The saying goes; the early bird gets the worm. We’re up at 6:30 a.m. and on the road avoiding traffic, headwinds and that nagging sense you’re running a bit behind – a sense I rarely avoid. As I struggle to keep pace, the morning fog clears to the west where the whit-capped Rockies stand waiting. The view is picturesque: still, silent, majestic, and coming ever closer, ever larger and ever more real. Yes, we must cross these snow-capped mountains with only the power of our ever growing thighs – but we’re early, we’re smiling and we’re racing toward the challenge.
Forty miles later we find ourselves sprawled all over the concrete pad that is the entrance to the Thriftway supermarket. We’re chatting with locals, drying our clothes, shamelessly rubbing our rear ends and devouring enough food to feed a small country. Browning is a unique town in a unique setting; so rich in natural beauty and so poor in economic standing. These people have watched a gorgeous land be transformed into a land of inequality, an inequality all to clear to them. We pack our things and hit the road staring forward at the mountain peaks.
Sometimes a challenge looms so large you forget to see its beauty. You forget that challenging days of rain produce stunning snow peaked mountains, and long steep climbs reap fantastic views. As we point our bikes into the mountains we see the climb and all its grandeur. We’re early, smiling and racing toward the challenge.
Climate change is no different. An uphill battle still awaits us, but this challenge too can be beautiful.
Change will undoubtedly occur, but we have an unprecedented opportunity to come together as one – as humanity- to take it on. We already have a plethora of solutions that help us conserve and save money. We have beautiful green house gas neutral technology that is on the verge of out competing traditional fossil fuels. We finally have valid economic reasons to help ourselves by helping alleviate poverty because of fortuitous siting of the globe’s renewable resources. It seems too perfect and too fitting that the twenty poorest counties in the nation are also the windiest, and the sunniest. We can lift these people from poverty and give them resilience to the changes coming, and they can share with us the energy to try again, to make a new, more equal and more thoughtful start. One day we might solve problems as individuals, as communities, and with humanity.
However, this window for connecting through crisis is not always going to be open. If we continue to turn our backs on a problem we’ve created for the rest of the world, the rest of the world will have good reason to turn their backs on us. Good thing there are twelve inspiring people pumping up the hill before me. We’re early, smiling, and racing toward the challenge.
JJ Green, University of Oregon
