Climate Change is… Overwhelming

For sure the very first and strongest feeling I get from most people who are concerned about Climate Change is overwhelm.

Let’s look at overwhelm.

I think for those of us who get it, inextricably tangled up with the idea of Climate Change are other aspects of what we can call the Story of Now, the issues that are at the cutting edge of what we need to fix in our modern world. Ideas and issues about the rich and the poor. The haves and the have nots. Consumption and commercialism. Our “way of life.” The non-functionality of our democracy. The two Americas, politically. Corporate greed. Money in politics. Reliable vs. mis- information. Science education. Economic development. This Story of Now is about where we see we are now, and where we have been mired, indefinitely. If this is “the cutting edge” of where we are at, our blade seems hopelessly dull.

What about where we are going? Storms and/or rising sea levels literally washing away what one has. Food security, economic security. Increasing global conflict. Increasing desperation, and likely increasing extremist views that come along with struggles to survive. Flood, famine, drought, desertification, deforestation, loss of biodiversity, loss of whole ecosystems, extinction, widespread extinction. Ecological collapse. Political collapse. Collapse of civilization…

We could go on and on. How about things as vague as our attitudes toward nature? Toward the past and the future? Science and technology? Tradition? Striving forward vs. pulling back? Our attitudes toward “others.”

Anyways, that’s, like, a lot of stuff. Again, I am actually not concerned about our changing climate per se. Climate Change is simply the most sinister symptom of, and exacerbating factor now contributing to, these other problems; our non-functional ways of being, and the disasters that are going to unfold as a result. There are a lot of things to be afraid of, and a lot of big issues to fix. Including issues we’ve been working on for a long time and seem no closer to solving. The crazy thing is , all these issues are tangled up with Climate Change in very real ways, and all of these fears are well justified. I don’t even know if it is fair to call them “fears.” If these things are actually just the world we are driving headlong toward, can we call them “fears” as if they are just things living in our heads that we could purge? There is definitely something unclear in our minds about cause and effect, and both the contingency and the inevitability of Climate Change, and our fears that go along with it.

Anyway, it’s a big ol’ mess in our heads. That mess prevents us from focusing on any one thing, and causes us to push off the confusing thoughts so that we can just keep functioning. We can deal with the disasters when we get there, in the meantime, life is rushing past.

But I think it is precisely because of the great, multi-dimensional scope of the problem that there is some hope for solutions. First, all the disparate world problems have somehow coalesced to form one shared mother problem. Climate Change represents the destruction of everything we care about in life. The destruction of everything anyone cares about. If that doesn’t provide motivation to act, as unified as we are capable of acting, and as divided as we must nevertheless be, I don’t know what will.

Second, the answer to the question of “What can I do? What should I do?” becomes a lot less loaded. “The” solution to Climate Change doesn’t exist. Finding “the” answer, is not on our individual shoulders. Instead, moving the needle on any one of the issues tangled up directly or indirectly with Climate Change counts. The answers and solutions can be as diverse and personal an undertaking as each of us are. There are millions of entry points into this greatest challenge humanity has ever faced. Go through that nice set of intractable problems Iisted above and pick the one that tugs at your heart strings most and jump in. Do you believe education can save the world? Go out there and lobby (keep lobbying) in whatever way works for you to support the education reform you think we need. Believe that money needs to be removed from politics for our government to function? You’re right, it does. We need many someones working on all these things. Climate Change gives us the urgency to demand these changes now. Not some distant time in the future.

Overwhelm is real and understandable. Overwhelm is a thing our brains do. But it just means there are things in our heads that need to be worked through. There are blogs and books and friends and organizations to help us with that. Being overwhelmed is just a part of the process, a temporary point of standstill in our responses. It doesn’t need to be the end of it.

So let’s decide overwhelm isn’t a real thing stopping us from engaging more deeply with Climate Change. Let’s say the scope of the various problems just scatter us, but we are not going to tolerate being scattered into paralysis. Instead, we are going to focus our attention on what we can do.

What can we do?

Ah yes. Then we remember: I don’t have enough money to give to the good groups fighting the good fight. I don’t have any influence in my workplace, or town, or anyplace else for that matter, to enact the kinds of changes the world needs. I don’t even have time to take care of myself properly. I have nothing that is worth giving.

Okay, fine. I am overwhelmed again.

Let’s look at our personal sense of powerlessness next.

The scale of deforestation worldwide is staggering. Clear cutting for oil palm plantation in Indonesia. Photo by Ulet Ifansasti.