping up where we have agency, taking bold action, and driving towards a more equitable society. Chuck Collins' insights are sure to spark your resolve as we strive towards a greener and fairer future.
Chuck Collins is a campaigner and storyteller who has worked for decades on environmental and economic justice campaigns. He is the Director of the Program on Inequality and the Common Good at the Institute for Policy Studies where he co-edits Inequality.org. He is cofounder of DivestInvest.org, a global movement to divest from fossil fuels and invest in climate solutions; and trustee of the Post-Carbon Institute and Resilience.org.
Author of several books on wealth inequality, including most recently, The Wealth Hoarders: How Billionaires Pay Millions to Hide Trillions - His first novel, Altar to an Erupting Sun has won high praise.
If you enjoyed this show, please leave a positive review and share with your friends. Thank you! Osha
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
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Osha Hayden (00:09):
As you witness the mounting destruction caused by
global warming, while thedrilling for fossil fuels
continues unchecked.
In what ways are you feelingcalled to act?
On our show today, ChuckCollins raises some provocative
questions.
In his new novel Altar to anErupting Sun, we will discuss
(00:33):
some important moral and ethicalquestions regarding what
brought us to this juncture andwhat measures we might take.
This is Aspire with Osha, art,nature, humanity, and I'm your
host, Osha Hayden.
It is my great honor to haveChuck Collins here today to talk
(00:57):
about his important new novel.
First, a bit about Chuck Collins.
Chuck Collins is a campaignerand storyteller who has worked
for decades on environmental andeconomic justice campaigns.
He's the director of theProgram on Inequality and the
(01:18):
Common Good at the Institute forPolicy Studies, where he
co-edits Inequality.
org.
He's the co-founder ofDivestInvest.
org, a global movement to divestfrom fossil fuels and invest in
climate solutions, and he'strustee of the Post-Carbon
(01:40):
Institute and Resilience.
org.
Author of several books onwealth inequality, including
most recently the WealthHoarders: How Billionaires Pay
Millions to Hide Trillions,Alter to an Erupting Sun is his
first novel.
Welcome to the show, ChuckCollins.
Chuck Collins (02:03):
Hey, thank you for having me, Osha.
Osha Hayden (02:05):
So your work has been focused on income
inequality and the growingwealth divide in our country.
How is this novel about theclimate crisis related to your
work on income inequality, or isit?
Chuck Collins (02:20):
Well, I do think it is connected.
I think both extremeconcentration of wealth and
power and the fact that we'relocked into a trajectory toward
growing ecological distress areconnected.
In my mind, it's always beenconnected.
I've worked primarily on issuesof wealth inequality, but I've
(02:44):
also, for 15 years or so, beenvery attuned to the rising
amount of carbon in theatmosphere, the future potential
disruption and the challengesthat presents for all of us.
So it's really very muchinterconnected for me.
Osha Hayden (03:02):
The timeline of your story begins right now, in
2023, and then it ends in 2030.
Why center the novel in today'sworld rather than in some
future time?
Chuck Collins (03:16):
Well, in part because we are living now in the
critical decade.
Scientists tell us that we'resort of the first generation to
fully understand the gravity ofthe ecological and climate
crisis.
We're also the last generationto really be able to
meaningfully shift thetrajectory, and a lot of future
fiction and a lot of sciencefiction looks out 50 or 100
(03:38):
years, but, to be honest, wereally don't have that long for
humanity to get our act together.
So I wanted to tell a storythat talks about how people in
one community and differentplaces are acting today.
In the short term, in the nextseven years, what is it we can
do to sort of shift thedirection of where things are
going?
Osha Hayden (03:59):
I think a lot of people will see themselves,
perhaps some part of themselves,and these characters, because
the timeline is so current.
You know, it's our timeline.
Although you begin this storywith the main character, Rae
Kelliher and her death, most ofthe book explores the arc of her
life and the people andexperiences that shaped her,
(04:22):
which helps explain an otherwiseinexplicable act.
Can you, tell us a little bitabout that backstory?
Chuck Collins (04:31):
Yeah, and it's not a spoiler alert to readers
to know that the main character,, lifelong of human rights and
environmental activist, veryrooted in nonviolent and
pacifist traditions, has lots ofelders and important people in
her life who sort of taught heralong the way.
(04:53):
But at the end of her life, youknow, close to 70, she is
diagnosed with a terminalillness.
She doesn't have long to live,she only has months to live, and
she decides to take her ownlife and, in a shocking act,
take the life of the CEO of anoil company and in the process
also killing several innocentpeople.
(05:14):
She engages in a shockingaction which takes place, as you
say, right around now.
Then the book leaps ahead sevenyears to sort of think about,
well, what's been the impact ofthat, the negative blowback, but
then goes backwards in time towell, what formed her.
And you know, in greatreligious tradition people talk
(05:36):
about formation and you knowwhat are the forces, the
individuals, the influences thatshape each of us?
And that's what this book isabout.
It's really about a person, howthey're formed, not just by
elders and books, but aboutshaped by social movements the
movement to stop nuclear powerplants, the movement to
(05:58):
discourage US intervention inCentral America and movement to
address climate disruption.
So those are all the thingsthat form her.
Osha Hayden (06:06):
Her first protest in the book came when she was
eight, and it involved removingwooden stakes that construction
workers had laid out to indicatewhich trees were to be cleared
in her beloved forest to makeway for a housing development.
So what's seeds did that actionplant?
Chuck Collins (06:25):
Well, she, you know, she grew up in Southern
Ohio in a working classcommunity but she had a
wonderful big brother who justtook her out into nature and
taught her mushrooming and tookher to kind of some magical
places.
And so as teenagers they'rewalking along and they see the
destruction of this forest, theysee that it's been marked up
(06:48):
for development, and I think alot of readers can probably
relate to this.
That you know, if you're over acertain age, you probably grew
up in a place that later becamea subdivision or later became
bulldozed for something thathumans were building.
And it just sort of viscerallystruck Rae and her brother Toby
and they engaged in, you couldcall it a minor act of
(07:09):
eco-sabotage.
They sort of pulled up thestakes that had been put in
place to plow a road and startedto cut down ribbons on trees
that were destined to be cutdown.
So in a very early formativelevel she took an action to stop
harmful development to aprecious and important
ecological place for her.
Osha Hayden (07:29):
Yeah, I think a lot of people can probably relate
to that, especially now.
So Rae drops out of AmherstUniversity to join a community
farm and it was there that shereceived, I think, her real
education, from the likes of SamLovejoy, Wally and Juanita
Nelson, and Chuck Matthei.
(07:50):
And while the protagonist, Rae,is a fictional character, many
of the key characters, alongwith the setting and the
pressing issues, are very real.
What formative lessons didthese luminaries provide for her
?
Chuck Collins (08:06):
There's a couple of things going on there.
For me, one is the book as analtar, so in a sense recognizing
these real people.
My hope is that readers, ifthey're not familiar with them,
will learn about their realhistorical legacy.
But what they taught to Rae wasthe importance of taking a
longer view and persisting.
(08:29):
Sam Lovejoy, who is fortunatelystill alive, was part of
stopping a nuclear power plantin his rural town of Montague,
Massachusetts, and he did itthrough an act of sabotage.
He cut the cables on a towerthat the nuclear power plant
industry had put up in order toget their permits.
They had to do some weathermonitoring and he knocked the
tower over and turned himselfinto the police and stood trial,
(08:51):
eventually was acquitted.
But Rae was witness to all ofthis and I think that what she
saw was, first of all,individuals can do bold and
important things, but togetheryou can form social movements,
and sometimes it just feels likeyou're not making an impact.
But I think what she learnedfrom these elders is you sort of
(09:14):
do the work anyway andsometimes it makes an impact,
and sometimes you need to takethe longer view that maybe you
won't win this battle, but maybeyou can make bigger changes.
So I think it gave her a senseof agency, that she herself
could be an actor on history,could make a difference, and
that people coming together arewhat changes history.
Osha Hayden (09:38):
And, like others of her era,Rae went to Nicaragua
and El Salvador to volunteer andshe was there helping to
harvest the cotton crops.
But she thought, what good am Ireally doing?
And then a priest told her thatthe real purpose there was
accompaniment.
Can you say more about that?
Chuck Collins (10:01):
Yeah, and again during the 1980s, as the US was
sort of saber rattling andthreatened to invade Nicaragua
and was funding right wing deathsquads in El Salvador, a lot of
Americans became engaged andactually went to those countries
as kind of expressions offriendship.
(10:21):
And this was very formative forRae.
And in one case, as youdescribed, she's literally part
of the cotton harvest, pickingcotton in Nicaragua.
But she says to her friend, aRoman Catholic priest, she says
boy, we're terrible pickers,maybe we should have just taken
all the money we spent to gethere, maybe we should have just
sent some doctors.
(10:43):
And he turns to her.
He says well, our role here isto accompany people, to be
witness, to show that we'reacting in solidarity and
friendship and that ourgovernment's actions don't speak
for us.
And I think that's true for alot of situations where we can't
always fix things.
(11:05):
Somebody you know maybestruggling with addiction or
other family issues.
Sometimes we come up againstthe limits of how can we help.
