Some 500,000 people in Gaza are facing imminent death from starvation. We are financing this. Their blood is on our hands. Starvation is a very slow, painful death.

Elon Musk’s Tesla company paid no taxes last year. That is why we are broke.

We are living in a time when there is enough food for everyone. We have the technology and resources for everyone to have food and clean water. Water is life. With water you can grow your own food. But we are choosing to invest in weapons instead of life.

We have inherited a world of amazing complexity. We are recording its breakdown with heart-breaking accuracy. We don’t hear enough from the scientists who study the ecosystem. Those who study bird populations tell us that song birds have declined by 25% since 1970. The butterfly population has declined by 22% since 2000. These are indicator species that we care about. Recording their loss tells us the whole ecosystem is suffering.

We need to turn our attention to our survival. This is the coldest May we will see for the rest of our lives. This will be the coolest summer for the rest of our children’s lives, even if we stop polluting now we still cannot save large areas from becoming desert. It’s mid-May, and temperatures in Texas are over 100 degrees.

If we change right now we might save our own little area. The great lakes will provide us rain unless Arizona has its way and they put a giant straw into Lake Michigan. We could have war with Canada over fresh water.

It’s very interesting to me that a society as polite as Canada has an expression for “Let’s fight…” “Elbows UP!”

Do you remember back when Jimmy Carter put solar panels on the White House roof? We were having an energy crisis and he said “Turn down the thermostat. Put on a sweater. Drive less. We’ll get through this. Global warming is a problem but if we face it now, we can keep the worst from happening.”

When Ronald Reagan came into office, he knew global warming was real, but he denied it. All the oil companies and coal companies knew. They ran a very effective campaign convincing people it wasn’t real. No one my age can say the climate has not changed. It will go on changing and we must adapt to it. We need to invest in trains and public transportation. We need to invest in agriculture that is not harmful to long term health.

When Al Gore was running for office, we had another chance to address Global Warming. If all the votes in the state of Florida had been counted he would have won.

We chose not to listen to the scientists for the last 50 years and now all the things they predicted are happening: fires, floods, melting glaciers, sea level rise. We have a refugee crisis because large parts of the world are turning into desert and people must move or die. We can have compassion and care for them as Jesus told us to in Mathew 25:30, or we can persecute them, either way they will keep coming.

The people now in power knew this when Carter said “Put on a sweater.” They lied so that there would be a refugee crisis. The unstable weather will cause food shortages and there will be suffering. They deliberately caused chaos so that people would support a strong leader who will solve everything if we only give him immense power.

Trump promised that he would only deport criminals. Instead he deported a 4 year old citizen with stage 4 cancer. Imagine the anguish of that mother as she watches her child die. He promised to bring prices down. Prices are going up. He promised peace deals. Putin isn’t interested. The only promise he kept is wholesale cruelty, without regard for the rule of law. His base is eating that up.

His base is celebrating the pornographic photos of Kristi Noem in the CECOT prison. The president’s base is a minority. The majority of people in this country are horrified by masked men pulling people off the street. The majority of people are very concerned about Trump arresting judges. The majority believe no one is above the law. The majority of people think Meals on Wheels is pretty cool and we don’t mind paying for it. The majority want free school lunches and healthcare for everyone.

We have within our hands the power to turn the tide. On June 14, a “No Kings March” will be held locally, in conjunction with similar actions around the country. We don’t want our taxes to go to a giant military parade in D.C. The march will begin at 10 a.m. on Central Avenue in Fredonia in front of Fenton Hall, and proceed to Central Avenue then to Barker Commons.

Marie Tomlinson is a Fredonia resident.