This is Happening Now

Focus the Nation Essay Contest Winner - Creative and Cultural Expression Climate Change and Spoken Word/Slam Poetry Emily Schosid   This poem appears to come off as angry. And sometimes, it’s hard not to feel angry because it is people my age, my generation, who have to deal with the mistakes and disregard for the future that previous generations made and lived with. Global warming isn’t the fault of kids in their 20s, but we are the ones who have the choice to make perpetuate the problem or solve it. And so, while lines and verses of this piece sound angry, it’s more of a hopeful poem—which you can especially see in the last two lines.

This is Happening Now

I have a problem.
Because when I close my eyes
Horrors and nightmares pass by.
Visions of a world on fire,
My own actions its pyre.
And now I don’t even know
If I’m the lies or the liar
I’ll open my eyes and hear the cry:
“This is happening NOW”

So, what are we waiting for?
Someone else to take the first step?
That’s ridiculous, what did you think?

That Global Warming would just go away
While you sit at church and pray
That later you can go out and play
With fancy foreign cars on display?
You have a hay-day while you betray the Earth
And say, “Fossil Fuels are the way!”
All the while hoping someone else will hold the climate at bay…

Did you think
That somehow, this won’t affect you
Or your children, and their children too?

Or that at this rate
Mother Earth would think it’s just great
That people berate her and rape her
Take no responsibility for her fate
Or what date the weight of our mistakes
Will make the world “The Late Great Home to
The Estate of Primate Ingrate—
Homo Sapiens:
Destroyers of Worlds.”

Right. She would give up her health
Just so you could catch a thrill—
Tramping up hills in Brazil
Doing whatever you want,
Letting you jaunt all over Her face
And litter all over the place
[Sure, we have Freewill]
While in the back of your mind
Some stupid hippie is yelling
Something like “Leave no trace!”

What was that again?

Did you think
That we don’t need a plan?
There’s something ridiculous.
There’s so much you can do, man.

At the LEAST
Take your hand
Pick up a can
And toss it in the recycling bin.
And don’t take your Hummer for a cross country spin
Or look at the TV all day with a fat stupid grin

No.
This is happening now.
And every second you wait
Continues to seal our fate
Another tree that’s in pain
Another person to blame.
“No, it wasn’t me”
“One person can’t make a difference”
“If I litter just once it won’t matter”
“It’s your fault”
“Those tree-huggers will take care of it”
“Those tree-huggers are crazy”
“Who wants to listen to Al Gore anyway?”

Remember that what they say?
If you’re not part of the solution
You’re causing the problem.
Do you like breathing pollution?
Because if the answer is no,
Then it’s time for a revolution.
Look at the US Constitution
It doesn’t entitle us to sentence our Earth
To an early execution
But guess what’s happening NOW?

And ignoring our youth is
Another plan of the ruthless,
And the President, changing our truth, is
Telling us that oil’s the answer
And the best way to live is to pamper
Yourself and your gas eating Camper
But this is happening NOW.

You want to go outside and ski on the mountains?
Then don’t waste water and energy on that pointless fountain
Chillin’ outside your air conditioned office
Where you sit all day count all your profits:
Gains from exploiting our Planet
The same Planet you inhabit, God Dammit!
Can’t you see?
This is happening NOW!

So stop.
And think.

It doesn’t even take that much effort
To blurt out an alert that unless we want the forests
And jungles and lakes to turn into dirt
We might have to give up some sort of comfort.
You don’t have to be an expert
To invert the damage and emerge unhurt
From this disaster teetering on oblivion
You just gotta stop
 And think.

Weigh the choices:
Youth apathy or the chance to make a difference
 Vote for the environment or give way to indifference.
Choose sustainability or bow down to laziness and languor
How does this not fill you with anger?!
Look around and the damage is easy to see
And yet people deny it and call it lies
Or a “liberal agenda” to bring the government down from inside.
Can’t they see this is HAPPENING now?

These Multi-billionaires who control policy
Cannot silence us any longer
We’re angry and we’re fixing this fallacy
Changing the world so that we’ll still have something to see
When we venture outside to this beautiful fantasy
That by God is a reality
In our very own backyards.

Instead of enslaving our World
Let’s make Her our partner
Together we’ll get farther
Than getting in fights to see who can push harder
Because She’s always gonna be stronger
And if we make her mad for much longer
She’ll just kill us.
The world doesn’t need us
But we need the world.
And if tomorrow we were suddenly hurled into space
The planet would still live
But where would we be?

Nowhere.
And then what?
Nothing.

This is happening now.
So, Let’s stop it.

Now, there’s no denying
That I’m just standing here rhyming
Chiming sentiments from a chorus
Of thousands of students standing before us
Demanding change in the government
Even thought they deplore us
They can’t continue to ignore us
And if we yell loud enough
“THIS IS HAPPENING NOW”
They’ll see
There’s nothing else that can be
We have to change or we have to die

So, let’s work together.
And make this place better
For the next generation
It could start with our Nation
With a little collaboration
From kids like me and the right education
We could start a revolution
“Down with Fossil Fuels!”
“Save our Planet!”
We’ve got the right combination
Of desire and innovation
So allow no hesitation
Because this is happening now.

But it doesn’t have to.