Q & A with Martin C. Fredricks IV
your voice matters
We caught up with Martin C. Fredricks IV, our inaugural CLIMATE ACTION SERIES author, to talk about his recent views on how his work can make an impact and his opinion on where we are today in the current climate crisis.
Q. What has changed over the past 5 years or so that has accelerated the urgency to bring more non-traditional climate activists into the conversation on climate change?
A. The real question is what hasn’t changed.
Annual global emissions of CO2 from fossil fuels have continued to increase year after year, governments around the world talk a good game on addressing climate change but take either no or very weak actions in that regard, in the USA politicians on both sides of the aisle and at every level continue to pander to fossil fuel companies and place profits ahead of people. “I want you to act as if our house is on fire, because it is,” Greta Thunberg famously told world leaders, yet they’ve done nothing substantive to address the problem in impactful ways. Meanwhile, around 100 corporations generate approximately 70 percent of annual emissions, and nothing is done to stop them.
Activists are still fighting pipelines that will carry more dirty oil to refineries, oil that will exacerbate the crisis, and government entities and agents are still dealing with them violently and in ways that are certainly unethical, and are at least borderline illegal, if not flat-out illegal. They come in armed like armies waging war, battling against people who want only to protect the water for all of us.
And afterwards their cronies and lackeys go back to state legislatures and pass unconscionable laws, like those making it legal to run over protesters if they’re in roadways, or to hand water to people waiting in voting lines.
And so the Dakota Access Pipeline continues to pump dirty oil, and companies like Enbridge continue to construct pipelines like Line 3 in Minnesota and, all too often, the powers that be stand back and let it happen.
Greed continues to drive everything.
Something that’s very difficult for me to comprehend is how these companies and people continue to worry about making money, when all the money in the world isn’t going to help their descendants when there’s no food left to eat, water to drink or places to live safely.
That said, what has changed somewhat is we’re now seeing the negative impacts of climate change with our own eyes and people around the world are experiencing it in their own lives. Fires in Australia, the Amazon and western North America; little towns burning to nothing in hours in the midst of climate-driven, record-high temperatures; areas of the world becoming uninhabitable, literally, due to deadly heat; flooding in Asia and western Europe; much more powerful hurricanes and other storms everywhere; and on and on.
Q. What is the most encouraging indicator in the years you’ve been writing about climate that we can make a difference now?
A. Because of the increasingly obvious changes in climate and resulting damages to person and property, regular, everyday people are waking up to the fact that the world is, in fact, burning. If we don’t put our collective pressure on decision-makers, nothing will change and our children will find themselves in a hellscape that we can’t even imagine. In addition, news outlets are finally - FINALLY - reporting on global warming and resulting climate change more accurately connecting the dots between them and “natural” disasters more often.
There’s hope out there. That’s why we need to work harder than ever, individually and collectively, to force change.
Q. Can you tell us about the Knights of the Climate Covenant? What inspired you to launch this?
A. Knights of the Climate Covenant is about making a promise, entering into a covenant with ourselves and future generations, that we will do what we can to ensure a livable future on Earth.
Forming the organization was part of my personal response to the question we all have to answer: Are you doing enough, or at least what you can, to make a difference in the struggle against climate change and the need to pass on a livable planet to future generations?
What my generation as a whole, and generations before mine have done, and failed to do, is appalling, despicable even. I have three children myself, and I need to be able to look them in the eye, knowing they see someone who answered that question with a resounding Yes! I also need to be able to look in the mirror every day and see the same thing.
One of the things I believe could be done better is provide an easy entrance into climate activism for everyday people. In many ways the bar to entry has been set high. One has needed to donate money to an organization or show up at meetings every month or march in the streets to be considered a climate activist. Problem is, most people don’t have extra money to give, they’re busy raising families and making ends meet so they can’t attend meetings, or they aren’t the type of people who take to the streets. Yet they’re already doing the little things we all need to do, like conserving energy in our own homes, eating less red meat, riding a bike or walking instead of driving everywhere all the time.
I believe climate activism is a growth journey. We get involved a little at first, then we do a little more, and then a little more, and soon we’re calling our city council members and writing letters to members of Congress, sacrificing sleep to attend meetings of our local environmental and social justice groups, skip a few fancy coffees to be able to afford donations to these groups.
The Knights provide that cost-free and pressure-free entry. From there, we’re building a community and moving toward the actions that address systemic issues that really need to be addressed to make the difference that every citizen of the planet so desperately needs.
Because the fact is none of these individual actions are going to adequately address the crisis. We need new rules, laws and norms that will put a stop to all the things that fossil fuel companies, other corporations and their enablers in governing bodies keep doing to hurt the planet and their fellow human beings and hinder progress toward a sustainable future. We need to start small, yes, but then progress to doing more.
In the meantime, we’re also amplifying the messages of thought leaders in the climate-change fight, news organizations that focus on and properly report global warming and its impacts, and regular people who are doing great things to keep their own climate promises to future generations.
Q. How can we effect change on a local, grassroots level?
A. One of the things that gives me hope is research that shows it takes active participation by about 3.5 percent of a given population to force lasting change. Think about that: 3.5 percent is not that much. For example, according to 2020 census reports Cass County’s population is 184,525. That means when the time comes for an epic rallying event, 6,458 need to be actively engaged in participating to tip the scale for real change. So if I and (at least) 6,457 of my friends consistently advocate for climate change legislation or pursue new climate policies at the local level, we’ll be able to make it happen. That’s encouraging.
There are a variety of traditional institutional ways we can impact climate change, as well as a plethora of time-proven civil resistance methods for systemic change. Here are just a few examples:
We can organize and participate in protests and marches for positive action on climate change.
We can organize and participate in protests and marches against new fossil fuel facilities and infrastructure, like Line 3 in Minnesota.
We can write letters to elected officials ourselves and start letter-writing campaigns.
We can join social media blitzes that target troublesome officials or advocate for specific policies.
We can join local, national and international environmental and social justice groups.
We can talk to our neighbors and families so they understand the truly existential nature of the problems.
We can work with state and federal legislators to champion climate-friendly policies.
And much more. There’s so much to be done, and so many ways that each of us can positively impact the situation; all that’s limiting us is our drive and conviction.
