“It’s time to talk about the weather. We in trouble friends. Storm clouds are coming in,” chant poets and performers Alix Garcia and Naima Penniman in the opening of their video “When the Last Tree Stands Alone”. Known collectively as Climbing PoeTree—a spoken-word, hip hop, multimedia duo—Garcia and Penniman eloquently activate an alarm about climate disruption, and then rouse us all to do something about it.
“What will be the message of the legacy we’ve left?” they ask. “We were born right now for a reason. We can be whatever we give ourselves the power to be. And right now we need dream weavers…truth sayers…food growers…trail blazers… life lovers…peacemakers.”
That will start us down the path to that happy day “when the meek are strongest and reinhabit the earth, and redefine progress.”