Dear God, "Why?" thoughts on Climate Change

That’s the thing about climate change. There is no clear enemy; there is no clear, simple, or easy solution. WE are the enemy; the very fabric of our society is the enemy. We can petition our government to create policies, laws and regulations that protect the environment, we can publicly demand that the US at least attend things like the Kyoto accord, not to abandon the Paris agreement—yes, of course. We are not powerless to act, to demand change, to hold our leaders accountable. I am not saying that those are not important, meaningful or a waste of time. I am saying that first of all to lobby for those things is a complex multifaceted endeavor and the problem feels so vast, so overwhelming and all encompassing, that I think we can all feel extremely powerless, despairing and hopeless.

          We can visualize a government that allocates resources for green energy and technology investment, strictly regulates energy and pollution, and STILL have a completely an out-of-control irreversible climate change problem, because there are OTHER countries polluting, etc., even IF the US wasn’t, and it IS. Our whole society, our psychology, our culture, our economic system, our way of life IS harmful to the ecology of the planet. AND HOW DO YOU FIX THAT? HOW DO YOU CHANGE THAT? 

           Ever hear of the tipping point in relation to arctic sea ice? Do you know what that is? IT’S CALLED IRREVERSIBLE, and we’ve already PASSED IT. The sea ice has not recovered since 2007, and the changes may well be “locked in,” IRREVERSIBLE (Pearce, 2012).

 Don’t get me started on species extinction, deforestation, the Trans-Amazononian highway, soil degradation, ocean acidification, the coral reefs dying, or “The Great Pacific Garbage Patch,” “a mass of floating plastic debris that scientists estimate is at least twice the size of the state of Texas” (Doucette, 2009).

Faced with all the dire news, and our current US government administration, it is hard not to DESPAIR, and aren’t we all distracted with the minutia of our day-to-day lives? How can we not be consumed by such minutia? We work long, stressful hours (ok some of us do), we have families to raise, lawns to mow, dishes to be washed, youtube, facebook, novels, a spiritual practice, friends to see, school work to complete, dances to learn, constantly feeling hunger and the need to eat, and A THOUSAND OTHER DISTRACTIONS. Even if we somehow spend time in activism, there are so many things to protest! The racism in the US alone is enough to fill a lifetime of marches!

And the final conclusion to which I am so familiar and accustomed to feeling every single time the grief of climate change and its dire implications descends on me is sheer, unadulterated APATHY. The pernicious thought slides in to soothe such fiery passion, to mollify the outrage of witnessing destruction of paradise, “…well, you know, who really cares if the earth dies, anyway?” “I mean, you know, if the entire human population were to vanish in this instant, so what?”  On a spiritual level, does it matter if the earth exists? Not really, right? We are all each faced with our own mortality, the inevitability of our own death, and until we can make true and utter peace with that, who are we to feel responsibility for all of humanity? How conceited and egocentric!?  

[And on and on entertaining discursive thought goes, benefiting nothing but egocentricity.]

But what if I were to reproduce? Can I look my child in the eye, knowing I am sending them into a burning building, and tell them I felt not a shred of responsibility for doing that to them? Even though reproduction would contribute to the overpopulation that stresses the land, the air and the water—maybe it would force me to confront, or perhaps to CURE this most pernicious apathy? Sounds like a long shot.

So I ask you, oh great people of the internet, what can we do about this?
Please, tell me.

References

Doucette, K. (2009). AN OCEAN OF PLASTIC. Rolling Stone, (1090),
          54-57.

Pearce, F. (2012). 15 MORE YEARS TO SAVE THE CLIMATE... but
          Arctic sea ice may already have passed a tipping point. New
           Scientist, 213(2858), 10-11.