There’s a famous quote attributed to Mahatma Gandhi: “First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.” However, according to Wikipedia, it may be that this concept was first expressed by a U.S. labor leader, Nicholas Klein of the Amalgamated Clothing Workers, in 1914.
According to a report of the union’s convention that year, Klein said, “And, my friends, in this story you have a history of this entire movement. First they ignore you. Then they ridicule you. And then they attack you and want to burn you. And then they build monuments to you. And that is what is going to happen to the Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America.”
I thought of this insightful and concise set of observations recently in connection with the statements by various members of the 21st century equivalent of the Flat Earth Society about the mid-Atlantic snow storms of February 5-10. I’m referring to people like James Inhofe, Sean Hannity and Glenn Beck. Their ignorant statements are the latest in a series of efforts by the coal industry, oil companies, their public spokespeople and the climate change deniers
One is the climate change impacts already being felt around the world, most particularly, but not only, in parts of Africa, like Darfur.
An article by Stephan Faris in the April, 2007 issue of The Atlantic, “The Real Roots of Darfur,” explained the connection between climate change and the war in Darfur:
“The fighting in Darfur is usually described as racially motivated, pitting mounted Arabs against black rebels and civilians. But the fault lines have their origins in another distinction, between settled farmers and nomadic herders fighting over failing lands. . . Until the rains began to fail, the (nomadic herders) lived amicably with the settled farmers. The nomads were welcome passers-through, grazing their camels on the rocky hillsides that separated the fertile plots. The farmers would share their wells, and the herders would feed their stock on the leavings from the harvest. But with the drought, the farmers began to fence off their land
