Move over, Ed Begley! When it comes to practicing what you preach about globalclimate warmingchange, nobody on Gaia’s green earth is doing more than a fellow from Rhode Island named Mark Baumer.
Mark Baumer is walking across the United States barefoot, but this isn’t his first rodeo. He’s already walked the length of the country once before—though that time, he wore shoes. This time, he’s walking to “save the earth,” and to raise money for the environmentalist group FANG Collective, which resists the natural gas industry in Rhode Island and contributes to other causes like the protestors at Standing Rock…
Baumer does not step aside for cars. He will, however, move over for trucks. (“They’ll really mess you up.”)
When asked why in the world he’s doing this, Baumer answered:
“Every time another news report comes out about the dangers of climate change, I feel like I need to do something, I need to act. I always hear that this is the most important crisis of our time—but you look around, and people aren’t freaking out. If this was a war, people would be rationing. Look at World War II: People were mobilized almost immediately.”
When most people come to this realization, they say something along these lines: “I’ll believe it’s a crisis when the people who tell me it’s a crisis act like it’s a crisis.” Clearly, Mark Bauman is not most people.
It can’t be that this is a mass delusion, Mark. It’s not that you’re being conned by people with a political and financial interest in manipulating your emotions. This really is the most important crisis of our time. It really is just like World War II. And you’re proving them right by walking across the country. Barefoot. It all makes sense.
As for how this American hero is financing his months-long journey, he says he “won a poetry fellowship for the state of Rhode Island.” So this story is pretty much perfect.
Say what you want about Mr. Baumer’s sanity, but you can’t question his sincerity. If Leo DiCaprio did this, instead of traveling around by limo and yacht and private jet to scold the rest of us for killing the planet, maybe I’d listen to him. And he wouldn’t need a personal trainer.