Recently, I’ve been reading a lot about climate change.  It’s not been fun reading.  It’s actually been mostly discouraging.  The fossil fuel companies — Big Oil, Big Coal, Big Fracking — they have money and power, and they seem pretty intent on drilling and mining till the planet is uninhabitable, unless you’re a billionaire who can live in a eco-pod.

The news is particularly bad for people of color.  Indeed, for time immemorial, these fossil fuel companies have been building their mines and digging their wells near or on the land of those who are the most disenfranchised, and most often that is of people of color.

But, not always.  See, there are plenty of White people getting the shaft from these companies.  Turns out, the real common denominator underlying whether fossil fuel companies are going to screw you over is whether you’re rich and powerful or not.

And, this is what’s so fascinating.  It turns out that in this way, the fossil fuel companies are bringing people from diverse backgrounds together.  Turns out, whether you’re Black or White, you don’t really like it when your air and water and soil are being polluted. Turns out Brown people and not-Brown people are universal in their opposition to toxic-pollution-induced birth defects and cancers.  And, I’ll tell you something else, this issue isn’t just bringing the races together.  It’s bringing together people of different philosophical and political outlooks.  See it turns out the most right-wing hunters and the most left-wing tree huggers have something in common – they love nature in its most pristine state.  They love that their kids can grow up with clean air and clean water. And, these fossil fuel guys are screwing that up.  So, now you’ve got the “PEOPLE” energized.  These people are Black and Brown and White and Republican and Democrat and Young and Old, and they all have one thing in common — they’re pissed.

So, let’s all raise a glass to those fossil fuel guys.  They brought us — the PEOPLE — together when we couldn’t do it for ourselves.

And, now, let’s repay the favor.  Let’s tell them what we all would like this Holiday Season — a planet where our kids (whatever size, shape, ethincity, race, background, religion, economic status) can all grow up without companies telling us about “acceptable” levels of carcinogens in our air and water.  Without people being able to light our drinking water on fire. Without having to look at books and the Internet to remember what kind of animals used to share this planet with us.  Without having to buy insurance against floods and tornadoes and hurricanes and earthquakes.

Meantime, here’s a list of what else we want while we’re at it:

1. cheaper cable bills

2. shorter cellphone contracts

3. politicians who keep telling us how smart the American people are and then who treat us all like a bunch of friggin’ idiots

4. a change in the ESPN theme music, and

5. an end to media coverage of Kanye West and Miley Cyrus