Stacy, in answer to your question at the end of the post: Yes, our species is exhibiting all the marks of a lack of foresight. Yes, we seem to be playing politics, waiting for the world to collapse around us. Rather than casting blame in any one direction (which is all too easy to do, given the human predilection towards self-absorption and myopia), I'm moved to consider the processes that have pushed us to the brink of extinction. And to wonder what may lie on the other side.
Thank you for your comment, I feel some reassurance that I am on the right track with this essay because if I use Ghosh and Oil Sands it is politics, a power struggle that will pen neighbor against neighbor.
I am a believer that Mother Nature will win. There will no need for a single survivor to share the meaning of our species, and I get the crassness of that consideration. But until that fateful day, how hard it is to not give up, to find a reason each day to do something a bit different, to move towards and expect a different outcome. I am no different from anyone else, sometimes I just need to be reminded, reassured that our words do matter and our actions and efforts are worthy of difference.
I oscillate on this issue in all sorts of head-spinning ways. I agree with U Thant. But over so many years and so much data, I've become matter or fact on the issue (not nihilistic). We (humans) decided this is the path. There are consequences, either way.
Are there not more immediate, more tangible problems we can tackle first? Economic inequality, for instance. If we addressed that issue, would climate concerns be remedied as a consequence?
Jesse, so appreciate your comment and your truthful insightfulness. This is head-spinning and I look forward to sharing the rest of the essay to read your thoughts. Thank you for the gentle push-back - that is what makes good, ongoing conversation. We all have ideas, and I think there is good in people, those who seek a balance.
One of Ghosh's arguments is that economic inequality is intentional and real as a form of power. In fact, he says, we delayed our current predicament by a few decades by accident (essentially) by keeping power to fewer countries. Fossil fuels is power. Power is in countries, corporations. Long term implications have no consideration when it comes to the wealth for a few even with the knowledge of what the outcome will be. I believe that begs a different question - do the wealthiest people and countries believe they are going to escape the catastrophe?
But, to your point, we should tackle the tangible problems and somehow, we must maintain the strength and fortitude the make a difference. History shows that power is short-term, but the cycle does repeat. How, how do we shift the balance?
Escaping the catastrophe is probably achievable for some time. I often hear people say things like, “well, there’s always been power dynamics” (or whatever challenge is being discussed) and use that to justify the current state of affairs. Those sentiments hold…until they don’t. Structural change does occur…policy/cultural change that forces behavioral change. I believe that will happen, but I don’t know when or how. Perhaps that’s a naive opinion.
I appreciate this optimism, its value and importance. It is most difficult to maintain the hopeful belief. I was in a book club gathering months ago and the leader told me I was being naive - I bristled. Possibility comes from the not giving up, in believing there exists something other than the status quo. That is not naive, it is purpose.
As to your "teetering on the edge of an environmental emotional tumble", may I join you on that precipice by sharing my attempt to capture that emotion? I used the word DREAD in the essay below that you might (or might not!) want to read. I can only read and think (and maybe write) about this self-created apocalypse for brief periods before it's just all too much.
"I do not like this word choice" (you referring to "derangement").
As a proud member of the language police, I had the same reaction Stacy, since the common sense of the word is insanity. The author is technically correct in their word choice (see first 2 definitions below), but why not pick a title word that resonates better with a wide audience?
.
1. To disturb the order, arrangement, or functioning of: an asteroid impact large enough to derange the climate.
2. To upset (normal condition or functioning, as of a bodily organ).
3. To cause to be psychotic or otherwise severely mentally unsound.
Yes, Baird. There is something unsavory about the term that lingers in my mouth. Have you read this book? In the larger theme the word works but it is somewhat disparaging. Maybe a different choice might have been idiocy ... 😖.
As a by-the-by, this morning I was writing out the words I had to look up from this book reading: pellucid, subsiding, logocentrism, zeitgeist, panpsychism, dithyrambic, and inveighing. Might be time for another month of new words!
This feels a bit disjointed. It wasn't until yesterday afternoon that I realized the length and how much more I wanted to say. My shoulders are heavy with the weight - I need to connect these dots as a good service.
Loved this book. Will return with more coherent thoughts soon. Thanks for featuring it. I also need to read the others you mentioned at the top. So many books . . . Meanwhile, Joanna Macy has an answer to the perpetual question of whether anything we do makes a difference. Yes.
Yes, it is supposed to matter, make a difference but damn. I'm going to tie this in with a long piece I read from an individual I subscribe to - it is painful.
