By Judith Gayle | Political Waves

“The biggest challenge we face is shifting human consciousness, not saving the planet. The planet doesn’t need saving, we do.”

—Xiuhtezcatl Tonatiuh Martinez, 15-year-old environmental activist

Welcome to the first week of the last month of 2015. A space alien, newly landed, might look around to find the earth in violent upheaval, the news of the day alarming anxious natives, the airwaves atwitter with speculation and fear. I’d think any vacationing ET would chart a course elsewhere, waiting for the emotional storm to pass. Of course, given the shelf-life of our lower human nature, that might take awhile.

The dullest, easiest, and most dim-witted thing most of us could do would be to pull the covers over our heads after unplugging the television and throwing our devices in the trash, because avoidance carries a high cost. I know people who seem happily oblivious to all that’s going on around them, the equivalent of whistling through the graveyard. It’s understandable, if not recommended, especially as the challenges — counting environmental degradation and climate change — seem as extreme as the polarized politics that address them, with no easy answers.

But alas, thinking happier thoughts won’t make the challenges disappear. Hysteria will not mend them, neither will ignoring or denying them, which have only made things worse. No, it would be in our best interests to take a deep breath and realize that this mess we’ve made is designed to summon our better angels.

If we look around us, we’ll see that it takes little effort to stay stuck in our lowest-common-denominator consciousness. The Donald, for instance, is over 20 points ahead of his closest competitor, with just 12 weeks until the Iowa caucus vote. Although establishment Pubs are surprisingly candid about why they oppose his candidacy, the National Republican Senatorial Committee has encouraged the other candidates to clone his questionable behavior and tweeting tactics to grab voter attention. If you can’t beat him, join him.

If something doesn’t change soon, U.S. citizens may get a very close look at egoism, racism, xenophobia and corporate elitism strutting to the podium under the watchful eye of the Secret Service. Trump has become the mouthpiece for all the mean, sick nonsense that the disgruntled yell at their television screens while cleaning their guns, and — even better — he won’t back down from scathing (and deserved) criticism. He’s anger and arrogance with hair plugs. He’s bully-boy Chris Christie without the tarnished public record, and he’s got the white anti-government ‘hater’ vote prepared to go the distance for him.

I’m pretty sure the majority of Americans have stopped being amused by this man. Some of us are still aware enough of our diminished reputation for statesmanship to be internationally embarrassed by the whole roster of Republican candidates, Trump looming large among them. Still, despite the unwavering spotlight on political rhetoric that is both limited and limiting, polls show both leading Dem candidates beating any of them.

Those same polls reveal that over 60 percent find Bernie Sanders both ethical and trustworthy — and Clinton, not so much. She has taken a beating on that score, both deservedly and un-, for decades. Nevertheless, she’d beat all of the Pubs running, coming as she does from the reality base, if not the progressive.

The gun sales record was broken on Black Friday, people arming against all things that go bump in the night, and — SURPRISE!! — less than a week later, San Bernardino exploded with violence that appears to have occurred with legally purchased weapons.

Questions about the political radicalization of the accused shooters aside, homemade pipe bombs and over 4,500 rounds of ammo were found in their possession so now it’s a done deal. Easy enough to draw conclusions based on what seems a senseless tragedy visited on undeserving innocents, especially when it perpetuates the news cycle and incites xenophobia and racism.

Lawyers for the shooter’s family were interviewed this morning and had many questions about the veracity of the case being built against them, which seems to defy the description of a quiet young couple, well employed and seemingly happy, with a six-month old baby. Although Syed’s own sister says she’s unsure that she can forgive what was done, anti-Muslim rhetoric is at a higher pitch today than yesterday, and higher this afternoon than this morning.

If, in fact, this couple were acolytes of the would-be ISIS Caliphate, they couldn’t have done better for the cause. Juan Cole, in response to the Charlie Hebdo massacre, said this about knee-jerk response to Muslims, which applies to all instances of snap judgment and blanket demonization of people by race or religion:

“The problem for a terrorist group like Al Qaeda is that its recruitment pool is Muslims, but most Muslims are not interested in terrorism. Most Muslims are not even interested in politics, much less political Islam.” In Cole’s formulation, if violent Islamic fundamentalists’ can get non-Muslim French to be beastly to ethnic Muslims on the grounds that they are Muslims, it can start creating a common political identity around grievance against discrimination.”