And I think Rae's lesson iswell, sometimes you can't just
fix it, but you can accompanythe person, or in this case, you
can accompany the people ofNicaragua in their own journey
(11:27):
for liberation.
It's not necessarily your roleto fix it even, but you want to
be present to that and that's animportant lesson for her as she
goes through life.
You can't always fix it, butyou can be present and try to do
what you can.
Osha Hayden (11:41):
She later became a trainer and leader of the School
of the Americas Watch, and yourown Institute of Policy Studies
lost two members to the Schoolof America's violence, and your
group presents the Letelier-Moffitt Human Rights Award in
remembrance.
And I know, on a previouspodcast in July of 2021, I
(12:05):
interviewed one of yourcolleagues, John Kavanaugh, on
his book, The Water Defenders,and that features a story of one
of the murdered recipients ofthe award.
So defending the earth isreally dangerous work.
Do you want to talk a littlebit about that?
Chuck Collins (12:21):
Absolutely.
I mean defending the earth,standing up for human rights,
you can risk your life.
One of the water defenders, whowas recently mentioned in that
book, was abducted and kidnappedin the last month.
Oh no, so defenders of theearth are really courageous.
This is where Rae Kelliher isspending time in El Salvador and
(12:45):
she realizes, okay, the US hasa training facility at Fort
Benning, Georgia, where theytrain these militaries to do
interrogation and torture, andthey call it the "School of
Torturers, what was called theSchool of the Americas.
So she becomes involved in thateffort to shut it down.
(13:06):
And it becomes personal forsome of us, because we learned
later that the Chilean hit squadthat murdered our colleague at
the Institute for Policy Studies, Orlando Letelier, was trained
at the School of Americas inGeorgia.
So sometimes we as Americansforget we have so much power in
(13:27):
the world and our military andour foreign policy really does
sometimes affect who lives andwho dies around the world.
And so they're really bringingthat witness home by protesting
and calling for the closure ofthe School of the Americas.
This kind of nationalembarrassment, or what Rae would
(13:48):
say, a national outrage thatwe're training these military
officers.
So it's part of her recognizingthat we live in an
interconnected world and thatthose of us who have US
passports have a lot ofresponsibility for the power
that's wielded in our name.
Osha Hayden (14:07):
Yeah, and a lot of times that power is wielded in
our name in order to extractfossil fuels, minerals, et
cetera, mining gold.
One of the things that isinteresting in this book is that
the economic meltdown in 2008inspires Rae to create these
mutual aid societies andresilient circles.
(14:29):
So what lessons learned therecan be applied to the shift that
we're going to be seeing asclimate disruption and economic
collapse become more pronounced?
Chuck Collins (14:41):
Yeah, I think that Rae is somebody who's sort
of watching the signs of thetimes and in the late whatever
2008, 2007, like a lot of people, you could kind of see housing
bubble about to burst and thefact that the people were
getting access to easy debt andthat that led to this economic
meltdown.
And Rae and others ,lookingforward, say, well, we're
(15:03):
heading into disruption, we'reheading into a disrupted future,
both the ecology, food systems,weird weather - those of us in
New England just lived through aweek of smoke from the Canadian
fires coming down - and thenthat will have economic impacts
that will affect and ripplethrough the economic stability
(15:27):
that we often take for granted.
So part of Rae's approach waswell, we need to help each other
out, we need to form mutual aidgroups.
We can't necessarily wait forgovernment to show up and fix
things.
We ourselves may need to takecare of one another and we
should start practicing that.
And she would even say look, ourmutual aid muscles are badly
(15:52):
out of shape.
We don't know how to ask forhelp.
We don't know how to offer help- not everybody, but often
people in the middle class sortof living, this notion that,
well, we're all self-sufficienthere.
All of a sudden that breaksdown, and it did break down in
that fall of 2009.
And people had to look to theirneighbors and look to one
(16:14):
another, and I think that's, inRay's view, part of how we're
going to prepare for the comingdecade as well.
We need to know our neighborsand create local economies and
provide mutual aid and supportto one another when we do hit
the bumpy road.
Osha Hayden (16:33):
That reminds me of something we have here in my
neighborhood which is calledMeet your Neighbors, but it's
basically for responding toemergencies, you know, getting
to know your neighbors andhaving everybody on kind of a
call list so that we'reconnected to each other and we
can meet and talk about howwe'll respond if there's an
(16:54):
earthquake or another wildfire.
And we've been evacuated twicehere for nine or 10 days at a
time due to wildfires.
So that's in a way kind of likea resilience circle, but
there's more formal informationabout resilience circles and how
to form them.
It's resiliencecircles.
org.
(17:16):
Is that right or resilience.
org?
Chuck Collins (17:20):
Resilience.
org is a great resource and, asyou say, it's actually kind of
common sense.
The first step is knowing yourneighbors, knowing what each of
you has in terms of needs andtools.
It's not unusual for people tolive in communities where they
literally don't know theirneighbors.
They don't have a sort ofability to call each other for
(17:43):
help.
So yeah, meeting neighbors andsort of taking inventory well,
let's say, the power goes downfor a week, who has a generator?
Who has first aid skills?
Who can help who?
Who has an elderly familymember that's going to need some
help, or whatever Sort ofmapping and knowing.
That is just common sense, goodneighborliness, but we're going
(18:04):
to need to do it for the longterm as well.
So, forming resilience circlesor self-help groups and actually
coming out of the pandemicthere's a whole lot of mutual
aid practice that developed in alot of communities.
Osha Hayden (18:20):
So, in a way, we're all really in the preparation
mode for building our skills andour resilience and getting to
know our neighbors and formingnetworks for what is to come,
because it's going to be apretty bumpy ride.
Chuck Collins (18:37):
Yeah, and part of what was important for me in
writing Altar to an Erupting Sunwas to look at all the things
that people are doing at thelocal level that that could help
us prepare.
So probably where you live andwhere I live, people are
thinking about relocalizing foodsystems, not having your
(18:57):
calories come from more than ahundred miles away, ideally
within five miles, looking athow to create affordable housing
and share access to land andhousing for food and shelter,
welcoming immigrants, welcomingnewcomers.
You know, as as we deal with adisrupted future, some people
are gonna have to move and somepeople are gonna have to make
(19:19):
room for others.
That's a challenging practicefor a lot of people, but that's
part of how we prepare andthinking about how we think
about the end of our lives aswell.
You know, Rae Kelliher is adeath doula and she really
thinks about that.
Part of looking and facing thefuture is also facing our own
mortality and thinking about howwe want to live as well as how
(19:40):
we want to die and how we wantto honor ancestors.
So all those things areinterwoven for her and in her
community in southern Vermont.
They're trying to put intopractice all these ways to build
a resilient community To facewhatever comes their way.
Osha Hayden (19:58):
Well, let's take a short break and we'll be back in
just a moment with more fromChuck Collins and his book,
Altar to an Erupting Sun.
Do stay tuned.
In case you're just joining us,this is Aspire, with Osha, art
(20:25):
and nature Humanity, and I'myour host, Osha Hayden.
I am here today with ChuckCollins, who is the author of
Altar to an Erupting Sun, andwe're talking about resilience,
the importance of incorporatingour attitudes towards death,
(20:46):
we're talking about the climatecrisis and how we might approach
that, and some importantquestions that we probably need
to ask ourselves.
Let's talk a little bit aboutsome of the people who
influenced this character, Rae: Brian Wilson, Norman Morrison (21:01):
undefined
and Dietrich Bonhoeffer.
What context does that give tothose trying to understand her
final act using her finalmoments of her life, as she was
about to die, to blow herself upalong with an oil baron as an
(21:25):
active protest, and so how do wemake sense of that?
Chuck Collins (21:31):
Yeah, one of the Influences on Rae early on is
she she meets a man named BrianWilson, no connection to the
singer of the Beach Boys, butBrian Wilson who was a Vietnam
vet who spent time in Nicaragua,you know, kind of trying to
discourage the US invasion ofNicaragua, and actually lost his
legs.
(21:52):
A train ran over him as he wastrying to block an arms
shipment that was sending armsto the Contras in Nicaragua.
And Brian is still alive, he'sstill making it around pretty
ably on prosthetic legs.
But he introduces Rae toanother set of witnesses around
(22:16):
the war very early on.
She says she he has a pictureon his wall of a man named
Norman Morrison and he explainsthat Norman Morrison was a
Quaker who in protest of theVietnam War, self-emulated
himself on the steps at thePentagon, outside the window of
Secretary of War, RobertMcNamara, and Brian was shipping
(22:40):
off to Vietnam and he thought,wow, this is, this guy's a
nutter.
You kind of his reaction.
But after a couple years inVietnam, Brian is souring to the
the mission.
He thinks the US role inVietnam is wrong.
His job is to go into villagesafter US bombing raids and see
what the impact is.
So he sees the impact ofbombings on civilians and elders
(23:02):
and children.
At one point he goes into avillage.
The village is empty,everybody's fled, but there's a
hut and in the hut is an altar,kind of a traditional Vietnamese
Remembrance altar, with burningcandles still on the table and
there are pictures of some ofthe family members.
But on this altar is a pictureof Norman Morrison, an American
(23:26):
Quaker, whose witness was verylike some of the Vietnamese
monks who also emulatedthemselves in protest of the war
.
So that was just a huge impacton Brian and later on Rae.
You know what kind of witnesswould that be?
And then she also learns aboutthe work and life of Dietrich
Bonhoeffer, who was a Germantheologian, who was a pacifist
(23:52):
but during the rise of Hitlerbecame very outspoken against
the Nazi regime and in the endjoined a unsuccessful plot to
assassinate Adolf Hitler and waslater executed for it.
So these are, you know, theseare some of the saints and
elders in Rae's mind, people whowho made tremendous sacrifices.
(24:17):
And I think at the end of herlife she starts to think well,
maybe this is a Bonhoeffermoment in the struggle to defend
the earth.
When it comes to this fossilfuel industry, she, she believes
they are an incarnation of evil, they can't stop themselves and
they need to be stopped, andthat's sort of how mentally she
(24:41):
comes to that, thatunderstanding.
Osha Hayden (24:44):
Right, and I mean it took her a bit to get there,
it seems, because her life wasone of nonviolence, of being a
pacifist, although you know,engaging in some acts to help
preserve the earth.
But that was a pretty radicaldeparture for her.
Chuck Collins (25:03):
It was a complete departure.
Yeah, this is not really in hernature.
Her husband, who is namedReggie, reflecting back, says he
remembers how she would takehim out at night to help the
salamanders cross the road,because it was so upsetting to
her.
Any loss of life was upsettingto her, so for her to take a
(25:23):
life would be completely out ofher character and out of her 70
year life.
And yet at that end of her life, she's becoming more and more
upset, but she's physically ill.
She knows she's going to dieand she's also gotten very
steeped in understanding of howpowerful the fossil fuel
industry is in shaping thetrajectory that we're on.
(25:46):
So it brings her to that breakwith her own tradition and past.
Osha Hayden (25:51):
Though some argue that all of us in the global
north are responsible for theclimate crisis, a proposition
that Rae accepted to some degree, she laid primary
responsibility on the doorstepof a small number of powerful
people and industries that haveactively blocked meaningful
(26:12):
responses.
So can you say more about thosewho have locked us into this
destructive trajectory, and howdo we hold them accountable?
Chuck Collins (26:23):
Yeah, we probably still agree that, you know,
those of us who live in theUnited States and in the global
north, who live middle class andaffluent lifestyles, have a lot
of responsibility.
We're the big consumers, we'reconsuming the minerals and
resources and the fossil fuelsfrom around the world and we're
burning way more carbon thanmost people.
So she would still probably say, yeah, most of us are some
(26:46):
degree responsible.
But over the last 10 years ofher life she kinds of gets a
crash course in just howpowerful the fossil fuel
industry is.
She's personally involved in afight against a pipeline, a
fracked gas pipeline that'scoming into her Boston
neighborhood, and she sees howthe game is pretty rigged, that
(27:09):
the sort of governmentregulatory apparatus is entirely
captured by the industry.
And then she starts to read youknow some of the recent
reporting on, oh well, Shell andExxon.
These corporations actually knew40, sometimes 50 years ago
about the harms that were goingto be caused by the burning of
(27:31):
greenhouse gases, and yet theychose not to do anything.
In fact, they chose to usetheir power initially to fund
sham science and climate changedenial.
They worked to sow doubt.
They worked to blockalternatives.
So the fact that there's not atrain from San Francisco to LA
(27:54):
is largely because of thelobbying of the fossil fuel
industry to not allow there tobe alternatives to fossil fuel
and then to delay, toessentially run out the clock.
And here we are sitting hereeven as we speak.
You know Congress in the lastmonth debated how to raise the
debt ceiling.
As part of that deal theyapproved a new pipeline fossil
(28:18):
fuel infrastructure project inVirginia.
So you know, what Rae wasseeing is wow, these folks are
incapable of stopping, and it'sreally a couple dozen
corporations and a handful ofleaders of those companies who
basically, again and again, makedecisions to extract more
(28:42):
fossil fuel, build newinfrastructure and kind of blow
us past the carbon and methanelimits to the atmosphere.
So she starts to believe we'reall responsible, but there's
some people who are veryresponsible for locking us into
the trajectory that we're on.
Osha Hayden (29:01):
So let me ask you this so, with Rae's murder of
what she calls a carbon baron,do you think the moment has
passed for nonviolent actionalone?
I mean, are those who arecapable of making the changes
necessary the oil barons, etc.
and governments, corporationsare they impervious to reasoning
(29:22):
?
I mean, are they beyond reason?
Chuck Collins (29:27):
Well, I think that Rae, given the confluence
of her own experience and sortof that sense that her own
physical body is under attack,kind of comes to that Bonhoeffer
conclusion.
Now actually, and you know, theother characters in the book
argue that that we're not atthat point and you know, I think
it's hard to imagine the USCongress and its current
(29:49):
formation being able at all torespond to the gravity of the
situation, so that that lookskind of like a dead end.
But there are other pressurepoints, there are other places
where we have agency that Ithink are worthy of attempting,
and it will require disruptionof the fossil fuel industry.
(30:11):
You know there are many peoplewho have literally physically
tried to stop the constructionof new fossil fuel
infrastructure and I think thosestruggles will continue and
will get more militant as timegoes on.
I do think that there are peoplewho are calling for moving
capital, moving banks andinvestment out of the fossil
(30:31):
fuel industry.
So cutting off capital to thefossil fuel industry, boycotting
the banks.
You see a group called ThirdAct is out there doing that
divestment movement,congregations, individuals,
foundations around the world,taking capital out of the fossil
fuel industry, redirecting itto a clean energy economy.
(30:55):
So there are abundant otherpressure points, but it's clear
we need to focus on the power ofthe fossil fuel industry.
Actually, Senator SheldonWhitehouse just did a
congressional Senate hearing ondark money and the role of the
fossil fuel industry infunneling money to climate
(31:15):
denier groups and lobbyinggroups.
Osha Hayden (31:19):
I saw that.
Chuck Collins (31:20):
Yes, and that's exactly what I would call for is
like it's time to do kind of aboth at the global level the
United Nations or other globalbodies and in the US we should
have tribunals that looks at theinfluence and corruption of our
democracy by this very narrowlyfocused fossil fuel industry,
(31:41):
and we should treat them kind oflike narco-traffickers.
They should have the sameesteemed place in our society as
the Sacklers and the Opioidepidemic, and these are folks
who profit from the destructionof our habitat and our future
and they should be held toaccount.
Osha Hayden (31:59):
I really believe that in the future, these people
will be considered criminalsbecause they have committed
crimes against humanity and theyare continuing to commit crimes
against humanity when they takeus to a place where we cannot
have a sustainable planetanymore.
(32:20):
We've all seen the destructionthat is happening around us and
the death that is happening andthe whales and dolphins that are
coming up onto the beaches deadand all of these things, not to
depress you, my listeners, butwe are seeing these things.
So I think we have to reallylook at things, take another
(32:43):
lens in terms of looking atthings and holding people
accountable who are taking usdown a very, very dangerous path
, and I love it that SheldonWhiteh ouse is looking at the
dark money.
That's the kind of expose weneed to go forward from here.
Okay, I guess I'm not neutralat all here, but that's okay.
Chuck Collins (33:09):
Howard Zinn would say it's hard to be neutral on
a moving train.
Osha Hayden (33:12):
It is, it is, it is .
Chuck Collins (33:16):
But I do think you're right that 20 years from
now, if humanity is around tocelebrate and some form of
humanity will be, most likely,that we'll look back and say,
wow, how did we allow that tohappen?
How did we?
There are things each of uscan do, and there are places
(33:37):
where we have some agency aboutour own lifestyle and standard
of living.
But in some ways that becomes adistraction when you realize
the folks who are really drivingthe train to the cliff are kind
of impervious to politicalinfluence at this point.
And so that's where that laserfocus on the small group of
(33:58):
people who are responsible andshould be held to account, and
that's where I think, like amodel with a narco trafficker,
you know, you should we shouldsay well, look, this is criminal
.
Politicians accepting moneyfrom these organizations should
be against the law, if it's notalready.
And we should look at ways tocreate public authorities to
(34:20):
acquire the assets of thesefossil fuel companies and stop
the drilling, stop theextraction, stop the new
construction of fossil fuelinfrastructure, when every
scientist that is credible istelling us we have to rapidly
move, yesterday, to a different,alternative energy system and
(34:40):
we have to consume less.
We can't consume more, we haveto simplify and consume less.
But you know, some people saywell, we're all, you know, we're
just like the users and thefossil fuel industries, the
dealers.
You know, it's really us.
That's the problem.
Well, the fossil fuel industryhas kind of warped the menu, if
you will.
You know, there's only likethree things on the menu coal,
(35:02):
gold, gas and oil and a fewother other side dishes.
In terms of energy policy, ifwe, if you and I, had known what
Exxon and Mobile had known 40years ago, and if our elected
officials had known, we would bein a much better position to
face the future than we are now.
But they have run out the clockand narrowed the options.
(35:23):
So now the option is thechoice extinction events or bad
catastrophes.