I think it is hard to feel part of the "they" in this quote. I know we are teetering, in the midst of a binge, but after dedicating my career to saving the ocean and now my second hopeful writing career on writing about it, I don't take well to hearing how I, me personally, need to *do more* than I am doing. I have no idea but me individually doing all I can is ✔️ and I am going to continue and that (me doing things) is *not going to be how the world wakes up and saves itself. It is never far from my mind, so I don't relate to the lalala oblivious crowd being described, though I suppose I am a part of it since I drive a 15 year old Prius and still fill my gas tank... to get to the job where I try to save oceans. I guess this type of "is anyone even paying attention while the world collapses" exhortation so often feels unproductive to me. The choir already feels this conviction and are washing out their ziplocks.
From a co ziplock washer, I understand and respect. At what point do the efforts we make as individuals no longer feel useful or productive? If so few are interested or connecting with the idea of a shifting climate, do the things we do to educate, the actions we make to leave a lesser mark continue for us as individuals and if so, why? Is it guilt or obligation or do-gooder, A personality, better-than-though or simply being better educated about the current status of our warming planet and its implications?
One of my struggles is that I too often feel like I am speaking into the void or the who's listening are the same people who already know. One example I have used is that environmental readers are going to continue to read each new environmental book but how do writers/publishers/presses gain a "new" environmental reader? What call-to-action incites changed behavior for more?
Even more frightening to me is that when it collapses, are we few watching it happen with a cup of tea in hand and feeling okay about the outcome while others are running and bawling like they never know catastrophe was possible?
Yes to all of this. As for why I continue to do my thing (work for the ocean, wash out ziplocks) is not as much guilt/usefulness or the other options you listed, in my mind at least, I think it is just that it is the right thing to do and I have my integrity if I do the right thing even if nobody knows and it doesn't get results. I do not know how to reach nonbelievers. But I have my doubts it is calls to action that get through. I'm not sure how one joins the choir; I don't even know how/when I joined it? My farm upbringing was to see ourselves as land stewards, but not necessarily environmentalists. But I joined the choir for darn sure. Was it Captain Planet cartoons? Marine biology classes? I can't say for sure. I'm amazed how much catastrophe is going on in front of us while being met with flat-out denial.
I too often feel overwhelmed with all of this and how to write about it and share how deeply disconnected we are from the earth and our part in its symbiotic processes. We just take and take and refuse to see the consequences of our actions as being of our own making. But, what I won’t do is elevate my speech to a point of sounding like a pretentious ass while trying to connect with people with in an effort to make change. Because that will never work. Period. So, I think given list of words here in the comments alone, that I won’t bother trying to read this book. Better to read someone who is in touch with people and can reach them without wasting time trying to elevate themselves.
Amanda, it is overwhelming, and I think that is often the point to why I try to tread lightly, offer small doses but this book swallows me and is timed with another read that might have thrown me up. I cannot find it within myself to be mad anymore, I don't have the space for that, but I do get tired and frustrated not knowing how or what to do differently and I regularly struggle with the why. Having these conversations, collaborations of openness of views and opinions is very valuable.
I'm sorry that you are discouraged from reading The Great Derangement. There is always a thin line of word choices which begs a question if the query about a shifting climate is just an educated/elite conversation? Which it might be simply because there exists a girth of inequality. Would word choices be a pandering to the population who better understands words and their definitions? Is it a way to keep the conversation at a different level? Is it in consideration that fewer people are reading, our education system is adding to inequity or that those with less education will be the first to find hardship? Ghosh makes an argument that those with less will actually thrive more than those who have insulated and do not know hardship.
Is A River Alive, Robert Macfarlane - I looked up twice as many words.
I’m not discouraged from reading it by you. More like you showed me that I would immediately be turned off by the pretension of the author feeling the need to throw around fifty cent words like they are going out of style. I have my masters so I navigated all that pretension for years and I seriously dislike it because it’s just another thing that serves to create barriers of class between us. And if we are to heal this earth we need less barriers not more. We are all suffering from her destruction, and class has nothing to do with it. So best to be more approachable to all people when talking about the things that affect us all. iMhO
Yes, I appreciate the thought of language as barriers. The statistics are frightening - fewer and fewer people are reading. What they are reading is not long form but snippets of 2-5 minutes, hardly long enough to delve into a topic. When fewer are reading, the knowledge level decreases.
Yes this I am so disheartened by. I cannot fathom not wanting to read and I want all the long form stories fiction and none. I like whole series of books. The more to read the better. I can’t imagine only wanting to read short form though I enjoy that as well.
Stacy, in answer to your question at the end of the post: Yes, our species is exhibiting all the marks of a lack of foresight. Yes, we seem to be playing politics, waiting for the world to collapse around us. Rather than casting blame in any one direction (which is all too easy to do, given the human predilection towards self-absorption and myopia), I'm moved to consider the processes that have pushed us to the brink of extinction. And to wonder what may lie on the other side.
