As I sit here to write my first post, and introduce myself to all you wonderful folks, an early summer thunderstorm moves in from the west. I hear the thunder and feel the cool wind through my window. I see the lightning flash a brilliant purple and can’t help but thinking of the similarities between storms and the current condition of our global human community, our family. Storms are born out of imbalances in the atmosphere, the clash of warm air with cold. This imbalance manifests itself in an outburst of atmospheric energy. The skies burst, roar, flash, and blow until the atmosphere settles back into a state of equilibrium.

We are now living in a global environmental, political, economic and social thunderstorm which has built out of the gross imbalances in our species’ relationship to our planet and the despicable imbalances in our relationships with each other. We live in a world in which over 16,000 species of plants and animals are directly threatened with extinction (in many cases, if not most, due to the environmentally destructive activity of mankind). In the oceans, a new study by the International Program on the State of the Ocean estimates that 75% of the world’s reefs are at risk of severe decline and levels of CO2 being absorbed by the oceans are higher than they were during the mass marine extinction of 55 million years ago (Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum). Across the globe, record flooding and record drought are affecting millions of people and countless animal species. The world is rapidly running out of supplies of fresh water, yet a staggering amount of the precious natural resource is wasted in the production of useless and even harmful industrial goods.

And this is only a fraction of the forces at work creating what seems to be a perfect storm of upheaval between the earth and human kind, and among humanity itself.
The global economic meltdown of 2008, sparked by the greed of the executive gamblers of Wall Street, has left millions if not billions of the world’s poor exponentially more vulnerable to environmental, social, and political catastrophe. Across the world, unemployment and crippling national and personal debt threaten to destroy the middle class and swell the ranks of the poverty stricken masses in many countries. Governments are slashing programs which work to protect the most vulnerable citizens; turning education, health care, and other social services over to the private sector while providing tax incentives and subsidies to multinational corporations and investors. This has created a situation in which massive corporations are raking in unheard of levels of profit while the poor and middle classes increasingly struggle to make ends meet.

And the list of problems goes on and on. The ravaging of the environment for oil, coal, and natural gas reveals an immense imbalance between the needs of humanity and the needs of our planet. The endless drive of the wealthy to amass more and more wealth while billions scratch out lives at the fringes of survival is a disgusting display of the imbalance between the wealthy elites and the impoverished masses.

The question is… where do we go from here?

Where do we go from here? How can we possibly deal with the immense scale of problems facing the world? Is it hopeless to even try? These are questions I have been grappling with for years. As a recent graduate from Illinois State University with a degree in Political Science, I’ve often been asked the question, “Do you really think you can change the world?”
And my answer to them is this: Alone? No. But with a strong community of like-minded people and kindred spirits, maybe we can. And, then again maybe we can’t. But what good would it do not to try?

Yes, I have studied and I have seen the human capacity for acting out of selfish greed and hatred, but I have also seen the human capacity to act out of selfless compassion and love toward complete strangers. It is this kind of love and compassion which the world needs. It is with this kind of love and compassion with which we can, and must, fight against injustice.

But don’t get me wrong my friends; it is a steep uphill battle through a dark and treacherous storm. The rains will fall, the lightning will flash and the thunder will roar, but we can carry each other through. So let us start to build our community, and spread it far and wide. Let us build our community of dreamers, because true dreamers know that the future is not a destination, it is a place we create with every breath we take.