A couple of summers ago, my sons encouraged me to read Cormac McCarthy’s The Road, a novel about a father and son fighting for survival as they traverse a cold, sunless, ash-covered landscape. What touched me most about the book was the way the father tried to explain, even normalize, this post-apocalyptic world for his son.
In this fictional world, other people pose a threat. They may help you, but they are more likely to kill you. The father helped his son understand this dangerous world by dividing it into good guys and bad guys.
“This is what the good guys do,” he told his son. “They keep trying. They don’t give up.”
Amid the devastation left by Hurricane Sandy, I imagine parents up and down the Eastern Seaboard are doing the same for their children. They have to put a hopeful spin on their new reality and project an optimistic future.
Fortunately, in today’s post-Sandy, nonfiction catastrophe, most people are “the good guys.” Together, they are helping each other navigate their devastated lives.
I’ve watched this video taken in Rockaway Queens over and over again.
I can’t get the images out of my head: streets buried in sand, cars scattered into piles like pick-up sticks. “It’s like a scene from some end-of-the-world movie,” says the film’s narrator. It has been weeks since Sandy raged through this neighborhood, and many people are still without power, heat, or hot water.
This is where we are. We can’t go back. We can only move forward. But the fork in the road that will take us toward McCarthy’s dystopian future is ever closer.
These superstorms are the new normal. And while it will take decades to bring our planet back from the brink, actions we take now can slow and maybe even halt climate change tomorrow.
We have to be like the good guys in McCarthy’s book, who keep trying and don’t give up.
Fighting for a clean and safe environment is like every other battle we’ve undertaken. We haven’t made progress in attaining civil rights, equality for women, or gay rights by asking politely. We demand those rights, loudly, consistently — because we are entitled to them.
We must do no less in our fight to stop climate change. Not only are we and future generations entitled to a clean and healthy environment, our lives, and theirs, depend on it.
A slightly different version of this post appeared on Moms Clean Air Force. Click here to act now and join the good guys.
Shifting Gears 
Thanks for speaking out on this issue and keeping it in the public eye. You are right, superstorms are the new normal and we need to pay attention.
Thanks Jane, scary times, but less scary now that we still have a climate-change believer in the White House. We have to push Obama and our other leaders as much as we can to deal with this issue head on.
Thank you, Judith. I couldn’t agree with you more and am haunted by that video.
Heather, I feel the same way: haunted by the video and the voicemail message that overlays the images. I read Cormac McCarthy’s The Road before Hurricane Irene and Sandy hit us. It was almost unbearable to leaf through it again to find the quote.
I went up to Vermont to help out after Irene. And, as I told my son in Brooklyn, who hopes to volunteer soon, that it’s a good idea to help on site, if you can, and bear witness.
Thank you for raising your voice, and so eloquently, on this most important issue, Judith. I couldn’t agree with you more. If you haven’t already, take a moment to read Jeremy Grantham’s piece from Nature (magazine) to which today’s post in SlowLoveLife links. What did you think of the President’s response, during today’s press conference, to the question about climate change?
Hi Leslie, I have to find out more about what he said. Interestingly, the account in the NY Times seems to skip his response to that question altogether. The Daily Kos had a little something about it. I’m glad he’s going to talk to scientists and raise awareness, but in the meantime, we have to treat in the same way we have to obtain other rights we are entitled to. I also liked the approach Bill McKibben laid out in his Rolling Stone article of last summer, where we get investors to divest investments in fossil fuel companies in the same way we got them to divest from South Africa. Here’s the link to that article: http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/global-warmings-terrifying-new-math-20120719
And, yes, I did read the Grantham piece in Nature that Dominique cited today. Great to hear from you!
The President’s response sounded quite tepid to me, but I was driving and so not focusing fully on what he was saying. I’ll try to find his answer and pass it on to you if I do. Thanks for the link to the McKibben article; it’s definitely time to re-read it! Glorious day here–wish you could see it!