By Alliance President Terry Gips
You’ve heard the desperate pleas by Asian Pacific Island leaders to address the rising tides engulfing their nations caused by climate change. But have you ever gone there and really felt their beauty and the urgency of protecting them?
As we celebrate Asian American Pacific Islander Heritage Month this May, we want to take you on a journey to some of those very islands with one of the world’s foremost Indigenous climate activists and voices, Kathy Jetn̄il-Kijiner.
Inspiring Environmental Leader and Poet
Kathy Jetn̄il-Kijiner is a remarkable poet, performance artist and climate change activist from The Republic of the Marshall Islands (RMI), who was raised in Hawaii. She achieved international acclaim through her performance at the opening of the 2014 UN Climate Summit in New York.
She co-founded and directs the RMI-based nonprofit Jo-Jikum, dedicated to empowering Marshallese youth to seek solutions to climate change and other environmental challenges threatening their home. She was selected as one of 13 Climate Warriors by Vogue in 2015 and the Impact Hero of the Year by Earth Company in 2017.
The Butterfly Thief
We’ve selected her unforgettable poem The Butterfly Thief to transport you thousands of miles and millions of years to experience her worldview and message for all of us: What happens there will happen to all of us. As she poignantly, hauntingly and prophetically shares her mantra, “I’m taking you with me.”
This may be the invitation you never wanted to get, but which we’re all receiving. There’s no way out other than joining with her in taking action. For those who still chant, “Drill, baby drill,” and those who believe somehow AI will save us, good luck. Will we rise up from the spell that’s been cast upon us?
We have the privilege of joining Kathy as she shares her poem while walking on the sands of her beloved RMI with their palm trees swaying in the tropical breezes. One cannot miss the irony that these once-idyllic islands were formerly a US territory which our government then abused with nuclear testing.
Tragically, its very existence is now threatened by the ravages of rising tides from human-caused climate change due to our leaders’ lies that “climate change is a hoax,” and resulting government rollback of effective climate policies. But we, too, must face our own greed and selfishness as we drive gas guzzling vehicles, fly in polluting planes and choose to not conserve energy nor use renewables.
Indigenous Spoken-Word Poems on Whaling and UN Climate Talks
You’ll never forget your walk with Kathy. But we feel that may not be enough. So, we selected two more of her powerful spoken word poems. First, she’ll keep you on the island with a professionally-made video of her poem Beached, showing the larger insults whales and people have all experienced at the hands of whalers and big corporations.
Second, we’ll take you from her beaches to COP22 in 2016, where she was a delegate speaking on behalf of her beleaguered islands. In this simple piece from Democracy Now, Kathy intimately shares At 2 Degrees, My Islands Will Already Be Under Water. This ode about her daughter’s “fever” is the perfect simile for her call to all of us and the world to stop before we reach a two-degree increase in carbon levels.
A Unique Poetic Triptych: “I’m taking you with me”
These selections form a poetic triptych for us which we hope will touch your heart and take you to a place of possibility. If we don’t act now, sadly, our fate will be the same as Kathy’s home in “paradise.”
The Butterfly Thief
By Kathy Jetnil-Kijiner
In middle school
I was a butterfly thief
I stole caterpillars, rolled into cocoons
from a bush outside our classrooms
I nestled them into leaves on top of my desk across
from my bunkbed and
a few weeks later I woke
to a morning light of trembling butterflies
I read recently
that 40% of pollinator species
including butterflies and bees
are facing extinction
One of the key causes?
Climate change
Unusually warm winters force plants
to shift their schedules. When a bee
comes out of hibernation
the flowers it needs to feed on has already
bloomed and died
Populations of the rusty patched bumble bee
and monarch butterfly
has already declined by 80%
I came across a cartoon
that showed a bumble bee
cute tubby and smiling
with a message in a little cartoon bubble
If we die
we’re taking you with us
Might as well put a Marshallese face
over that bumble bee
Because if our islands drown out
due to the rising sea level
just who do you think
will be next
I’m taking you with me
Another contributing factor
to the death of bees and butterflies
are pesticides. For bees, the pesticides cloud their vision.
They lose their way and die
before they reach their home
How many of us
will die before we get to go home
will take a boat to islands that were once whole
once held a hive of community
now reduced to sand and stone
Some stories say our ancestors came from volcano stone
Lidrepdrepju – a basalt rock goddess rooted in reef
Today I keep a basalt rock on my bookshelf
What tokens of our land shall we/will we
store in our selves
inside our honeycomb of chest bones
the buzzing of a shore long gone
I’m taking you with me
Today my newsfeed erupted
with the announcement
that CEO of Exxon Mobile Rex Tillerson
was named Secretary of State
by US President Donald Trump
Exxon Mobile knew of climate change in 1981
But funded climate deniers
for 27 years
So whose colony is it collapsing today?
Is it just the bees?
Or is it also the human race
funding the world to be washed into the sea?
Trust –
I’m taking you with me
On a visit to Kalalan Island
a man takes my hand and swears
he was waiting for me. He points
to another island named Ellekan
just a few waves away
He says only 10 years ago
that island was lush. Full of coconut and pandanus trees. Now
just a pile of sand and stone. He says what’s dead
is dead. You can’t save this one
but you gotta save the others
The Prime Minister of Tuvalu was quoted as saying
if we save Tuvalu
we save the world
But what if we don’t save Tuvalu
what if bees and butterflies become extinct
what if our/my islands don’t survive
just who
do you think
will be next?
I’m taking you with me
I’m taking you with me
I’m taking you with me