Engelsk A

In the backyard, Simon Moreke, in whose name tenancy of Number 1907 Block C is registered
by the authorities, has put up poles and chicken wire and planted Catawba grapevines that
make a pleasant green arbour in summer. Underneath are three metal chairs and matching
table, bearing traces of white paint, which – like the green brocade curtains, the picture
of the horse with orange mane, the poles, chicken wire and vines – have been discarded by
the various employers for whom Moreke works in the city as an itinerant¹ gardener. The
arbour is between the garage and the lavatory, which is shared by everyone on the property,
both tenants and lodgers.

By far the greatest obstacle we are up against is hopelessness, a feeling that it’s all
too late, we’ve left it too long, and we’ll never get the job done on such a short timeline.
And all of that would be true if the process of transformation were starting from scratch.
But the truth is that there are tens of thousands of people, and a great many organizations,
that have been preparing for a Green New Deal-style breakthrough for decades (centuries
in the case of indigenous communities that have been protecting their ways of life). These
forces have been quietly building local models and testing policies for how to put justice
at the center of our climate response – in how we protect forests, generate renewable
energy, design public transit, and much more.
    “Who is society?” demanded then-British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher in 1987 to
justify her relentless attacks on social services. “There is no such thing! There are individual
men and women and there are families.” That bleak view of humanity – that we are nothing
more than a collection of atomized individuals and nuclear families, unable to do anything
of value together except wage war – has had a stranglehold over the public imagination
for a long time. No wonder so many of us believed we could never rise to the climate challenge.
    But more than thirty years later, as surely as the glaciers are melting and the ice sheets are
breaking apart, that free-market ideology is dissolving, too. In its place, a new vision of what
humanity can be is emerging. It is coming from the streets, from the schools, from workplaces,
and even from inside houses of government. It’s a vision that says that all of us, combined,
make up the fabric of society. And when the future of life is at stake, there is nothing we
cannot achieve.