Thousands of people gathered on the beach to watch fireworks on July 4, 2020. Fire danger, pollution and trauma are some of the main themes in an effort to ban private fireworks in the county.

You know that weird week between Christmas and New Year’s when no one is really sure what day it is, all those tasks you’ve put off “until the new year” are looming, and it feels like you’ve had way too much sugar?

My family uses that week to watch “The Lord of the Rings.”

It’s an important week in our family calendar. We make healthy snacks, hang out together, argue about books vs. movies, and often, the conversation shifts onto the themes of the story.

After the Pacific County Board of Commissioners workshop last Wednesday, my daughter Faith and I spoke about her frustration with the commission’s reluctance to act, even in the face of overwhelming environmental destruction and loss of life.

Apologies to those unfamiliar with the story, but we decided that fighting for environmental justice is a lot like being Merry or Pippin in “The Lord of the Rings.”

Most of us are not called to take the ring to Mordor. We aren’t asked to bring about justice for all free people of Middle Earth. The fight is too big and we are too small. But we can do small things that turn out to be big things. We can, like Merry, wake the trees and shine a light on corruption. Like Pippin, we can save the unimportant second son of a bureaucrat, and in doing so, save the city.

We can’t stop the petroleum companies from sacrificing the planet for profit. We can’t stop governments, on the take from corporations, allowing those same corporations to pollute the air, contaminate our water, and sell it back to us in plastic bottles.

Ending fireworks on the peninsula will not stop climate change. But it can slow the slaughter here, and that might turn out to be a big thing. It might change history.

What I love most about Merry and Pippin is their unwillingness to go home and live their lives. The moment they realize there’s justice to be done, they’re all in. They value what’s right more than what is easy, and more than a lack of conflict.

May we all be so courageous.

STACIE GORDON

Ocean Park