Even as climate scientists deliver ever shorter windows of time within which, they predict, we must act to stop runaway and catastrophic climate change, a widespread public sense of urgency in the United States is largely absent.
If most of the country disregards - or even never thinks about - climate change at all - why do some of us spend most of our waking lives endeavoring to halt the seemingly inevitable climatic downslide that could render much of our planet uninhabitable?
Shouldn't we hang up our environmentalist hats in despair and retreat to more pleasurable activities?
In a March 17 column, the British journalist and author, George Monbiot, declared that even if it is too late to mitigate climate change,
"we cannot behave as if it is, for in doing so we make the prediction come true. Tough as this fight may be, improbable as success might seem, we cannot afford to surrender".
Lately, I have come to feel a certain level of despair about human beings. We are the worst kind of top predator, one that not only controls other animals and their environments completely, heedlessly and greedily, but who destroys and pollutes their habitats with complete disregard for the living organism - Earth - that they ultimately comprise.
Added to that, we are a warlike species, not only destroying other species but ourselves with a stubborn blindness that prevents us from seeing that the genocides we inflict on each other are ultimately also our own.
In our daily lives we are more consumed by consumerism than conscience, more intrigued by a sex scandal than the collapse of yet another Antarctic ice shelf.
And when it comes to climate change we have maintained a largely myopic stance of denial, preferring the instant gratification of energy excess to intelligent recognition of the destructive path we are on and the imperative expeditiously to change course. These views have been influenced, of course, by the incredible power of corporations which have paid governments and media to tell us that all is well. And to make the wrong choices.
Yet there remain those not so easily deceived and misled, individuals willing to do the right thing by the planet: to prevent wars; to take the drastic steps needed to avert the worst effects of climate change even if it is clearly too late to retain Earth as it was and is meant to be.
Some of these individuals may even believe, as Monbiot urges us not to,(and I think I might) that it is already over, not now but soon, within the lifetimes possibly of our grandchildren. Yet they - we - continue to dedicate our waking hours to advocate for the change that just might end this downward spiral toward global calamity. Why? It is a question I ask myself almost every morning.
There are many theories. The strongest is that this willingness to fight for a seemingly lost cause is rooted in the instinctive urge to survive. But if this is so, why doesn’t everyone recognize the urgency of the climate crisis and act accordingly?
An answer that is closer to home, more personal, suggests that not acting is a betrayal of our own progeny and theirs; that we are not willing to face our children and grandchildren and admit our failures.
Yet, the sad reality is that most human beings are doing absolutely nothing about climate change. Worse still, many never think about it at all. This impending global catastrophe does not even rank among the top five most important issues of our time among Americans. This kind of delinquency is perhaps pardonable among populations who are simply struggling to feed themselves and their families and stave off disease, famine, dislocation and war. But in the peaceful regions of the developed world it is unforgivable.
The temptation to get off the sinking boat can become insurmountable. If one believes, as I do, that this passage on Earth is our only appearance, then why spend it confronting the self-inflicted horrors of humanity instead of listening to opera or spending more time with our children? And does a time come when it is permitted to retreat from this daily servitude to just causes?
In my father’s case – a scientist and educator – there was a moment when it was alright to say, "I’ve done enough; I can stop now." But this day arrived for him only after a lifetime dedicated to averting the worst of global disasters – first nuclear war, then the calamity of climate change.
He died in 1995, having many years earlier recognized – and written about – the urgency of the need to act to prevent climate collapse but still believing success was possible. "It’s all hopeless so why bother?" was an untenable position at his dinner table. Today, the emergency is far greater, the luxury of deciding that one has done one’s part, far more elusive.
Consequently, if we are in the fray to begin with, we cannot afford to retire from it prematurely. The temptation to retreat permanently to the real pleasures of life must be resisted. Those occasions must remain pleasurable but fleeting.
This April, the pacifist poet, W. S. Merwin, won the Pulitzer Prize for poetry for the second time. His poem, Rain Light,reminds us that the simplest response may be the most practical one. In describing flowers in the dawn rain he ends the poem thus:
"see how they wake without a question
even though the whole world is burning"
Perhaps the answer to the question then, is simply not to ask it.
