Commit 2 Respond With Young Adult Aly Tharp

Posted by T. Resnikoff // March 23rd 2015 // Events and Opportunities, Featured Young Adults, Future of Faith, Issues and Trends // one comment

And Thousands of Others of Every Age

This Unitarian Universalist Young Adult has a message for everyone: Climate Change is real and there is plenty we can do about it – especially right now by joining the Unitarian Universalist Association initiative Commit 2 Respond.

First, Listen to Aly –

Then read what she has to say…

My full name is Alyssa Marie Tharp. To my knowledge I am not related to the great marine scientist, Marie Tharp, one of two people who made the first map of the ocean floors and  discovered the great underwater mountain rifts — perhaps the greatest remaining mystery of the natural wonders on Earth.

But there’s another great mystery that I and a lucid many of us are asking: what kind of future awaits us, our generation’s children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren?

It’s very fitting that we should recognize World Water Day as the kick-off to a month of raising awareness and action for climate justice, with the Commit2Respond campaign. Water is the origin of life, the primordial nurturer and sustainer, our greatest elemental commonality. First Nations people describe water as the lifeblood of the Earth. in the Assembly of First Nations “National Water Declaration“.

I start Climate Justice month by recognizing the ideological crossroads we are at when it comes to water (as with many other things), in these times of escalating climate change. We can either recognize the truth of our First Nations brothers and sisters: that water is sacred, as a foundation for all life and society, that we all inherently need, deserve safe access to and owe our respect — OR, we can go along with the reigning narrative that water is a resource that no one inherently deserves: treating it as a waste vessel, a commodity, a life-sustainer that can only be safely accessed and related to through pipelines, permits, plastics and profit motives.

The later mindset is devoid of the former, yet holds great power in our lives and communities. It promises a future rife with conflict and systemic oppression, much like our past and present.

We pray that our future holds a new way of being. A society that overcomes and outgrows much of the wasteful, oppressive, fearful, corrupt and deadly ideologies and modes of operation that dominate our present systems of governance and living. A society that doesn’t leave the hungry to starve, and delegate massive amounts of industrial waste to poor neighborhoods of color. A society that tears the blinders off and makes changes and reparations, so that we can finally live in a culture of peace, justice and truth.

This is our urgent call, when we speak of “climate justice”. Our prayers mean very little unless we develop a will to act.  It is our obligation — as individuals and faith communities that respect the inherent worth and dignity of every person, and the web of all existence of which we are a part — to hear and seek to understand this call.

And now TAKE ACTION!

Learn more about the Untarian Universalist College of Social Justice GROW Climate Justice Conference, August 7–11, 2015, in Chicago, IL.

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