The Risk of Environmentalism: Murdered Journalists and Activists

The story of Nigerian environmental activist Ken Saro-Wiwa, and the many hundreds who have been martyred for their work fighting environmental harm.

Welcome! I’m Jessica, and this newsletter is about faith and climate action. You can subscribe by clicking here:

Want to support my work but not ready or able to subscribe yet? You can buy me a coffee! Click here:

Good morning, friends. What a tumultuous time in the world right now. May we pray, individually and collectively, for peace; for the negative peace that is the absence of open conflict, and the positive peace that is the true freedom from violence and fear, the flourishing of the entire Earth community, human and more-than-human.

I have been working on this essay for a few weeks now, but illness through my family and me (colds, Covid, and pneumonia) has delayed my posting it. It is an essay that invites more prayer, as well as learning, witnessing and testifying. Prayer, learning, witness, and testimony: These are all part of discipleship for people of faith.

---

Environmental Activism and Journalism: Risking Death

I keep a paper file folder with various ideas for my Substack. Every time I open it, the smiling face of Ken Saro-Wiwa peers up at me. Saro-Wiwa was a Nigerian journalist executed on November 10, 1995, for his environmental advocacy work. Over the past months, as I would put things in and take things out of the folder, Saro-Wiwa’s visage would smile out at me, as though he were still alive, as though this was a recent picture of a friend on my social media newsfeed. It’s an open, friendly, engaging smile. I imagine the photograph was taken shortly before or after a conversation about the ecological situation in Nigeria. Saro-Wiwa looks intelligent and hopeful.

His picture has been in the folder since January. More recently I have been hearing a haunting challenge when I look at it: “When are you going to tell my story? When are you going to talk about all of the people murdered for trying to save the planet?” I realized a little while ago that the time is now. As I witness the increasing suppression of climate activists around the world for being more forceful in their criticism and confrontation of the fossil fuel industry and big banks by governments, it is helpful to recall – for some of us, to realize for the first time – just what can be at stake as we take climate action. After all, in the words of Saro-Wiwa himself, “We all stand before history.”

Who Was Ken Saro-Wiwa?

Want to continue reading? Consider upgrading to a paid subscription. With a paid subscription you will receive insightful essays and inspiring sermons that explore the reality of the climate crisis in light of faith and the need for action. Every paid subscription makes it possible for me to fulfill my dream of building this work into a full-time ministry. Upgrade your subscription here: