News & Articles

On the last two days of 2025, we were reminded again about the severity and the growing impacts of climate change around the world. 

On Dec. 30, the Truthout website ran a story about an analysis by World Weather Attribution (WWA) which showed that in the past three years the world has surpassed the 1.5 degrees Celsius mark for rising global temperatures. Also, the WWA documented 157 extreme weather events in 2025 and stated that the climate crisis made heatwaves 10 times more likely. 

The next day, The Guardian reported that temperatures in the Pacific Northwest have been steadily rising across the region, with annual averages expected to rise 6 degrees Fahrenheit by midcentury, and the southeast will be experiencing depleted water resources and rising temperatures. 

And then, just a week later, on Jan. 7, as reported on CNN, the Trump administration withdrew from the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and 65 other organizations, agencies and commissions addressing climate change. 

For any of us who are experiencing and being impacted by climate change or worried about the future of this climate reality, it feels like we are fighting for our lives.

We now have a delusional president and a repressive federal government which together are doing everything possible to not only deny and thereby refuse to address climate change but because of their opposition and resistance to facing this existential threat they are putting millions of people in harm’s way. 

And not only are those of us who are trying to address climate change fighting for our lives, the lives of future generations and our planet, but there are so many of our friends and neighbors who are also fighting on other fronts. The poor and homeless, the LGBTQ community, immigrants, victims of school shootings and their families, teachers, scientists, minorities and even Democratic lawmakers are fighting for their lives. 

We’re fighting for our freedom, for justice, for our dignity and humanity, for safety, for those who are vulnerable, and for the planet. 

What we are fighting against is a fascist president and many congressional leaders who celebrate violence, racism, toxic masculinity, war, greed and a deep paranoia about anyone who doesn’t embrace the MAGA mindset. It is a concerted effort to destroy the foundation and values of our democracy. 
In his book Pedagogy Of The Oppressed, Paulo Freire wrote, “True generosity consists precisely in fighting to destroy the causes which nourish false charity. False charity constrains the fearful and subdued, the ‘rejects of life,’ to extend their trembling hands. True generosity lies in striving so that these hands - whether of individuals or entire peoples - need be extended less and less in supplication, so that more and more they become human hands which work and, working, transform the world.” 

So many of us in this country have become the oppressed. And the most recent examples would be the Somali community and a young woman who was murdered by an ICE agent in Minneapolis. 
It’s a country with a president and his cabinet who sell false charity and advocate a national agenda which promotes fear in our hearts and trembling hands.

And therefore, in fighting for our lives, we need to lead with true generosity and become human hands which will work to transform our neighborhoods, cities and country.

To bring back our shared humanity and hope for a more compassionate community which celebrates our common connections and greater good. 

A friend of mine shared something from a recent Sunday service at Peace Church in Duluth. Titled the Prayer of Good Courage, it goes, “Oh God, you have called your servants to ventures of which we cannot see the ending, by paths as yet untrodden, through perils unknown. Give us faith to go out with good courage, not knowing where we go, but only that your hand is leading us and your love supporting us…” 

Let’s dig deep inside and find our good courage. With conviction and commitment, let each of us approach these days with a full heart and embrace our collective humanity to engage our better angels with true generosity and rise above the violence, fear, hypocrisy and false charity in this moment.