Running Out of Time
by Melissa Martínez-Raga
Illustrations by Julia Reichart
Mama, who would ritually close our windows and turn on the A/C right before sleeping, now sets it to max the minute she gets home from work. “That adds to the heat outside,” I tell her, exasperated, as my wrist aches with the swing of the hand fan but the rest of my body stays still, very still, to avoid more droplets of sweat staining the couch. “Well, what do you want?” she responds, “I won’t let us melt like candles.” When I argue we must combat global warming with the little things we can do, she insists, “Ay nena, I’ve heard the same thing for 40 years,” now pointing to the generator rumbling outside. “The fumes will surely kill us first.” My resolve blows away in a trail of smoke.
I already migrate. I spend eight months out of the year 2,000 miles away from home. I already see change around me. But I worry when what I thought were constants in my life suddenly destabilize my navigation of the world. The tides of Ocean Park Beach in San Juan, Puerto Rico were slamming against houses four blocks away from my apartment, while I watched, safely from the seventh floor, a terrifying video of a thousands-year-old glacier melting in Greenland, and another in Argentina, and then another in Russia. I was waking up sweating every day this summer, the precious time I get to be home, when I read the Amazon, the Congo, and the Arctic were all burning alive.
It is clear the climate crisis is here, and it is here to stay. So, let’s talk some politics too, because those few with the power to stop this genocide, like the orange-in-chief, still have the audacity to deny accountability. Since I began traveling away from home to study in Iowa, the interconnectedness between politics and the social constructions of migrant and marginalized lives has become a recurring topic in my understanding of climate change.
At the moment, this country is plagued with climate change skeptics and anti-immigration white supremacists; this is the same country whose reality is half-brown. This browning is no coincidence. The same droughts occurring in California are devastating Central Americans, but only the latter are called illegal aliens when they establish in the U.S. to survive. Dismissing the problems afflicting marginalized groups is denying the man-made crisis engulfing this earth.
More than 25 million people are facing displacement due to climate disasters every year; 1 in 9 human beings might find their homes uninhabitable in 30 years. That is 200+ million individuals forced into environmental migration by 2050.
The U.S. Military is both the biggest investment for the nation and the largest polluter in the world. A few fossil fuel companies and systematic government negligence are directly responsible for decimating natural habitats and exacerbating climate change. Not only is this information neatly graphed and easy to read, but figures such as Mari Copeny, Jamie Margolin, Isra Hirsi, and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez will also guarantee continuous updates on these injustices. Something as simple as redirecting funds and legislative attention could provide for nationwide renewable energy, fix Flint’s water emergency, and clean up the Gulf of Mexico—polluted mostly by toxic agricultural runoff from Iowa. Our actions directly affect and parallel what happens elsewhere.
Legal measures are a necessity, but public outcry has a massive role in exerting pressure and demanding accountability, or affected individuals will continue to be denied a space of articulation and priority. Legal plans for wide-scale climate action include the United Nations’ Paris Agreement and Ocasio-Cortez’s Green New Deal, our best hopes so far to ensure frontline groups a sustainable future if, and only if, this nation cooperates. Both UN reports and GND rhetoric affirm that vulnerable communities are the least responsible for global pollution yet the most affected by climate change, like Puerto Rico and Nigeria and Somalia and the Philippines, in which the most powerful countries and corporations dump their toxic trash and radioactive ash and then refuse to help during twofold catastrophes.
We can start by supporting environmental policy and disaster relief with our voice and vote, and by donating to local grassroots and community groups, not the Red Cross or FEMA. We can listen to migrants’ stories, and advocate for efficient immigration reform. The single story of undocumented human beings must expand to suddenly unyielding crops and a familiar lack of government help, events closer to us than we can afford to ignore. We can put pressure on our political and community leaders to commit to renewable energy, steering clear of fossil and biofuels. Little things like Friday climate activism and conscious social media involvement will make a change. We have Greta Thunberg’s speeches for outrage and David Begnaud’s tweets for receipts.
Talk about climate change, the unseen driver of migration. Do not deny the browning of the earth and the brown lives that are suffering the most. Attend climate strikes with friends and family, at least give it a thought every Friday. Consider the environmental ripple effects of your day, and demand your representatives do the same. Our hope for a tomorrow relies on individual responsibility and collective action.
The entire world is melting like a candle, slowly but surely, its vulnerable people the first to drip down and flatten against the ground. I have trouble making out a future. Apparently, I am lucky to experience 106ºF in Puerto Rico and -60ºF in Iowa, starting my roaring twenties with roaring anxiety, imposter syndrome, and survivor’s guilt. I am lucky to have air conditioning—oh, and water, food, and shelter. Soon enough, another Category 5 hurricane (and waves of death)—a Mitch (11,300+), a Katrina (1,800+) or a María (4,600+)—will sweep over us again, and again. Seasons come every year with increasing cycles of destruction, trauma, unemployment, rationing, and heat, so much heat. ¡Uf, qué calor!
How can I pray full of grace to an Ave María who ravaged my space? Have those beautiful beaches receded to a point where they won’t be a natural staple of the island? Will that tradition, my culture, be forgotten history? Will basking in the sand and hot Caribbean sun become just a childhood memory, distorting through time like a melting candle? I can only look back through a waxy glass to clean water and careless laughs.
We are already the privileged survivors with the responsibility and power to enact change, but maybe not for long. We must take action, and prioritize frontline and vulnerable communities who by now have most likely sacrificed an activity or commodity, a relative or home or an entire identity due to their unsustainable environment. We must help each other, condemn environmental injustice, and emphasize expansive climate policy, because any of us can find ourselves victims of Mother Nature in all its unparalleled and unforgiving glory. As irrelevant as hurricanes seem to Iowa, the same Dorian that slammed against the Bahamas hit North Carolina. The same melting, melting, melting candle of Greenland’s icebergs drips down and swallows the coasts of Puerto Rico today. Climate disasters connect and affect everyone. It is only a matter of when.
