I like many people my age live in a world of perpetual uncertainty and anxiety. I think about how I can afford bills, if I’m doing well at work, if I’m doing enough to make a difference. All this is paired with financial, interpersonal, and professional responsibilities that knock on the door of my active conscience. For many people the respite they seek comes in associating good emotions with past-times. Some participate or watch sports for a sense of camaraderie, some enjoy social media for connectedness with other people, and others enjoy just being alone to digest their thoughts. My ultimate respite has always been to simply go outside. A light breeze flowing through the leaves in trees always made life simple enough to take a breather and relax. A babbling brooks’ consistent trickle and pour reminds me of the consistent within the chaos. Nature was the one constant that kept my head above water, and into a place where I can function in a normal society. However over the last decade it has been a reminder of loss, and mourning.
Climate change is happening now. I don’t believe that, I know it to be true based on scientific evidence from an overwhelming majority of scientists who are experts in their field. I also viscerally feel it in my bones as it slowly makes its presence known. A warm day in February in New England means climate change figuratively is tapping on my window, a flash flood in a suburban street means a jiggling of the door knob, and a 100 year level hurricane decimating an entire city smashes the window and opens the lock. When all is said and done, I hope in my time that I have played my part well enough to change things, but in my myopic quest towards professional and personal fulfillment I have not sufficiently fought hard enough for those things that have always been there for me. In my failures I hope to mourn those things that are lost forever, those things I will miss. That is why in the age of social media, I would like to start a hashtag #whatIwillmiss.
Let me introduce you to the Eastern Cougar. As of last week this subspecies of animal has gone extinct. I find it fairly cute in an almost threatening way. It doesn’t pay my taxes, put food on my family’s table, nor does it really have an effect on my daily life, but I will miss it. I don’t value it because of some benefit it gives me or ecological importance (for which there is much). I will miss it because it was alive in my time, and I appreciate that I shared the Earth with it. It saddens me to think that if my children or grandchildren (should I be so lucky) wish to see it, I can only explain its coat, its color, its majesty in photos and video. They will only get to understand it through humanity’s poor recollection and that depresses me. The same holds true for the Caspian Tiger, the Caribbean Monk Seal, and even insects like the Rocky Mountain Locust. I appreciate that I shared space and time with marvels of evolution that through millennia carved a niche for themselves, and were wiped clean off the planet, but for no other reason than humanity’s three greatest sins; Ignorance, Hubris, and Greed.
If you are not much of a wildlife fan, let me relate a story told by one of my college professors who was from Canada and enjoyed time at the Rideau Skateway, the longest naturally occurring ice rink in the world. She regaled times of joy spent with family and friends, and how in the next 30 years will permanently melt due to increasing global temperatures. She paused in her fond recollection, and in that moment through a subtle smirk, I could see her true reverence for something she held so dear going away forever. It was there that I felt the importance of the issue, because I can sympathize in her loss. I’m sure for you the reader, there is something that you hold dear at risk as well.
That is why I think one of the ways we think of climate change should be of loss. Because it is a reminder of one of the greatest failures of the Climate Movement. We refuse to acknowledge that there is a failure option. It is very possible that we could lose this fight, and while it may not cause Armageddon, it will still cause changes that will make life difficult, and ruin what we once valued. It is possible that the things we take for granted will never come back, and when the time comes to appreciate them, they will exist as ghosts of our past. Maybe if we just take a beat to examine the true risk to each person we will find the shared humanity of our crisis, and do something about it before it's too late. I am not a pessimist or a pragmatic realist. I am an optimist who believes that we can communicate most effectively through shared values and emotions. Because once we as a species go through our grief we can get to acceptance, and finally become convicted to hold dear what remains.