Climate Movement: Where We Go From Here
A blog by Sam Maceda, Communications Intern
As a citizen of one of the world’s most vulnerable countries to climate disaster, my earliest memory of true calamity comes from the eyes of my six-year-old self. I remember my inability to sleep through nights of rough winds and pelting rain shaking the house, the solemn stillness of the aftermath with the horrid landscape of fallen trees and torn infrastructure. When Typhoon Ketsana hit the Philippines in 2009, hundreds of lives were lost and thousands more were changed for years to come. Even now, as this piece is written, super typhoon Gaemi is wreaking havoc in my hometown, leaving my family and friends without electricity and water.
For the rest of my life in the Philippines, everything would be at risk from climate change. Our school days became uncertain as classes were canceled due to intense storms, our favorite vacation spots were rendered graveyards as corals bleached, and our finances shook at skyrocketing electricity bills from overused air conditioning. Bitter realizations settled quietly in our hearts after seeing the nth super typhoon warning of the year: we will be among the first to go.
But where? When our coastal communities submerge and our mountain villages crumble; where does that leave us to go?
As more calamities hit the Philippines, our government has struggled to keep up with timely responses. It has become increasingly clear that true transformative action comes from the people who know that our lives and our lands are ultimately in our own hands. From students to farmers, climate action became a project for the masses. Still, my country is not without faults, and there is much to be learned in order to maximize our positive impact.
With this in mind, I traded the tropics of the Philippines for the four seasons of D.C. to pursue my undergraduate degree. As a non-American, I had believed the U.S. to be “safe.”. I thought that this country had some sort of plan or preparation against climate change, or that they would never feel the effects like I had. However, as I walked through the streets of Old Town Alexandria — narrowly dodging the incoming flood from the Potomac River after a storm — everything felt all too familiar.
I realized then that climate change has never been single-targeted. Whoever does not suffer from climate change today will suffer tomorrow. It’s becoming a canon event, so to speak — something unavoidable. At the same time, I knew that transformative action from the people could be just as inevitable, an unstoppable force that answered the call for a compelling movement. With a mission to understand how these forces differed from the Philippines, I looked at several climate justice organizations across the DMV — and eventually found CCAN.
As expected, the differences were striking. The issues varied from disputes with gas corporations to electrification across the DMV, compared to the hyper focused disaster relief and mitigation of Philippine provinces. Related issues and hurdles, such as poverty and divided political beliefs were similar; yet they affected the movements differently depending on the country. Even the amount of support and acceptance from the local government varied.
Nevertheless, the drive behind the climate movement was nearly identical. Pure passionate love for the environment shined in the people I’ve met through and in CCAN, reminding me yet again of home. Even if my experiences were a bit different and I lacked understanding of the DMV’s innerworkings, CCAN has taught me that taking into account perspectives from many different communities is vital for creating a movement. With those insights, I found the answer to my questions and comfort from my worries. Climate change requires solutions stemming from global thinking, inspired by the shared practices from diverse perspectives. I am grateful to CCAN for teaching me the best practices of this region, something I hope to internalize to bring home to my own country.
To understand where we go from here, we must first understand that “we” refers to humanity as a whole, not just a single region of the world. By achieving a strong shared identity of “we”, our future may not have to witness communities disappear as they are currently on track to. Our path is therefore dictated by our willingness to put our foot forward, join a movement, and create new roads to move on together.