Which one do you want?
You know, and there are peoplewho are responsible for putting
us in this pickle.
Osha Hayden (35:38):
It sort of reminds me of when you're diagnosed with
cancer and you have choices youneed to make about your
treatment, but there are no goodchoices, right?
None of the choices are verygood choices because it's all
toxic and all can pretty muchlead to your death.
But one of the things I wantedto bring out is how you have
(36:00):
this in your book in terms ofthe divide that happens between
Rae and her brother, Toby laterin their life, when Toby gets
involved in listening to RushLimbaugh and watching, Fox News,
and they become reallyseparated by a pretty wide
divide, which is what'shappening in this country right
(36:21):
now.
So to what degree do you thinkthat the fossil fuel companies
have some responsibility for thehuge divisions that are
happening in our society now?
Chuck Collins (36:34):
Well, it's very interesting.
I think they're one of themajor players If you actually go
back and look at the role ofthe oil industry in US politics
in funding the most extremistwhite supremacist groups and
fueling division and fundingconservative media.
Fossil fuel, money, oil, gasand big coal all are huge
(36:59):
regressive players in our socialsystem.
So some of that polarization -and I try to tell the story
about Rae and her brother, Toby- because it's so emblematic of
so many families that have seenthis polarization.
You know at one point Reggie,Rae's husband says, "our
brother's mind has been occupiedby Fox News.
(37:19):
And Ray says well, that's howhe looks at us too and, to her
credit, she tries to stayconnected to her brother, even
when they're arguing.
A lot of families just splinterapart and stop talking to each
other, but Ray insists onstaying connected to Toby, even
when it's not always a happyconversation.
I think that we think, oh, we'resort of a polarized society,
(37:42):
but how did we get there and whofunded us?
I mean, maybe there's Russianmoney too that's trying to
accent all of our differences.
But I think a lot of that'sself-inflicted and a lot of that
comes from the most regressivepolitical organizing and funders
like the Koch brothers.
I mean think of the Kochbrothers as a big oil and gas
(38:02):
industry infrastructure companywho've put, organized, a billion
dollars to fund right-wingpolitics in this country, so
that polarization isn't just anaccident.
It's how the oil industryprotects its interests.
Osha Hayden (38:18):
There's a significant focus in the book in
Altar to an Erupting Sun onchanges that are happening in
the wider society and on localaction, what Rae and Reggie's
local Vermont community is doingto be a part of the change.
(38:39):
So why focus on local action?
I mean, don't we needsociety-wide systemic change,
which is that?
Chuck Collins (38:48):
Yes, yeah, absolutely.
But I also think we have to actwhere we have agency, and
oftentimes that's locally.
Local food system, growing ourown food.
Looking at our regional energywhere does our energy come from?
Can we reduce our regionaldependence on fossil fuels?
Can we build good transitinfrastructure in rural and
(39:14):
urban areas?
Can we relocalize the economy,produce more of what we need at
the local level?
There's both stopping the bad,but there's also building the
alternatives, and I think wekind of need to work a multitask
if you will work on both levelswithout yielding the larger
system change.
That's a problem.
It's just that most of us wakeup every day and think, well,
(39:38):
where do I have any power toaffect that larger political
system when our congressional USCongress, is completely, mostly
captured by the fossil fuelindustry?
That doesn't mean give up.
It means plug in where you canand work to get people elected
who understand the gravity ofthe climate crisis and are not
(39:59):
taking donations from the fossilfuel industry.
So there are things we have towork on at the systemic level,
but I know each of us, every day, need to do things that are
kind of move us forward, thatare life affirming and where we
get to live our lives the way wewant to live.
But it's a global matter too,and sometimes realizing we in
(40:21):
the United States, at least inthe Northern United States may
feel the full brunt of climatedisruption much later than
people in other parts of theworld.
So our hearts need to beconnected across borders as we
understand and take actionaround these problems.
Osha Hayden (40:38):
I have to say that I'm just gonna do a little
shout- out here to Sonoma County, because Sonoma County is one
of the greenest, mostsustainable counties, I think,
in the country -definitely inCalifornia and that's because of
a lot of local action, peoplereally getting involved and
making sure that that happens.
(40:58):
So there is a huge case to bemade for acting at the local
level to change things and thenbecome a model for other
communities.
Those are some places that Ilook to see how we can make a
change that will then perhapscatch on in other areas.
Chuck Collins (41:19):
Yeah, I was just gonna also shout out to Sonoma
County that some of theTransition Town Movement and a
whole bunch of experiments andresilient living and the
Post-Carbon Institute used to bebased there and it's exported
great ideas to the rest of theUS and the world.
So those of the people who aretoiling at the local level can
(41:40):
be exemplars and inspirations toother communities on how to
live into the new future that weneed to live into.
Osha Hayden (41:50):
I wanted to say, because of this book and the act
of Rae Kelliher, taking thelife of an oil baron and his
family out as she also dies, youwant readers to be shocked,
right?
Even repulsed, by her finalact?
(42:11):
But not only that, how else doyou want readers to engage in
this story?
I mean, what would Rae be doingtoday if she were still here
among us?
Chuck Collins (42:20):
Well, I think she would say what bold action are
each of us called to in defenseof Mother Earth, our holy home?
Really, that is going to bedifferent for everybody.
It's interesting there's agroup that's formed called Third
Act, which is people over 60,Bill McKibbin and Akai Winwood
and others have said look, folkswho are older, who don't have
(42:43):
their whole lives in front ofthem, have maybe some sense of
some skills and some securityand some financial well-being.
We should be taking the risks,we should be stepping up, we
should be stepping in front ofthe bulldozers and risking jail
time and risking our comfort sothat other people can have a
(43:04):
chance to have the same life,qualities of life that some of
us had.
So that's an interestingwitness.
That's a group saying boldaction as you grow older.
It's not a young person'sproblem, it's all of our problem
, and some of us are in a verygood position to take action.
People have access to capitaland you're in your money or you
(43:25):
have a credit card at Chase Bankor whatever.
Well, they're one of thebiggest investors in fossil fuel
infrastructure.
Move assets, move money out.
The insurance industry isstarting to say well, maybe we
should stop insuring some ofthese fossil fuel projects,
we'll put pressure on thoseplayers.
(43:46):
So look wherever there's apressure point, and that
sometimes might mean puttingyour body out there, direct
action or blocking the doorwayor refusing to move to the back
of the bus.
In whatever that means in thecontext that you're in, it's a
time for courageous reflectionand action.
Osha Hayden (44:07):
Kind of like the line, the wall of mothers and
grandmothers at the protest, theGeorge Floyd protest, who would
get right out in front?
Chuck Collins (44:18):
Exactly.
The Granny Brigade.
Yeah, In my community there's agroup that, as an alternative to
policing, say send in thegrandmothers, send in these wise
elders, these wise women tosolve problems.
And I think we're going to seepart of what's going to happen
is the climate crisis is goingto become more severe.
(44:41):
We're going to have more hotdays and disrupted food systems
and smoke and droughts andfloods, and that will mean more
people waking up.
Oh, climate change isn'tsomething 100 years from now or
50 years from now.
It's happening now and we willsee the failure of our political
(45:04):
system.
And so I think we'll see anescalation of tactics and that
could be everything from likeExtinction Rebellion, people
saying we're going to bedisruptive, you're not going to
like it.
We're going to your Harvard /Yale football game.
We're going to go out on thefield and be part of the
halftime show Sorry, but youcan't ignore this problem
(45:26):
anymore.
And we're going to see NormanMorrison witnesses.
He saw a man named Wynne Brucelast Earth Day, two years ago,
immolated himself on the stepsof the Supreme Court over the
court's rulings on climatechange.
That kind of witness around theworld is not unusual when a
(45:49):
situation is grave and seriousand we may see additional eco
sabotage.
There's a new popular film outcalled how to blow up a pipeline
, which is a fictional filmabout eight young people who
come together to blow up apipeline in Texas.
And again, I'm not, you or Iare not advocating this.
(46:10):
I think we should justunderstand, when a system is not
responding to the overwhelmingmajority of people, it's going
to lead to desperate action andmilitant action, and so I think
we're going to see the pressuregrowing, given how the fossil
fuel industry basically gets itsway right up to this very
(46:31):
moment as you and I are talking.
Osha Hayden (46:34):
And I'm going to put some links in the show notes
here for the podcast onresilience.
org some information aboutforming resilient circles,
divestinvest.
org, which really can help youto figure out how to divest from
fossil fuels and invest in theclimate, and Institute for
(46:56):
Policy Studies, where you work,the Post-Carbon Institute.
There are a number of linksthat I'm going to load up at the
bottom of the podcast here sothat if people want to go and
have a look and of course itwill also be a link to your
website, chuck, it'schuckcollinswrite s.
com, and they'll be able to gothere and look at your book and
(47:20):
some of the other work thatyou've been doing for, wow,
pretty much your whole life, andkudos for that, by the way.
Thank you, thank you, thank you.
So I'll put all these links inthere and it's going to be a
rich little feast of places youcan go to get some ideas about
how you might want to act tohelp move the trajectory into a
(47:45):
better direction at this point.
