A. Siegel introduced me to Steven Kimball, the author of Johnny Rook's Climaticide Chronicles, when I was the editor at Celsias. He suggested that I might want to post Steve's work on the site. As soon as I read my first Climaticide Chronicle, I knew that Steve was one of those writers that other writers envy. His pieces were well researched, impeccably written and always shed some new light on the climate crisis. That's because for Steve, writing about the climate crisis was a true calling:
My initial response to learning that my life was likely to be shorter than I had expected was, not surprisingly, rather selfish. I thought about the time that I would lose with my family and friends, of the traveling that I would not get to do, of the books that I would not get to read.
But something else happened too: the world became more poignant to me. I'd always thought of myself as a caring, empathetic, compassionate person, but now I found suffering, cruelty, and abuse to be intolerable regardless of the form it took. Debeaked hens crammed into tiny cages and stacked in factory-farm warehouses, infants shaken to death by their parents because they wouldn't stop crying, genocide in Darfur, my countrymen in Appalachia and on the Gulf Coast treated as if they lived in a Third World Country, Iraqis bombed by us and by Al Qaeda... It was all too much. I was feeling the world's pain.
And I realized, pardon my presumption here, that I didn't want to die with the world in such terrible shape, which, finally, brings me to global warming. Of all the insanities that bedevil human beings on this planet none is greater than global warming. Only all out nuclear war poses as grave a danger to the planet and human civilization. Ironically, the former, if we fail to check it, may lead to the latter-a two-for-one sale at the Armageddon store, if you like. - Johnny Rook, Climaticide Chronicles
After explaining to me about his battle with Acute Myeloid Leukemia - and refusing to accept any payment for reprinting his work at Celsias - he wrote to me the following, I don't think he would mind my sharing it here: "I do want you to know that I am passionately committed to winning the fight against Climaticide. Blogging has given me the chance, despite my illness, to feel that I am contributing in some small way to our eventual victory in this monumental struggle. It has also filled my life with meaning in a way that otherwise might have been difficult to achieve."
Given his commitment to educate all of us about the very real and frightening repercussions of climate change, as well as about the solutions, I was not surprised that the night before he died, he was online e-mailing the climate activist community ideas on how to best explain to the public that the snow in D.C. during PowerShift and the Capitol Climate Action was not a sign that climate change isn't happening, in fact, it was quite the opposite. This was Steve: a climate warrior until the very end.
I also had the great privilege to get to know a little bit about the kind of very compassionate and loving person that Steve was. I shared with Steve my own experience with cancer when I was 29 and so in between e-mailing about climate change issues and articles, we e-mailed about chemotherapy and side effects, long-term repercussions, the lack of progress in the "war on cancer", the incredible support he got from his family and the enjoyment he found in writing.
When a close friend of mine was diagnosed with inoperable pancreatic cancer, I wrote Steve about it. He never failed to ask after her in his e-mails, to inquire about how she was doing, how her treatment was going and to send her his best wishes. When she was scared about an upcoming procedure, he would tell me about his own experience with it to share with her and make it a little less frightening. You see, that was also Steve; a person that had deep concern for others, even strangers.
On the front page of Climaticide Chronicles, there is a quote from the Dalai Lama -
"My True Religion Is Kindness". In my experiences with Steve, he truly lived those words. We have lost a strong, intelligent and deeply committed voice in the fight to stop Climaticide, but we have also lost a person of true integrity, love and compassion. He will be greatly missed.
You can read more tributes to Steve at Get Energy Smart! Now!!! and Daily Kos. You can also donate to a fund to fight Climaticide that has been set up in his name at 350.org/JohnnyRook.
Related Reading:
Final Wilkins Ice-Sheet Breakup Looms
Fixing the Climate: On the Scale of WWII, But Longer
