Dispatches from the Green Future

"I was there, at the last miner's march. When they said they were going to close all the mines, we decided to stand together. First, we picketed the mines. Then, word came around that we would walk to Richmond. I had nothing to lose. I took a roll and a pack and we walked along the highways. Ten thousand, twenty thousand men, coming by twenty or fifty to fill the grass in front of the capital. We were there two nights before the president came, told us the mines would close and we would all have jobs. Didn't believe it. Some social workers lined us up and took our names. They even wrote us checks. Thought it was just cheaper than arresting us, but I took my check back home so I could pay rent and buy some groceries." Ronald Black shakes his head. "Thought that was the end. But a couple weeks later, here come more social workers, with another check. I go up now instead of down." He gazes at the towering windmill behind him. "Pay's good, kids are fed, that little cough I had, just in the evenings, it's gone now. It's not what my father did, but it'll do."

Maria Estancia Lopez walks along the acequia at the edge of her small farm. "We have good water this year. My father thought the water was gone. At the end of the twentieth century, and into this one, every year we had less. My brothers and sisters moved to Albuquerque, except Adam, who moved to Taos to paint. When it started to cool again, more snow fell in the Rockies, and it filled the Rio Grande, melting in the spring and flowing out of Colorado. I am planting corn and chiles like my grandfather did, some melons. The soil is hard, because for twenty years it baked and we had no water. Bit by bit, I am bringing it back."

Fred Ma waves at the busy bike lane in front of him. "This is the part I'm proudest of. All our city planning was paying off. We had offices near apartments so people could walk. We had the buses running every five minutes, and they were full. Any time you needed to move something heavy or travel in a group, you could get an electric cargo car in ten minutes. So these four lane roads – we just didn't need them any more. Owning a car – not too many people wanted the hassle, the expense, the smell. Really, two lanes was plenty for the traffic. So we give full lanes each way to bicycles, wide as the lanes for cars. The problem was, how do buses reach the curb without interfering with all those bikes? Well, wrong question. We set up islands for pedestrians, raised the crosswalks like they do in Amsterdam, and the buses pick people up from the center now. Easy peasy."