Monday, February 15, 2016

The World Talks Climate Change: An existential conversation

The conversation about Climate Change is existential.

Decisions that are made right now will determine whether human life will continue on the planet. The best argument for human beings to start getting along with one another on this planet is taking place as we speak. We are one. We'd better "get"that, and soon. We're already past a benchmark set by the scientific community to continue life as we know it. Climate change is already underway under your feet.

The glaciers are melting, the ocean is rising, the weather is changing... and humans are engaging in activities that may lead to the extinction of the species. Whether or not humans will  extinguish themselves depends on what we do immediately.

We can't afford to take time to invent a strategy. There is no time. We've talked it to death; we have to stop talking and start doing. The first thing we need to do is a mental adjustment: awaken to the idea that we're all in this together. We are an interconnected and intimate shimmering web of life; the times demand that we stop thinking "I" and start thinking "we." We need an adjustment that opens the heart as wide as the arms and lets everybody in. If we continue this path of "them" and "us" and xenophobia or separation, we will be drafting our own death warrant.

When I talk with people about what they are feeling about the Earth, the environment and planetary stewardship, they all speak to a feeling of sadness, sometimes crushing sadness, sometimes melancholy that is similar to a low grade fever, sometimes a deep grief that lodges as an ache in the region of the chest or rib cage.

I think we all feel it. Whether we are conscious of it or not, we feel a thick sadness. One can freeze in that grief which prevents any movement. What is underneath that bone-aching sadness is love. The love for Earth and all of sentient life is immense. We are, after all, mammals. We feel the connection and we feel the hurt. People will try to avoid the deep heartache that wants to take up residence in the body with distraction, denial, distancing, bravado, avoidance, overwhelm, paralysis, grave sadness, a cavalier indifference, avoiding the subject, becoming and staying angry, disgust, minimizing... Those are all the ways we humans are "whistling past the graveyard" which means creating an illusion of safety so as to deny the danger. Danger motivates. Let it. Love motivates better. Let it.

If we freeze in an emotion and flail around in a frenzy, nothing changes. Nothing gets done. Rathr than lock up that energy, find a way to redeploy in fixing the problem. The most healthy way to come to terms with the crisis is to allow the feelings in, witness them, allow them to chip away at your protective armoring and mold you into a steward.

Keep in mind, the reason you feel the way you do is because you have a limitless capacity to love. Sometimes love and compassion is fierce. Let it be fierce in you.

Read my article about Climate Change here:

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