At the top of things I love about having hosted this podcast for so long is the community that’s grown around it. People I meet via the podcast are invariable kind, funny and weird in all the best ways. (Yes, I know that’s a self-selected group, but it works for me!) I’ve been posting
I take climate change seriously, but like many, I surmise, I have conflicting responses to it. Often I do not think it would be bad, from a “far-sighted” point of view, for it to take its course (and to know that it MUST take its course) whatever might happen to human beings and the “natural” world as it proceeds.
I find this notion can be assuaging to a degree, generally and to my other response (more below), if I am confident that it is leading me to an acceptance, without complacency or it masking a deeper sense of defeat and resignation, of something I would control that is out of my control, an attitude I have long been encouraged to believe, by those who purport to know of such matters, is the foundation of the oldest equanimity.
This state of mind can result in outward conduct that does or does not do anything about climate change in the clinical sense, but presumably, if one is sincere in one’s spiritual submission, whether an antidote to this impending cataclysm is found becomes less important. This, methinks, might be worth striving for, not just in connection with climate change.
On the other hand, I am enraged and sad and disappointed with myself and the human species for failing to alter our conduct to solve this problem (and for creating it in the first place, though one might forgive that) owing to the usual individual and society-wide character flaws that we read about in literature and that are constantly seen in history and politics, not the least of which is vanity, ambition, and the desire for power, but also fear, inertia, habit, lack of imagination, and myopia, which can all seem overwhelming and intractable deficiencies.
I wouldn’t have this response if some part of me did not strongly believe that it is self-evidently bad to let us (and “nature”) and all of what we have achieved be subsumed by millenarian floods, droughts, heat waves, sea level rise, desertification, loss of biodiversity, the melting of Antarctica, and so on, and that standing by is not consonant with the qualitative development of the universe. I think all sentient beings in the “decent” category believe this to one degree or another, not just out of self-interest. At any rate, it motivates me to change - not anywhere near enough, I freely concede to my chagrin - to turn lights and water off in new situations when I am not using them, to reuse, to buy less, to do things myself, to cook more, to bike, to avoid plastic, etc., and to despise those with more who are in more of a position than me to do something on a larger scale but do not.
The two responses are related, of course. Generally speaking, the second is in front and leads, or can lead, to the first. The first can also arise independently, but traditionally does not in the “Can Do” culture of the United States, which has lacked all humility except what has been furnished in a minority of lucky cases by religion. The second can also lead to despair, which should be avoided regardless of whether one acts to prevent further climate change. I am not sure which response is more likely to lead to action, but ultimately I think it is impossible to avoid some psychic conflict in oneself between these two perspectives, which flow into one another. We are perforce all Hamlets in the end.
Well this is a good topic, lots of facets and numerous ways to go with this one. Some of us live in the boonies (aka Saguache County) for a reason. We build differently, we reuse as much as possible, we embrace the land and its beautiful challenges, we hunt, we garden, we save, we plant trees, we care for everything around us and we strive to live and love better. Well not all of us live that way but there’s plenty of us who try to live in better Harmony with this planet. By living in the boonies, instant gratification doesn’t exist. Amazon isn’t here the next morning and shipping anything here is an obstacle, and going to the big box stores are weekend getaways. Going to the city is a strain, traffic is chaotic and consumerism and the never ending March of progress will always be there.
I take climate change seriously, but like many, I surmise, I have conflicting responses to it. Often I do not think it would be bad, from a “far-sighted” point of view, for it to take its course (and to know that it MUST take its course) whatever might happen to human beings and the “natural” world as it proceeds.
I find this notion can be assuaging to a degree, generally and to my other response (more below), if I am confident that it is leading me to an acceptance, without complacency or it masking a deeper sense of defeat and resignation, of something I would control that is out of my control, an attitude I have long been encouraged to believe, by those who purport to know of such matters, is the foundation of the oldest equanimity.
This state of mind can result in outward conduct that does or does not do anything about climate change in the clinical sense, but presumably, if one is sincere in one’s spiritual submission, whether an antidote to this impending cataclysm is found becomes less important. This, methinks, might be worth striving for, not just in connection with climate change.
On the other hand, I am enraged and sad and disappointed with myself and the human species for failing to alter our conduct to solve this problem (and for creating it in the first place, though one might forgive that) owing to the usual individual and society-wide character flaws that we read about in literature and that are constantly seen in history and politics, not the least of which is vanity, ambition, and the desire for power, but also fear, inertia, habit, lack of imagination, and myopia, which can all seem overwhelming and intractable deficiencies.
I wouldn’t have this response if some part of me did not strongly believe that it is self-evidently bad to let us (and “nature”) and all of what we have achieved be subsumed by millenarian floods, droughts, heat waves, sea level rise, desertification, loss of biodiversity, the melting of Antarctica, and so on, and that standing by is not consonant with the qualitative development of the universe. I think all sentient beings in the “decent” category believe this to one degree or another, not just out of self-interest. At any rate, it motivates me to change - not anywhere near enough, I freely concede to my chagrin - to turn lights and water off in new situations when I am not using them, to reuse, to buy less, to do things myself, to cook more, to bike, to avoid plastic, etc., and to despise those with more who are in more of a position than me to do something on a larger scale but do not.
The two responses are related, of course. Generally speaking, the second is in front and leads, or can lead, to the first. The first can also arise independently, but traditionally does not in the “Can Do” culture of the United States, which has lacked all humility except what has been furnished in a minority of lucky cases by religion. The second can also lead to despair, which should be avoided regardless of whether one acts to prevent further climate change. I am not sure which response is more likely to lead to action, but ultimately I think it is impossible to avoid some psychic conflict in oneself between these two perspectives, which flow into one another. We are perforce all Hamlets in the end.
Well this is a good topic, lots of facets and numerous ways to go with this one. Some of us live in the boonies (aka Saguache County) for a reason. We build differently, we reuse as much as possible, we embrace the land and its beautiful challenges, we hunt, we garden, we save, we plant trees, we care for everything around us and we strive to live and love better. Well not all of us live that way but there’s plenty of us who try to live in better Harmony with this planet. By living in the boonies, instant gratification doesn’t exist. Amazon isn’t here the next morning and shipping anything here is an obstacle, and going to the big box stores are weekend getaways. Going to the city is a strain, traffic is chaotic and consumerism and the never ending March of progress will always be there.