So I want to thank you so muchfor coming on this show today,
Chuck.
Chuck Collins (47:52):
Thank you for having this conversation and I
thank your listeners forlistening and being open to the
conversation.
Osha Hayden (47:59):
Yeah.
So, to my listeners, I hopewe've given you some juicy
things to think about andperhaps some different
perspectives, and so, as you goforth, have an inspiring week
and live your joy.
See you next time.
As you witness the mounting destruction caused by
global warming, while thedrilling for fossil fuels
continues unchecked.
In what ways are you feelingcalled to act?
On our show today, ChuckCollins raises some provocative
questions.
In his new novel Altar to anErupting Sun, we will discuss
(00:33):
some important moral and ethicalquestions regarding what
brought us to this juncture andwhat measures we might take.
This is Aspire with Osha, art,nature, humanity, and I'm your
host, Osha Hayden.
It is my great honor to haveChuck Collins here today to talk
(00:57):
about his important new novel.
First, a bit about Chuck Collins.
Chuck Collins is a campaignerand storyteller who has worked
for decades on environmental andeconomic justice campaigns.
He's the director of theProgram on Inequality and the
(01:18):
Common Good at the Institute forPolicy Studies, where he
co-edits Inequality.
org.
He's the co-founder ofDivestInvest.
org, a global movement to divestfrom fossil fuels and invest in
climate solutions, and he'strustee of the Post-Carbon
(01:40):
Institute and Resilience.
org.
Author of several books onwealth inequality, including
most recently the WealthHoarders: How Billionaires Pay
Millions to Hide Trillions,Alter to an Erupting Sun is his
first novel.
Welcome to the show, ChuckCollins.
Chuck Collins (02:03):
Hey, thank you for having me, Osha.
Osha Hayden (02:05):
So your work has been focused on income
inequality and the growingwealth divide in our country.
How is this novel about theclimate crisis related to your
work on income inequality, or isit?
Chuck Collins (02:20):
Well, I do think it is connected.
I think both extremeconcentration of wealth and
power and the fact that we'relocked into a trajectory toward
growing ecological distress areconnected.
In my mind, it's always beenconnected.
I've worked primarily on issuesof wealth inequality, but I've
(02:44):
also, for 15 years or so, beenvery attuned to the rising
amount of carbon in theatmosphere, the future potential
disruption and the challengesthat presents for all of us.
So it's really very muchinterconnected for me.
Osha Hayden (03:02):
The timeline of your story begins right now, in
2023, and then it ends in 2030.
Why center the novel in today'sworld rather than in some
future time?
Chuck Collins (03:16):
Well, in part because we are living now in the
critical decade.
Scientists tell us that we'resort of the first generation to
fully understand the gravity ofthe ecological and climate
crisis.
We're also the last generationto really be able to
meaningfully shift thetrajectory, and a lot of future
fiction and a lot of sciencefiction looks out 50 or 100
(03:38):
years, but, to be honest, wereally don't have that long for
humanity to get our act together.
So I wanted to tell a storythat talks about how people in
one community and differentplaces are acting today.
In the short term, in the nextseven years, what is it we can
do to sort of shift thedirection of where things are
going?
Osha Hayden (03:59):
I think a lot of people will see themselves,
perhaps some part of themselves,and these characters, because
the timeline is so current.
You know, it's our timeline.
Although you begin this storywith the main character, Rae
Kelliher and her death, most ofthe book explores the arc of her
life and the people andexperiences that shaped her,
(04:22):
which helps explain an otherwiseinexplicable act.
Can you, tell us a little bitabout that backstory?
Chuck Collins (04:31):
Yeah, and it's not a spoiler alert to readers
to know that the main character,, lifelong of human rights and
environmental activist, veryrooted in nonviolent and
pacifist traditions, has lots ofelders and important people in
her life who sort of taught heralong the way.
(04:53):
But at the end of her life, youknow, close to 70, she is
diagnosed with a terminalillness.
She doesn't have long to live,she only has months to live, and
she decides to take her ownlife and, in a shocking act,
take the life of the CEO of anoil company and in the process
also killing several innocentpeople.
(05:14):
She engages in a shockingaction which takes place, as you
say, right around now.
Then the book leaps ahead sevenyears to sort of think about,
well, what's been the impact ofthat, the negative blowback, but
then goes backwards in time towell, what formed her.
And you know, in greatreligious tradition people talk
(05:36):
about formation and you knowwhat are the forces, the
individuals, the influences thatshape each of us?
And that's what this book isabout.
It's really about a person, howthey're formed, not just by
elders and books, but aboutshaped by social movements the
movement to stop nuclear powerplants, the movement to
(05:58):
discourage US intervention inCentral America and movement to
address climate disruption.
So those are all the thingsthat form her.
Osha Hayden (06:06):
Her first protest in the book came when she was
eight, and it involved removingwooden stakes that construction
workers had laid out to indicatewhich trees were to be cleared
in her beloved forest to makeway for a housing development.
So what's seeds did that actionplant?
Chuck Collins (06:25):
Well, she, you know, she grew up in Southern
Ohio in a working classcommunity but she had a
wonderful big brother who justtook her out into nature and
taught her mushrooming and tookher to kind of some magical
places.
And so as teenagers they'rewalking along and they see the
destruction of this forest, theysee that it's been marked up
(06:48):
for development, and I think alot of readers can probably
relate to this.
That you know, if you're over acertain age, you probably grew
up in a place that later becamea subdivision or later became
bulldozed for something thathumans were building.
And it just sort of viscerallystruck Rae and her brother Toby
and they engaged in, you couldcall it a minor act of
(07:09):
eco-sabotage.
They sort of pulled up thestakes that had been put in
place to plow a road and startedto cut down ribbons on trees
that were destined to be cutdown.
So in a very early formativelevel she took an action to stop
harmful development to aprecious and important
ecological place for her.
Osha Hayden (07:29):
Yeah, I think a lot of people can probably relate
to that, especially now.
So Rae drops out of AmherstUniversity to join a community
farm and it was there that shereceived, I think, her real
education, from the likes of SamLovejoy, Wally and Juanita
Nelson, and Chuck Matthei.
(07:50):
And while the protagonist, Rae,is a fictional character, many
of the key characters, alongwith the setting and the
pressing issues, are very real.
What formative lessons didthese luminaries provide for her
?
Chuck Collins (08:06):
There's a couple of things going on there.
For me, one is the book as analtar, so in a sense recognizing
these real people.
My hope is that readers, ifthey're not familiar with them,
will learn about their realhistorical legacy.
But what they taught to Rae wasthe importance of taking a
longer view and persisting.
(08:29):
Sam Lovejoy, who is fortunatelystill alive, was part of
stopping a nuclear power plantin his rural town of Montague,
Massachusetts, and he did itthrough an act of sabotage.
He cut the cables on a towerthat the nuclear power plant
industry had put up in order toget their permits.
They had to do some weathermonitoring and he knocked the
tower over and turned himselfinto the police and stood trial,
(08:51):
eventually was acquitted.
But Rae was witness to all ofthis and I think that what she
saw was, first of all,individuals can do bold and
important things, but togetheryou can form social movements,
and sometimes it just feels likeyou're not making an impact.
But I think what she learnedfrom these elders is you sort of
(09:14):
do the work anyway andsometimes it makes an impact,
and sometimes you need to takethe longer view that maybe you
won't win this battle, but maybeyou can make bigger changes.
So I think it gave her a senseof agency, that she herself
could be an actor on history,could make a difference, and
that people coming together arewhat changes history.
Osha Hayden (09:38):
And, like others of her era,Rae went to Nicaragua
and El Salvador to volunteer andshe was there helping to
harvest the cotton crops.
But she thought, what good am Ireally doing?
And then a priest told her thatthe real purpose there was
accompaniment.
Can you say more about that?
Chuck Collins (10:01):
Yeah, and again during the 1980s, as the US was
sort of saber rattling andthreatened to invade Nicaragua
and was funding right wing deathsquads in El Salvador, a lot of
Americans became engaged andactually went to those countries
as kind of expressions offriendship.
(10:21):
And this was very formative forRae.
And in one case, as youdescribed, she's literally part
of the cotton harvest, pickingcotton in Nicaragua.
But she says to her friend, aRoman Catholic priest, she says
boy, we're terrible pickers,maybe we should have just taken
all the money we spent to gethere, maybe we should have just
sent some doctors.
(10:43):
And he turns to her.
He says well, our role here isto accompany people, to be
witness, to show that we'reacting in solidarity and
friendship and that ourgovernment's actions don't speak
for us.
And I think that's true for alot of situations where we can't
always fix things.
(11:05):
Somebody you know maybestruggling with addiction or
other family issues.
Sometimes we come up againstthe limits of how can we help.
And I think Rae's lesson iswell, sometimes you can't just
fix it, but you can accompanythe person, or in this case, you
can accompany the people ofNicaragua in their own journey
(11:27):
for liberation.
It's not necessarily your roleto fix it even, but you want to
be present to that and that's animportant lesson for her as she
goes through life.
You can't always fix it, butyou can be present and try to do
what you can.