Thank you for your comment, I feel some reassurance that I am on the right track with this essay because if I use Ghosh and Oil Sands it is politics, a power struggle that will pen neighbor against neighbor.
I am a believer that Mother Nature will win. There will no need for a single survivor to share the meaning of our species, and I get the crassness of that consideration. But until that fateful day, how hard it is to not give up, to find a reason each day to do something a bit different, to move towards and expect a different outcome. I am no different from anyone else, sometimes I just need to be reminded, reassured that our words do matter and our actions and efforts are worthy of difference.
I oscillate on this issue in all sorts of head-spinning ways. I agree with U Thant. But over so many years and so much data, I've become matter or fact on the issue (not nihilistic). We (humans) decided this is the path. There are consequences, either way.
Are there not more immediate, more tangible problems we can tackle first? Economic inequality, for instance. If we addressed that issue, would climate concerns be remedied as a consequence?
Jesse, so appreciate your comment and your truthful insightfulness. This is head-spinning and I look forward to sharing the rest of the essay to read your thoughts. Thank you for the gentle push-back - that is what makes good, ongoing conversation. We all have ideas, and I think there is good in people, those who seek a balance.
One of Ghosh's arguments is that economic inequality is intentional and real as a form of power. In fact, he says, we delayed our current predicament by a few decades by accident (essentially) by keeping power to fewer countries. Fossil fuels is power. Power is in countries, corporations. Long term implications have no consideration when it comes to the wealth for a few even with the knowledge of what the outcome will be. I believe that begs a different question - do the wealthiest people and countries believe they are going to escape the catastrophe?
But, to your point, we should tackle the tangible problems and somehow, we must maintain the strength and fortitude the make a difference. History shows that power is short-term, but the cycle does repeat. How, how do we shift the balance?
Escaping the catastrophe is probably achievable for some time. I often hear people say things like, “well, there’s always been power dynamics” (or whatever challenge is being discussed) and use that to justify the current state of affairs. Those sentiments hold…until they don’t. Structural change does occur…policy/cultural change that forces behavioral change. I believe that will happen, but I don’t know when or how. Perhaps that’s a naive opinion.
I appreciate this optimism, its value and importance. It is most difficult to maintain the hopeful belief. I was in a book club gathering months ago and the leader told me I was being naive - I bristled. Possibility comes from the not giving up, in believing there exists something other than the status quo. That is not naive, it is purpose.
As to your "teetering on the edge of an environmental emotional tumble", may I join you on that precipice by sharing my attempt to capture that emotion? I used the word DREAD in the essay below that you might (or might not!) want to read. I can only read and think (and maybe write) about this self-created apocalypse for brief periods before it's just all too much.
https://open.substack.com/pub/bairdbrightman/p/you-are-cordially-invited-to-the?utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web
That was/is a good essay - it feels more tangible as a truth. Something a general reader can pause with and understand.
"I do not like this word choice" (you referring to "derangement").
As a proud member of the language police, I had the same reaction Stacy, since the common sense of the word is insanity. The author is technically correct in their word choice (see first 2 definitions below), but why not pick a title word that resonates better with a wide audience?
.
1. To disturb the order, arrangement, or functioning of: an asteroid impact large enough to derange the climate.
2. To upset (normal condition or functioning, as of a bodily organ).
3. To cause to be psychotic or otherwise severely mentally unsound.
Yes, Baird. There is something unsavory about the term that lingers in my mouth. Have you read this book? In the larger theme the word works but it is somewhat disparaging. Maybe a different choice might have been idiocy ... 😖.
As a by-the-by, this morning I was writing out the words I had to look up from this book reading: pellucid, subsiding, logocentrism, zeitgeist, panpsychism, dithyrambic, and inveighing. Might be time for another month of new words!
You got me at dithyrambic! I do question why a writer would use such a word except to show how darn literate they are.
That gives me a bit of smuggy satisfaction that you get to learn a new word today.
I love that “smug” (good old word) feeling, even though “they” say it’s a bad feeling to have (sin’o’pride and all that Puritanical stuff).
Sometimes the smallest adda-boy we can offer ourselves is a moment of smugness.
I will be back soon as I’m able with thoughts, but just wanted to say great piece - thank you.
“Very often, I read with pen in hand because it requires me to slow down and focus, process what I am learning.” Yes to this, I do it, too.
This feels a bit disjointed. It wasn't until yesterday afternoon that I realized the length and how much more I wanted to say. My shoulders are heavy with the weight - I need to connect these dots as a good service.
Loved this book. Will return with more coherent thoughts soon. Thanks for featuring it. I also need to read the others you mentioned at the top. So many books . . . Meanwhile, Joanna Macy has an answer to the perpetual question of whether anything we do makes a difference. Yes.
