Local 5960 feels global warming buzz
Local 5960 President Pat Sweeney must have felt like he’d invited Republican strategist Karl Rove to discuss “free” trade.
“I invited a couple of guys to come and hear tonight’s speaker, and they went off on me saying, ‘Why the heck do you want to bring someone like that in?’ ” Sweeney said.
The speaker wasn’t Rove, but the topic was a challenge.
The local that represents some 2,500 workers at General Motors and small parts suppliers in Lake Orion, Mich., featured a soft-spoken scientist named Dr. Kathryn Savoie one Saturday night in March to talk about global warming.
“I told them this is an important issue. We may not agree on everything, but we should debate it. It affects us all,” Sweeney said.
An ecologist for 20 years, Savoie is one of 1,000 volunteer presenters of the slide show, “An Inconvenient Truth,” that, in movie form, made Al Gore a winner – of an Academy Award for Best Documentary this year, that is.
Savoie was trained by Gore’s group, The Climate Project, which is reaching out across the country to challenge citizens and governments to take action against this growing crisis.
Lenoris Williamson, with six years at the Orion plant, set the evening’s tone with her poem, “Detox the World”:
“I’m listening to meteorologists and environmentalists buzz about this global warming. And with the severity we’ve witnessed and foreshadowed, ideas should be swarming.”
The response of two dozen or so active members and retirees to Savoie’s presentation showed there is a high degree of unity between environmentalists and union members these days.
She received numerous nods of approval as she exhibited slides showing disappearing snow peaks at Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania and Glacier National Park in Montana, and described the severity of hurricanes and tornados due to climate change.
When the discussion shifted from effects to causes, however, nods turned to furrowed brows as she reported that more than 30 percent of all greenhouse gases originate from the United States, which represents only 5 percent of the world’s population.
The common interests of the environmental and labor movements came back into focus, though, when Savoie pointed out that every nation we wish to sell U.S.-made vehicles to has higher fuel economy standards than the United States.
“Choosing between the economy and the environment is a false dichotomy. It’s in all our interests to take care of both,” she said.
The UAW has supported CAFE legislation since it was first enacted and has long been an advocate of environmental responsibility.
In March, UAW President Ron Gettelfinger testified before a U.S. House subcommittee, arguing for a comprehensive approach to global warming, including caps on carbon, investment in alternative technologies and fuel economy regulations that would require improvements in all sizes and classes of vehicles. (See story)
For a speaker on climate change, click on www.theclimateproject.org.