Osha Hayden (11:41):
She later became a trainer and leader of the School
of the Americas Watch, and yourown Institute of Policy Studies
lost two members to the Schoolof America's violence, and your
group presents the Letelier-Moffitt Human Rights Award in
remembrance.
And I know, on a previouspodcast in July of 2021, I
(12:05):
interviewed one of yourcolleagues, John Kavanaugh, on
his book, The Water Defenders,and that features a story of one
of the murdered recipients ofthe award.
So defending the earth isreally dangerous work.
Do you want to talk a littlebit about that?
Chuck Collins (12:21):
Absolutely.
I mean defending the earth,standing up for human rights,
you can risk your life.
One of the water defenders, whowas recently mentioned in that
book, was abducted and kidnappedin the last month.
Oh no, so defenders of theearth are really courageous.
This is where Rae Kelliher isspending time in El Salvador and
(12:45):
she realizes, okay, the US hasa training facility at Fort
Benning, Georgia, where theytrain these militaries to do
interrogation and torture, andthey call it the "School of
Torturers, what was called theSchool of the Americas.
So she becomes involved in thateffort to shut it down.
(13:06):
And it becomes personal forsome of us, because we learned
later that the Chilean hit squadthat murdered our colleague at
the Institute for Policy Studies, Orlando Letelier, was trained
at the School of Americas inGeorgia.
So sometimes we as Americansforget we have so much power in
(13:27):
the world and our military andour foreign policy really does
sometimes affect who lives andwho dies around the world.
And so they're really bringingthat witness home by protesting
and calling for the closure ofthe School of the Americas.
This kind of nationalembarrassment, or what Rae would
(13:48):
say, a national outrage thatwe're training these military
officers.
So it's part of her recognizingthat we live in an
interconnected world and thatthose of us who have US
passports have a lot ofresponsibility for the power
that's wielded in our name.
Osha Hayden (14:07):
Yeah, and a lot of times that power is wielded in
our name in order to extractfossil fuels, minerals, et
cetera, mining gold.
One of the things that isinteresting in this book is that
the economic meltdown in 2008inspires Rae to create these
mutual aid societies andresilient circles.
(14:29):
So what lessons learned therecan be applied to the shift that
we're going to be seeing asclimate disruption and economic
collapse become more pronounced?
Chuck Collins (14:41):
Yeah, I think that Rae is somebody who's sort
of watching the signs of thetimes and in the late whatever
2008, 2007, like a lot of people, you could kind of see housing
bubble about to burst and thefact that the people were
getting access to easy debt andthat that led to this economic
meltdown.
And Rae and others ,lookingforward, say, well, we're
(15:03):
heading into disruption, we'reheading into a disrupted future,
both the ecology, food systems,weird weather - those of us in
New England just lived through aweek of smoke from the Canadian
fires coming down - and thenthat will have economic impacts
that will affect and ripplethrough the economic stability
(15:27):
that we often take for granted.
So part of Rae's approach waswell, we need to help each other
out, we need to form mutual aidgroups.
We can't necessarily wait forgovernment to show up and fix
things.
We ourselves may need to takecare of one another and we
should start practicing that.
And she would even say look, ourmutual aid muscles are badly
(15:52):
out of shape.
We don't know how to ask forhelp.
We don't know how to offer help- not everybody, but often
people in the middle class sortof living, this notion that,
well, we're all self-sufficienthere.
All of a sudden that breaksdown, and it did break down in
that fall of 2009.
And people had to look to theirneighbors and look to one
(16:14):
another, and I think that's, inRay's view, part of how we're
going to prepare for the comingdecade as well.
We need to know our neighborsand create local economies and
provide mutual aid and supportto one another when we do hit
the bumpy road.
Osha Hayden (16:33):
That reminds me of something we have here in my
neighborhood which is calledMeet your Neighbors, but it's
basically for responding toemergencies, you know, getting
to know your neighbors andhaving everybody on kind of a
call list so that we'reconnected to each other and we
can meet and talk about howwe'll respond if there's an
(16:54):
earthquake or another wildfire.
And we've been evacuated twicehere for nine or 10 days at a
time due to wildfires.
So that's in a way kind of likea resilience circle, but
there's more formal informationabout resilience circles and how
to form them.
It's resiliencecircles.
org.
(17:16):
Is that right or resilience.
org?
Chuck Collins (17:20):
Resilience.
org is a great resource and, asyou say, it's actually kind of
common sense.
The first step is knowing yourneighbors, knowing what each of
you has in terms of needs andtools.
It's not unusual for people tolive in communities where they
literally don't know theirneighbors.
They don't have a sort ofability to call each other for
(17:43):
help.
So yeah, meeting neighbors andsort of taking inventory well,
let's say, the power goes downfor a week, who has a generator?
Who has first aid skills?
Who can help who?
Who has an elderly familymember that's going to need some
help, or whatever Sort ofmapping and knowing.
That is just common sense, goodneighborliness, but we're going
(18:04):
to need to do it for the longterm as well.
So, forming resilience circlesor self-help groups and actually
coming out of the pandemicthere's a whole lot of mutual
aid practice that developed in alot of communities.
Osha Hayden (18:20):
So, in a way, we're all really in the preparation
mode for building our skills andour resilience and getting to
know our neighbors and formingnetworks for what is to come,
because it's going to be apretty bumpy ride.
Chuck Collins (18:37):
Yeah, and part of what was important for me in
writing Altar to an Erupting Sunwas to look at all the things
that people are doing at thelocal level that that could help
us prepare.
So probably where you live andwhere I live, people are
thinking about relocalizing foodsystems, not having your
(18:57):
calories come from more than ahundred miles away, ideally
within five miles, looking athow to create affordable housing
and share access to land andhousing for food and shelter,
welcoming immigrants, welcomingnewcomers.
You know, as as we deal with adisrupted future, some people
are gonna have to move and somepeople are gonna have to make
(19:19):
room for others.
That's a challenging practicefor a lot of people, but that's
part of how we prepare andthinking about how we think
about the end of our lives aswell.
You know, Rae Kelliher is adeath doula and she really
thinks about that.
Part of looking and facing thefuture is also facing our own
mortality and thinking about howwe want to live as well as how
(19:40):
we want to die and how we wantto honor ancestors.
So all those things areinterwoven for her and in her
community in southern Vermont.
They're trying to put intopractice all these ways to build
a resilient community To facewhatever comes their way.
Osha Hayden (19:58):
Well, let's take a short break and we'll be back in
just a moment with more fromChuck Collins and his book,
Altar to an Erupting Sun.
Do stay tuned.
In case you're just joining us,this is Aspire, with Osha, art
(20:25):
and nature Humanity, and I'myour host, Osha Hayden.
I am here today with ChuckCollins, who is the author of
Altar to an Erupting Sun, andwe're talking about resilience,
the importance of incorporatingour attitudes towards death,
(20:46):
we're talking about the climatecrisis and how we might approach
that, and some importantquestions that we probably need
to ask ourselves.
Let's talk a little bit aboutsome of the people who
influenced this character, Rae: Brian Wilson, Norman Morrison (21:01):
undefined
and Dietrich Bonhoeffer.
What context does that give tothose trying to understand her
final act using her finalmoments of her life, as she was
about to die, to blow herself upalong with an oil baron as an
(21:25):
active protest, and so how do wemake sense of that?
Chuck Collins (21:31):
Yeah, one of the Influences on Rae early on is
she she meets a man named BrianWilson, no connection to the
singer of the Beach Boys, butBrian Wilson who was a Vietnam
vet who spent time in Nicaragua,you know, kind of trying to
discourage the US invasion ofNicaragua, and actually lost his
legs.
(21:52):
A train ran over him as he wastrying to block an arms
shipment that was sending armsto the Contras in Nicaragua.
And Brian is still alive, he'sstill making it around pretty
ably on prosthetic legs.
But he introduces Rae toanother set of witnesses around
(22:16):
the war very early on.
She says she he has a pictureon his wall of a man named
Norman Morrison and he explainsthat Norman Morrison was a
Quaker who in protest of theVietnam War, self-emulated
himself on the steps at thePentagon, outside the window of
Secretary of War, RobertMcNamara, and Brian was shipping
(22:40):
off to Vietnam and he thought,wow, this is, this guy's a
nutter.
You kind of his reaction.
But after a couple years inVietnam, Brian is souring to the
the mission.
He thinks the US role inVietnam is wrong.
His job is to go into villagesafter US bombing raids and see
what the impact is.
So he sees the impact ofbombings on civilians and elders
(23:02):
and children.
At one point he goes into avillage.
The village is empty,everybody's fled, but there's a
hut and in the hut is an altar,kind of a traditional Vietnamese
Remembrance altar, with burningcandles still on the table and
there are pictures of some ofthe family members.
But on this altar is a pictureof Norman Morrison, an American
(23:26):
Quaker, whose witness was verylike some of the Vietnamese
monks who also emulatedthemselves in protest of the war
.
So that was just a huge impacton Brian and later on Rae.
You know what kind of witnesswould that be?
And then she also learns aboutthe work and life of Dietrich
Bonhoeffer, who was a Germantheologian, who was a pacifist
(23:52):
but during the rise of Hitlerbecame very outspoken against
the Nazi regime and in the endjoined a unsuccessful plot to
assassinate Adolf Hitler and waslater executed for it.
So these are, you know, theseare some of the saints and
elders in Rae's mind, people whowho made tremendous sacrifices.
(24:17):
And I think at the end of herlife she starts to think well,
maybe this is a Bonhoeffermoment in the struggle to defend
the earth.
When it comes to this fossilfuel industry, she, she believes
they are an incarnation of evil, they can't stop themselves and
they need to be stopped, andthat's sort of how mentally she
(24:41):
comes to that, thatunderstanding.
Osha Hayden (24:44):
Right, and I mean it took her a bit to get there,
it seems, because her life wasone of nonviolence, of being a
pacifist, although you know,engaging in some acts to help
preserve the earth.
But that was a pretty radicaldeparture for her.
Chuck Collins (25:03):
It was a complete departure.
Yeah, this is not really in hernature.
Her husband, who is namedReggie, reflecting back, says he
remembers how she would takehim out at night to help the
salamanders cross the road,because it was so upsetting to
her.
Any loss of life was upsettingto her, so for her to take a
(25:23):
life would be completely out ofher character and out of her 70
year life.
And yet at that end of her life, she's becoming more and more
upset, but she's physically ill.
She knows she's going to dieand she's also gotten very
steeped in understanding of howpowerful the fossil fuel
industry is in shaping thetrajectory that we're on.
(25:46):
So it brings her to that breakwith her own tradition and past.
Osha Hayden (25:51):
Though some argue that all of us in the global
north are responsible for theclimate crisis, a proposition
that Rae accepted to some degree, she laid primary
responsibility on the doorstepof a small number of powerful
people and industries that haveactively blocked meaningful
(26:12):
responses.
So can you say more about thosewho have locked us into this
destructive trajectory, and howdo we hold them accountable?
Chuck Collins (26:23):
Yeah, we probably still agree that, you know,
those of us who live in theUnited States and in the global
north, who live middle class andaffluent lifestyles, have a lot
of responsibility.
We're the big consumers, we'reconsuming the minerals and
resources and the fossil fuelsfrom around the world and we're
burning way more carbon thanmost people.
So she would still probably say, yeah, most of us are some
(26:46):
degree responsible.
But over the last 10 years ofher life she kinds of gets a
crash course in just howpowerful the fossil fuel
industry is.
She's personally involved in afight against a pipeline, a
fracked gas pipeline that'scoming into her Boston
neighborhood, and she sees howthe game is pretty rigged, that
(27:09):
the sort of governmentregulatory apparatus is entirely
captured by the industry.
And then she starts to read youknow some of the recent
reporting on, oh well, Shell andExxon.
These corporations actually knew40, sometimes 50 years ago
about the harms that were goingto be caused by the burning of
(27:31):
greenhouse gases, and yet theychose not to do anything.
In fact, they chose to usetheir power initially to fund
sham science and climate changedenial.
They worked to sow doubt.
They worked to blockalternatives.
So the fact that there's not atrain from San Francisco to LA
(27:54):
is largely because of thelobbying of the fossil fuel
industry to not allow there tobe alternatives to fossil fuel
and then to delay, toessentially run out the clock.
And here we are sitting hereeven as we speak.
You know Congress in the lastmonth debated how to raise the
debt ceiling.
As part of that deal theyapproved a new pipeline fossil
(28:18):
fuel infrastructure project inVirginia.
So you know, what Rae wasseeing is wow, these folks are
incapable of stopping, and it'sreally a couple dozen
corporations and a handful ofleaders of those companies who
basically, again and again, makedecisions to extract more
(28:42):
fossil fuel, build newinfrastructure and kind of blow
us past the carbon and methanelimits to the atmosphere.
So she starts to believe we'reall responsible, but there's
some people who are veryresponsible for locking us into
the trajectory that we're on.
Osha Hayden (29:01):
So let me ask you this so, with Rae's murder of
what she calls a carbon baron,do you think the moment has
passed for nonviolent actionalone?
I mean, are those who arecapable of making the changes
necessary the oil barons, etc.
and governments, corporationsare they impervious to reasoning
(29:22):
?
I mean, are they beyond reason?
Chuck Collins (29:27):
Well, I think that Rae, given the confluence
of her own experience and sortof that sense that her own
physical body is under attack,kind of comes to that Bonhoeffer
conclusion.
Now actually, and you know, theother characters in the book
argue that that we're not atthat point and you know, I think
it's hard to imagine the USCongress and its current
(29:49):
formation being able at all torespond to the gravity of the
situation, so that that lookskind of like a dead end.
But there are other pressurepoints, there are other places
where we have agency that Ithink are worthy of attempting,
and it will require disruptionof the fossil fuel industry.
(30:11):
You know there are many peoplewho have literally physically
tried to stop the constructionof new fossil fuel
infrastructure and I think thosestruggles will continue and
will get more militant as timegoes on.
I do think that there are peoplewho are calling for moving
capital, moving banks andinvestment out of the fossil
(30:31):
fuel industry.
So cutting off capital to thefossil fuel industry, boycotting
the banks.
You see a group called ThirdAct is out there doing that
divestment movement,congregations, individuals,
foundations around the world,taking capital out of the fossil
fuel industry, redirecting itto a clean energy economy.
(30:55):
So there are abundant otherpressure points, but it's clear
we need to focus on the power ofthe fossil fuel industry.
Actually, Senator SheldonWhitehouse just did a
congressional Senate hearing ondark money and the role of the
fossil fuel industry infunneling money to climate
(31:15):
denier groups and lobbyinggroups.
Osha Hayden (31:19):
I saw that.
Chuck Collins (31:20):
Yes, and that's exactly what I would call for is
like it's time to do kind of aboth at the global level the
United Nations or other globalbodies and in the US we should
have tribunals that looks at theinfluence and corruption of our
democracy by this very narrowlyfocused fossil fuel industry,
(31:41):
and we should treat them kind oflike narco-traffickers.
They should have the sameesteemed place in our society as
the Sacklers and the Opioidepidemic, and these are folks
who profit from the destructionof our habitat and our future
and they should be held toaccount.
Osha Hayden (31:59):
I really believe that in the future, these people
will be considered criminalsbecause they have committed
crimes against humanity and theyare continuing to commit crimes
against humanity when they takeus to a place where we cannot
have a sustainable planetanymore.
(32:20):
We've all seen the destructionthat is happening around us and
the death that is happening andthe whales and dolphins that are
coming up onto the beaches deadand all of these things, not to
depress you, my listeners, butwe are seeing these things.
So I think we have to reallylook at things, take another
(32:43):
lens in terms of looking atthings and holding people
accountable who are taking usdown a very, very dangerous path
, and I love it that SheldonWhiteh ouse is looking at the
dark money.
That's the kind of expose weneed to go forward from here.
Okay, I guess I'm not neutralat all here, but that's okay.
Chuck Collins (33:09):
Howard Zinn would say it's hard to be neutral on
a moving train.
Osha Hayden (33:12):
It is, it is, it is .
Chuck Collins (33:16):
But I do think you're right that 20 years from
now, if humanity is around tocelebrate and some form of
humanity will be, most likely,that we'll look back and say,
wow, how did we allow that tohappen?
How did we?
There are things each of uscan do, and there are places
(33:37):
where we have some agency aboutour own lifestyle and standard
of living.
But in some ways that becomes adistraction when you realize
the folks who are really drivingthe train to the cliff are kind
of impervious to politicalinfluence at this point.
And so that's where that laserfocus on the small group of
(33:58):
people who are responsible andshould be held to account, and
that's where I think, like amodel with a narco trafficker,
you know, you should we shouldsay well, look, this is criminal
.
Politicians accepting moneyfrom these organizations should
be against the law, if it's notalready.
And we should look at ways tocreate public authorities to
(34:20):
acquire the assets of thesefossil fuel companies and stop
the drilling, stop theextraction, stop the new
construction of fossil fuelinfrastructure, when every
scientist that is credible istelling us we have to rapidly
move, yesterday, to a different,alternative energy system and
(34:40):
we have to consume less.
We can't consume more, we haveto simplify and consume less.
But you know, some people saywell, we're all, you know, we're
just like the users and thefossil fuel industries, the
dealers.
You know, it's really us.
That's the problem.
Well, the fossil fuel industryhas kind of warped the menu, if
you will.
You know, there's only likethree things on the menu coal,
(35:02):
gold, gas and oil and a fewother other side dishes.
In terms of energy policy, ifwe, if you and I, had known what
Exxon and Mobile had known 40years ago, and if our elected
officials had known, we would bein a much better position to
face the future than we are now.
But they have run out the clockand narrowed the options.
(35:23):
So now the option is thechoice extinction events or bad
catastrophes.
Which one do you want?
You know, and there are peoplewho are responsible for putting
us in this pickle.
Osha Hayden (35:38):
It sort of reminds me of when you're diagnosed with
cancer and you have choices youneed to make about your
treatment, but there are no goodchoices, right?
None of the choices are verygood choices because it's all
toxic and all can pretty muchlead to your death.