Yes, it is supposed to matter, make a difference but damn. I'm going to tie this in with a long piece I read from an individual I subscribe to - it is painful.
For sure, being open and awake is tender and painful.
It is necessary.
I think it is hard to feel part of the "they" in this quote. I know we are teetering, in the midst of a binge, but after dedicating my career to saving the ocean and now my second hopeful writing career on writing about it, I don't take well to hearing how I, me personally, need to *do more* than I am doing. I have no idea but me individually doing all I can is ✔️ and I am going to continue and that (me doing things) is *not going to be how the world wakes up and saves itself. It is never far from my mind, so I don't relate to the lalala oblivious crowd being described, though I suppose I am a part of it since I drive a 15 year old Prius and still fill my gas tank... to get to the job where I try to save oceans. I guess this type of "is anyone even paying attention while the world collapses" exhortation so often feels unproductive to me. The choir already feels this conviction and are washing out their ziplocks.
From a co ziplock washer, I understand and respect. At what point do the efforts we make as individuals no longer feel useful or productive? If so few are interested or connecting with the idea of a shifting climate, do the things we do to educate, the actions we make to leave a lesser mark continue for us as individuals and if so, why? Is it guilt or obligation or do-gooder, A personality, better-than-though or simply being better educated about the current status of our warming planet and its implications?
One of my struggles is that I too often feel like I am speaking into the void or the who's listening are the same people who already know. One example I have used is that environmental readers are going to continue to read each new environmental book but how do writers/publishers/presses gain a "new" environmental reader? What call-to-action incites changed behavior for more?
Even more frightening to me is that when it collapses, are we few watching it happen with a cup of tea in hand and feeling okay about the outcome while others are running and bawling like they never know catastrophe was possible?
Yes to all of this. As for why I continue to do my thing (work for the ocean, wash out ziplocks) is not as much guilt/usefulness or the other options you listed, in my mind at least, I think it is just that it is the right thing to do and I have my integrity if I do the right thing even if nobody knows and it doesn't get results. I do not know how to reach nonbelievers. But I have my doubts it is calls to action that get through. I'm not sure how one joins the choir; I don't even know how/when I joined it? My farm upbringing was to see ourselves as land stewards, but not necessarily environmentalists. But I joined the choir for darn sure. Was it Captain Planet cartoons? Marine biology classes? I can't say for sure. I'm amazed how much catastrophe is going on in front of us while being met with flat-out denial.
I too often feel overwhelmed with all of this and how to write about it and share how deeply disconnected we are from the earth and our part in its symbiotic processes. We just take and take and refuse to see the consequences of our actions as being of our own making. But, what I won’t do is elevate my speech to a point of sounding like a pretentious ass while trying to connect with people with in an effort to make change. Because that will never work. Period. So, I think given list of words here in the comments alone, that I won’t bother trying to read this book. Better to read someone who is in touch with people and can reach them without wasting time trying to elevate themselves.
Amanda, it is overwhelming, and I think that is often the point to why I try to tread lightly, offer small doses but this book swallows me and is timed with another read that might have thrown me up. I cannot find it within myself to be mad anymore, I don't have the space for that, but I do get tired and frustrated not knowing how or what to do differently and I regularly struggle with the why. Having these conversations, collaborations of openness of views and opinions is very valuable.
I'm sorry that you are discouraged from reading The Great Derangement. There is always a thin line of word choices which begs a question if the query about a shifting climate is just an educated/elite conversation? Which it might be simply because there exists a girth of inequality. Would word choices be a pandering to the population who better understands words and their definitions? Is it a way to keep the conversation at a different level? Is it in consideration that fewer people are reading, our education system is adding to inequity or that those with less education will be the first to find hardship? Ghosh makes an argument that those with less will actually thrive more than those who have insulated and do not know hardship.
Is A River Alive, Robert Macfarlane - I looked up twice as many words.
I’m not discouraged from reading it by you. More like you showed me that I would immediately be turned off by the pretension of the author feeling the need to throw around fifty cent words like they are going out of style. I have my masters so I navigated all that pretension for years and I seriously dislike it because it’s just another thing that serves to create barriers of class between us. And if we are to heal this earth we need less barriers not more. We are all suffering from her destruction, and class has nothing to do with it. So best to be more approachable to all people when talking about the things that affect us all. iMhO
Yes, I appreciate the thought of language as barriers. The statistics are frightening - fewer and fewer people are reading. What they are reading is not long form but snippets of 2-5 minutes, hardly long enough to delve into a topic. When fewer are reading, the knowledge level decreases.
Yes this I am so disheartened by. I cannot fathom not wanting to read and I want all the long form stories fiction and none. I like whole series of books. The more to read the better. I can’t imagine only wanting to read short form though I enjoy that as well.