Some professional writers advise beginners to write about things they know. As a beginning writer, that advice got me thinking. Here’s what I know about climate change, human nature, and my job as a senior.
Clocks Go Forward
Fact. There is no winding back the clock on climate change. That would require an impossible-to-imagine or achieve cultural restructuring. That never happens. For hundreds of years our industrial society has committed to ever-expanding unsustainable production and consumption. Every person, every politician, every corporation, every institution is linked in this effort. The best we can do now is adapt.
Chevron and other oil producers pretend to be caring and green. For corporations, it’s a public relations opportunity. Politicians left and right use climate change to goad their political bases, shouting, “ain’t it terrible” or, “it’s a socialist lie.” As an 80-year-old, I’ve been around this block a few times. I’m not reacting much anymore to the constant screams for my attention — “watch this, buy this, contribute this, help this, vote for this, be angry . . . .”
No significant players want to discuss the reality. The result is no national climate policy, not even the possibility of one. How could we ever imagine an international effort? Climate change is just the latest vehicle for political jousting, and a new investment opportunity for corporations, “The Green New Deal.”
Another Fact
The world we knew is gone. It’s time to plan together how we’ll accommodate the new reality. If we can’t plan for climate changes in our community, or at the state level, or nationally, or internationally, we can do it with our family and those we love. A good friend recently called me saying that she’d woken up at 2 AM, scared about the world we are leaving for our children. Yes, we are leaving a dramatically different world for our descendants, but rest assured, they will be just fine.
Sure, we might worry about flooding in New Orleans and the accompanying unseasonal meter of snow in Greenland, or forest fires threatening Lake Tahoe and the fire’s smoke blanketing Salt Lake City and irritating eyes in San Francisco. Yes, there will be mass migrations with billions on the move, and the warming planet will drive crops and animals (including us) towards the polls. If the Gulf Stream flips, Europe will freeze over. And yes, politicians will play to our fears, fielding authoritarian candidates. We might find this terribly disconcerting, but for our children, all this — and so much more yet to be conceived — will become boringly familiar and normal.
Denial and Reality
If you think that’s depressing, or cynical, or pessimistic, or caving in, please consider how your thoughts might be culturally biased. Denial of threats is built into our genes as part of our fight-flight response. It’s also part of what sustains the norms and beliefs that have made us such (miserably) effective climate shifters. We keep pretending, kicking the can down the road.
Our mercantile culture encourages us to (ineffectively) complain, to be stressed and anxious, to imagine the impossible, to do anything except examine the system we are in that is producing the situation we feel is untenable. These contradictions, dilemmas, and anxieties are in our species and in our culture. Yet, though we are necessarily captives of our genes and culture, we can also grasp the truth.
There’s nothing wrong with facing and accepting the nature of Homo Sapiens and our culture. We are what we are. Let’s not deny reality, put our heads in the sand, pretend, and magically hope for the return of things long gone. You are fine. We will be fine. We will adapt — as we have done for a million years.
Offer A Helping Hand
My role as a senior seems clear. Show the next generations that we can be calm, not frightened or panicked. Help the next generations understand the system we are in, how people will be people, that corporations will be corporations, that evolution is constant and normal, that this large-scale man-made change can be accommodated to and built on constructively. We have done this before and will continue doing it — until our species passes on.
As an elder and grandpa, I offer a reassuring hand, an island of sanity in the political and economic madhouse. I can “think globally and act locally.” When leaders won’t lead, I can help those I love and care for, see that while these dramatic climate events look like something new, they are rehashing an old familiar story. Running around like Henny Penny squawking, “The sky is falling! The sky is falling!” is infantile and contagious. Call time-out to this culturally induced panicking. Be the calm truth-teller.
The sky is not falling. We will be okay. We will calmly confront the changes. We will keep making the most of our lives today and tomorrow. And I love you very much.
Please send me your thoughts or suggestions. I’m always keen to hear from you.
Thank you,
Barry
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