By Cynthia Satterfield
Acting State Director
From my front porch, I see "closed" signs and the occasional neighbor, waving from a safe distance away. I hear birds, their song undisturbed by the usual sound of traffic. Like so many others clamoring to escape their sheltering place, I feel the instinct to get out - go hike in the woods, do some gardening, or take a road trip to a local farm.
For now, we leave home only for medical care, food, and to exercise. The fortunate telework, the brave worker on the front lines provides essential goods and services. The rest, jobless. The Sierra Club shut down all its public events and directed staff to work from home, ironically, on Friday, March 13. We’re among the fortunate, able to carry out our environmental mission, though not immune to the undercurrent of uncertainty, anxiety and grief in and all around us.
In this rarest of collective pauses, we are seeing ourselves, each other, and our world differently, and, I believe, much more clearly. COVID-19 has laid bare our core values. We must innovate to survive and let science lead the way. We need nature to sustain us, and we depend on strong, healthy communities for our well-being. We are vulnerable to global forces but can act locally to protect ourselves and those more adversely affected than we are.
It is also clear that when we fail as leaders to act in accordance with these values, the results can be disastrous. This truism applies no matter the threat, whether it be a pandemic or climate change. But unlike a virus that shuts down businesses and puts a million of us out of work, addressing climate change taps yet another core value – economic growth. In tackling climate change, we can let science and innovation lead. We can protect ourselves, the places we love, and our most vulnerable. And we can put people to work to grow our economy. Because we can do these things all at the same time, there is no false choice to be made.
Right now, a just, equitable, and clean energy future may be just what the doctor ordered, a beacon in the night guiding us to the shores of a new normal, where a solid landing awaits. The North Carolina Sierra Club has already helped 26 North Carolina towns and counties pledge to get 100 percent of their energy from renewable sources by a date certain. Working at the grassroots level, we’re meeting communities where they are to provide a broad range of resources to help them get to their goal. We’re also protecting the national forests in our state to reduce carbon in our atmosphere, provide much-needed places to get outdoors, and protect rural economies that rely on the tourists they draw. We’re fighting to dismantle systems that prop up the outdated industries that harm us and replace them with systems and technologies that value people as equal stakeholders in our future.
COVID-19 has not only laid bare our core values, it has proven that by staying true to them, we can work locally to tackle the other global threat of climate change. Let's tell our leaders that the choice to protect ourselves, our communities and our most vulnerable; grow our economy; and pursue clean energy solutions are one and the same.