ISIS is a group only religious in the most generalized sense, loosely mimicking Wahhabism and proselytizing would-be warriors from those unschooled in the teachings of the Koran. It’s fair to suppose that the brutal sect is built on an extreme rejection of powerlessness, and also fair to say that it’s only the trappings that separate its near-sighted philosophy of purity from our own white supremacist groups.

If the Middle East had invaded us, instead of the other way around, bombing our cities and crashing our economy, blurring our loyalties and compromising our leaders, it’s easy enough to imagine the skinheads capturing territory and prisoners under the burning cross of Christianity. Drawing conclusions about Muslims based on accusations of jihadist terrorism only feeds the fire of ancient dysfunction infecting the human tribes.

In Paris — binding its wounds from those same fires — the UN climate summit has drawn international attention, especially as the French government cracks down on protests, and nations pledge to limit carbon even as the corporatocracy keeps a thumb on the scale.

Elsewhere, Koch Industries’ infamous legislative arm, ALEC, met to discuss their sabotage of Obama’s projected carbon regulation, the Clean Power Plan. They’ve gone after the EPA policy in a coordinated state effort, with some 24 attorneys-general having sued to stop it cold. Their hope, writes Mary Bottari of PR Watch, is to ” … cast doubt on Obama’s ability to deliver on U.S. commitments and scuttle the Paris talks and future negotiations. The goal is also to delay, delay, delay in hopes that a new president will pursue a more polluter-friendly agenda.”

Yet, according to her article, ” … 72 percent of conservative Republicans want to accelerate the development of clean energy to reduce pollution and create jobs; a solid majority 54 percent believe the world’s climate is changing and that mankind plays a role in the change.”

Our better angels seem to be whispering common sense into the ears of those who have been fed a steady diet of climate denial for years now, but now hesitate to fill the coffers of coal industry CEOs and petroleum behemoths like Exxon and BP. Even the children — who might rightly be considered the most vulnerable among us — have found their voice against the killing fields of tar sands and the like.

The quote at the top of this page came from a young man who must surely hear the voice of his angels, bringing to the planet a clear purpose to rescue it. He is the leader of a group of 21 children, ages 8 through 19, suing the federal government for endangering their future by refusing to eliminate fossil fuels. “X,” as he is called, is well-spoken, determined and has received accolades world-wide. He has developed his own environmental movement called Earth Guardians. Says this youngster from Colorado:

“The Earth Guardians movement is a gateway and a portal to act for people of any age, no matter who they are or where they are in the world. It doesn’t matter what your status is in society – none of this matters, we can all be Earth Guardians.”

Want to save the world? Pass this link to every kid you know.

Seriously.

“The true meaning of life is to plant trees under whose shade you do not expect to sit,” said Nelson Henderson, and if we are to continue to embody such activity as our legacy to unborn generations, we are going to have to give more than lip-service to our environmental activism. We might even have to sacrifice for the generations ahead.

There is growing evidence that it is going to take not just the end of fossil fuels powering human livelihood, but direct air capture to preserve the planet for human life, and that is a prospect that has yet to take up residence in our consciousness. At this writing we can’t even agree that the effects of filthy coal or toxic nuclear waste are too dangerous to continue, but the clock is ticking with no time to waste.

Humankind too often forgets that it is mammalian, and it can sneer at the loss of endangered species if it wishes but reveals its inferior reptilian brain when it does. John Muir, who WAS one of our Higher Angels, told us the truth when he said, “When one tugs at a single thing in nature, he finds it attached to the rest of the world.” That would be THE world he’s talking about, the only one we have — the one we share with one another.

With Venus arriving in Scorpio, we’re being asked to delve into our deep places, our heart of hearts — perhaps even the shadows that exist just beyond our ken. Steeped in Scorpio’s watery depth, we might even discover that our fearsome concept of death is not so much a matter of diminishment as an expansion into a new concept of self. Don’t be afraid to step into those darkers pools of emotion and determine what you’ve hidden there, to find later. “Later” is now.

There, we might remember that we came for a purpose as passionate as this one. We might find that loving life requires surrender to the sacrifice we must make to throw our arms around it. We might get a glimpse of how precious are this place, this life, this moment. We might even determine that we came here now to offer ourselves in service to one another and Gaia, as we listen to the whisper of our better angels.