But one of the things I wantedto bring out is how you have
(36:00):
this in your book in terms ofthe divide that happens between
Rae and her brother, Toby laterin their life, when Toby gets
involved in listening to RushLimbaugh and watching, Fox News,
and they become reallyseparated by a pretty wide
divide, which is what'shappening in this country right
(36:21):
now.
So to what degree do you thinkthat the fossil fuel companies
have some responsibility for thehuge divisions that are
happening in our society now?
Chuck Collins (36:34):
Well, it's very interesting.
I think they're one of themajor players If you actually go
back and look at the role ofthe oil industry in US politics
in funding the most extremistwhite supremacist groups and
fueling division and fundingconservative media.
Fossil fuel, money, oil, gasand big coal all are huge
(36:59):
regressive players in our socialsystem.
So some of that polarization -and I try to tell the story
about Rae and her brother, Toby- because it's so emblematic of
so many families that have seenthis polarization.
You know at one point Reggie,Rae's husband says, "our
brother's mind has been occupiedby Fox News.
(37:19):
And Ray says well, that's howhe looks at us too and, to her
credit, she tries to stayconnected to her brother, even
when they're arguing.
A lot of families just splinterapart and stop talking to each
other, but Ray insists onstaying connected to Toby, even
when it's not always a happyconversation.
I think that we think, oh, we'resort of a polarized society,
(37:42):
but how did we get there and whofunded us?
I mean, maybe there's Russianmoney too that's trying to
accent all of our differences.
But I think a lot of that'sself-inflicted and a lot of that
comes from the most regressivepolitical organizing and funders
like the Koch brothers.
I mean think of the Kochbrothers as a big oil and gas
(38:02):
industry infrastructure companywho've put, organized, a billion
dollars to fund right-wingpolitics in this country, so
that polarization isn't just anaccident.
It's how the oil industryprotects its interests.
Osha Hayden (38:18):
There's a significant focus in the book in
Altar to an Erupting Sun onchanges that are happening in
the wider society and on localaction, what Rae and Reggie's
local Vermont community is doingto be a part of the change.
(38:39):
So why focus on local action?
I mean, don't we needsociety-wide systemic change,
which is that?
Chuck Collins (38:48):
Yes, yeah, absolutely.
But I also think we have to actwhere we have agency, and
oftentimes that's locally.
Local food system, growing ourown food.
Looking at our regional energywhere does our energy come from?
Can we reduce our regionaldependence on fossil fuels?
Can we build good transitinfrastructure in rural and
(39:14):
urban areas?
Can we relocalize the economy,produce more of what we need at
the local level?
There's both stopping the bad,but there's also building the
alternatives, and I think wekind of need to work a multitask
if you will work on both levelswithout yielding the larger
system change.
That's a problem.
It's just that most of us wakeup every day and think, well,
(39:38):
where do I have any power toaffect that larger political
system when our congressional USCongress, is completely, mostly
captured by the fossil fuelindustry?
That doesn't mean give up.
It means plug in where you canand work to get people elected
who understand the gravity ofthe climate crisis and are not
(39:59):
taking donations from the fossilfuel industry.
So there are things we have towork on at the systemic level,
but I know each of us, every day, need to do things that are
kind of move us forward, thatare life affirming and where we
get to live our lives the way wewant to live.
But it's a global matter too,and sometimes realizing we in
(40:21):
the United States, at least inthe Northern United States may
feel the full brunt of climatedisruption much later than
people in other parts of theworld.
So our hearts need to beconnected across borders as we
understand and take actionaround these problems.
Osha Hayden (40:38):
I have to say that I'm just gonna do a little
shout- out here to Sonoma County, because Sonoma County is one
of the greenest, mostsustainable counties, I think,
in the country -definitely inCalifornia and that's because of
a lot of local action, peoplereally getting involved and
making sure that that happens.
(40:58):
So there is a huge case to bemade for acting at the local
level to change things and thenbecome a model for other
communities.
Those are some places that Ilook to see how we can make a
change that will then perhapscatch on in other areas.
Chuck Collins (41:19):
Yeah, I was just gonna also shout out to Sonoma
County that some of theTransition Town Movement and a
whole bunch of experiments andresilient living and the
Post-Carbon Institute used to bebased there and it's exported
great ideas to the rest of theUS and the world.
So those of the people who aretoiling at the local level can
(41:40):
be exemplars and inspirations toother communities on how to
live into the new future that weneed to live into.
Osha Hayden (41:50):
I wanted to say, because of this book and the act
of Rae Kelliher, taking thelife of an oil baron and his
family out as she also dies, youwant readers to be shocked,
right?
Even repulsed, by her finalact?
(42:11):
But not only that, how else doyou want readers to engage in
this story?
I mean, what would Rae be doingtoday if she were still here
among us?
Chuck Collins (42:20):
Well, I think she would say what bold action are
each of us called to in defenseof Mother Earth, our holy home?
Really, that is going to bedifferent for everybody.
It's interesting there's agroup that's formed called Third
Act, which is people over 60,Bill McKibbin and Akai Winwood
and others have said look, folkswho are older, who don't have
(42:43):
their whole lives in front ofthem, have maybe some sense of
some skills and some securityand some financial well-being.
We should be taking the risks,we should be stepping up, we
should be stepping in front ofthe bulldozers and risking jail
time and risking our comfort sothat other people can have a
(43:04):
chance to have the same life,qualities of life that some of
us had.
So that's an interestingwitness.
That's a group saying boldaction as you grow older.
It's not a young person'sproblem, it's all of our problem
, and some of us are in a verygood position to take action.
People have access to capitaland you're in your money or you
(43:25):
have a credit card at Chase Bankor whatever.
Well, they're one of thebiggest investors in fossil fuel
infrastructure.
Move assets, move money out.
The insurance industry isstarting to say well, maybe we
should stop insuring some ofthese fossil fuel projects,
we'll put pressure on thoseplayers.
(43:46):
So look wherever there's apressure point, and that
sometimes might mean puttingyour body out there, direct
action or blocking the doorwayor refusing to move to the back
of the bus.
In whatever that means in thecontext that you're in, it's a
time for courageous reflectionand action.
Osha Hayden (44:07):
Kind of like the line, the wall of mothers and
grandmothers at the protest, theGeorge Floyd protest, who would
get right out in front?
Chuck Collins (44:18):
Exactly.
The Granny Brigade.
Yeah, In my community there's agroup that, as an alternative to
policing, say send in thegrandmothers, send in these wise
elders, these wise women tosolve problems.
And I think we're going to seepart of what's going to happen
is the climate crisis is goingto become more severe.
(44:41):
We're going to have more hotdays and disrupted food systems
and smoke and droughts andfloods, and that will mean more
people waking up.
Oh, climate change isn'tsomething 100 years from now or
50 years from now.
It's happening now and we willsee the failure of our political
(45:04):
system.
And so I think we'll see anescalation of tactics and that
could be everything from likeExtinction Rebellion, people
saying we're going to bedisruptive, you're not going to
like it.
We're going to your Harvard /Yale football game.
We're going to go out on thefield and be part of the
halftime show Sorry, but youcan't ignore this problem
(45:26):
anymore.
And we're going to see NormanMorrison witnesses.
He saw a man named Wynne Brucelast Earth Day, two years ago,
immolated himself on the stepsof the Supreme Court over the
court's rulings on climatechange.
That kind of witness around theworld is not unusual when a
(45:49):
situation is grave and seriousand we may see additional eco
sabotage.
There's a new popular film outcalled how to blow up a pipeline
, which is a fictional filmabout eight young people who
come together to blow up apipeline in Texas.
And again, I'm not, you or Iare not advocating this.
(46:10):
I think we should justunderstand, when a system is not
responding to the overwhelmingmajority of people, it's going
to lead to desperate action andmilitant action, and so I think
we're going to see the pressuregrowing, given how the fossil
fuel industry basically gets itsway right up to this very
(46:31):
moment as you and I are talking.
Osha Hayden (46:34):
And I'm going to put some links in the show notes
here for the podcast onresilience.
org some information aboutforming resilient circles,
divestinvest.
org, which really can help youto figure out how to divest from
fossil fuels and invest in theclimate, and Institute for
(46:56):
Policy Studies, where you work,the Post-Carbon Institute.
There are a number of linksthat I'm going to load up at the
bottom of the podcast here sothat if people want to go and
have a look and of course itwill also be a link to your
website, chuck, it'schuckcollinswrite s.
com, and they'll be able to gothere and look at your book and
(47:20):
some of the other work thatyou've been doing for, wow,
pretty much your whole life, andkudos for that, by the way.
Thank you, thank you, thank you.
So I'll put all these links inthere and it's going to be a
rich little feast of places youcan go to get some ideas about
how you might want to act tohelp move the trajectory into a
(47:45):
better direction at this point.
So I want to thank you so muchfor coming on this show today,
Chuck.
Chuck Collins (47:52):
Thank you for having this conversation and I
thank your listeners forlistening and being open to the
conversation.
Osha Hayden (47:59):
Yeah.
So, to my listeners, I hopewe've given you some juicy
things to think about andperhaps some different
perspectives, and so, as you goforth, have an inspiring week
and live your joy.
See you next time.
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On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!