Climate scientists and activists have talked for some time about the need for a “World War II moment” – a time when humanity comes together with focused, shared purpose – in order to address the climate crisis before it’s too late. Many have despaired at the public’s preoccupation with daily life and our distraction from the bigger picture.

We have arrived at that moment of global attention. It has come in the guise of a virus, invisible to the eye and yet able to affect billions of people in no time at all. Greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide – also invisible, also deadly – have that same potential. The 2020s are the most critical decade humanity has ever faced on this blue-green planet, but it has been difficult to convey this message amidst all the noise.

Every day, the impacts of coronavirus are rising exponentially, just like the “hockey stick” graph of future global temperatures based on our fossil fuel consumption. In both crises, an ounce of prevention will be worth a ton of cure, dramatically flattening the curve and saving many lives.

Hopefully the coronavirus will teach us the value of acting before we think we need to. Climate scientists have been providing timely guidance for decades, but we have not been listening. The old saying, “never let a perfectly good crisis go to waste” has never been more apt.

Think of the climate crisis as a slowed-down version of the coronavirus crisis. It affects countries and people in different ways, depending on cultural and geographical factors, but it will eventually reach every corner of the world. Because it is global in scope but local in scale, how people treat each other, and how governments, companies, and organizations respond matter more than anything else. Now is not the time for gamesmanship or calculating advantage. Our house is on fire, and we must all be first responders.

The coronaviral worry and fear that started in a few coastal cities is now spreading across the US to towns large and small, bringing out the best and worst in each of us. The trauma triggered by this crisis is real in both practical and emotional terms, and it will last for some time as the health impacts are followed by economic impacts. Taking in all of this uncertainty is difficult, but many people survive and even thrive after traumatic experiences. We can learn important lessons now that will help us in the future.

In response to trauma, our bodies flood with hormones that trigger the immune system to send specialized cells to repair damaged tissues. The resulting inflammation and heat -- we call it a fever – is essential to healing, but it can cause side effects such as dehydration or damage to other tissues and organs. It is like this in communities too: trauma can lead to healthy responses as well as system-wide damage. Communities and individuals with stronger core systems are more likely to be resilient than compromised people and places.

My small town, which is on lockdown, seems to be quite resilient so far. I see people checking in on elderly neighbors, offering online tutorials for kids who aren’t in school, raising money for people who have already lost their jobs, passing local ordinances to prevent evictions and foreclosures, opening local assistance centers for the needy, and supporting non-profits that run on paper-thin margins.

Communities that have forged resilience factors like these are in better shape to weather the coronavirus crisis. But there is always time to cultivate more civic health and community wellness: to build both the structures and skills that will help people bounce back, which are roots of the word re-silience.

In the climate crisis, too, coming together to make ourselves and our communities more resilient is critical to weathering the major changes that are coming. As storms grow stronger, heat waves hotter, and droughts drier, we need to fortify both our inner strength and our shared reserves. Starting now, we can begin building political and social systems that will serve us well when they are needed. That need can arise in the blink of an eye, as we are all learning. And a thorough understanding of cause and effect – whether the epidemiology of a virus or the root cause of global warming -- is essential for keeping us safe in the future. With this knowledge, we must making smarter, more intentional choices with the future in mind.

Starting now, or soon, life is going to ask us to be more flexible, more at ease with uncertainty, more comfortable with discomfort. These are hard things to do at the best of times, for they require us to see the reality of life’s impermanence and to stay grounded and connected, even when we feel like running away. These are spiritual practices we must cultivate, alone and together, so that we can draw upon them in times of need.

Being willing to be changed is challenging work, but the current crisis is showing us how to do it, step by step. It is asking us to see our place as vulnerable beings within the natural world, so that we can come to a deeper understanding of the interconnected web of existence, of which we are a part. This is not an easy path, but it is worth walking. It provides a clarity that can widen our worldview, and it seems to be bringing out the best in many people around the world. Artists, politicians, teachers, health care workers, business people, and many others are reaching out rather than retrenching. I’m pleasantly surprised – astounded, really – at how the “hive mind” of the moment is working toward the benefit of the common good. My faith in humanity is stronger than it was last month.

During this “safer at home” stretch, many of us are slowing down, catching up with good friends and good books, exchanging commutes for hikes, planting seeds, making art, playing board and videogames with our kids, teaching our parents how to make FaceTime calls. Some of these “old-tyme” approaches to connecting feel like a balm against the anxiety. Also, bingeing on TV, cookie dough, and Instagram are totally legitimate ways to get through tough times; being extra kind to ourselves and others protects people’s mental health, including our own.

We must also reach out to the most vulnerable among us, ever-widening the circle of concern. Each of us has a role to play, starting where we are right now, to raise the level of awareness and conversation about health, illness, trauma, and healing in the world. We are living in fluid, sometimes troubling, times, and this is going to be the case from now on. Letting go of some of our expectations and entitlement, replacing those qualities with adapt-ability, response-ability, and flexibility, will make our lives far easier in the coming decades.

The term paradigm shift is often overused. In Thomas Kuhn’s book, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, he first defined “paradigm shift” as a that once-a-century change in awareness that moves society from understanding the world in one particular way, to seeing it anew, because new knowledge has been revealed: think Galileo, Newton, Darwin, Curie, Einstein. This process is slow at first, because it is always easier to maintain the status quo. But some people do make the leap across the chasm, and others follow, until a trickle becomes a stream becomes a flood.

In our current moment, when the fundamental connection of each to all has never been more clear, we have an opportunity to forge greater health, strength, and resilience in our world. As we do so now, we prepare ourselves well for the escalating climate challenges to come.

 

The Art of Living in the Both/And

07/19/2021

How do we live in the middle: between systems that aren't working that we nevertheless participate in, and the new societies that we are working to create?
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Fluid Times: What Coronavirus and the Climate Crisis Have in Common

03/27/2020

Think of the climate crisis as a slowed-down version of the coronavirus crisis. Both are asking us to work together as one humanity, using all our knowledge and effort to build a healthy planet. Let's get started.
READ MORE

Fluid Times: What Coronavirus and the Climate Crisis Have in Common

3/27/2020

Climate scientists and activists have talked for some time about the need for a “World War II moment” – a time when humanity comes together with focused, shared purpose – in order to address the climate crisis before it’s too late. Many have despaired at the public’s preoccupation with daily life and our distraction from the bigger picture.

We have arrived at that moment of global attention. It has come in the guise of a virus, invisible to the eye and yet able to affect billions of people in no time at all. Greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide – also invisible, also deadly – have that same potential. The 2020s are the most critical decade humanity has ever faced on this blue-green planet, but it has been difficult to convey this message amidst all the noise.

Every day, the impacts of coronavirus are rising exponentially, just like the “hockey stick” graph of future global temperatures based on our fossil fuel consumption. In both crises, an ounce of prevention will be worth a ton of cure, dramatically flattening the curve and saving many lives.

Hopefully the coronavirus will teach us the value of acting before we think we need to. Climate scientists have been providing timely guidance for decades, but we have not been listening. The old saying, “never let a perfectly good crisis go to waste” has never been more apt.

Think of the climate crisis as a slowed-down version of the coronavirus crisis. It affects countries and people in different ways, depending on cultural and geographical factors, but it will eventually reach every corner of the world. Because it is global in scope but local in scale, how people treat each other, and how governments, companies, and organizations respond matter more than anything else. Now is not the time for gamesmanship or calculating advantage. Our house is on fire, and we must all be first responders.

The coronaviral worry and fear that started in a few coastal cities is now spreading across the US to towns large and small, bringing out the best and worst in each of us. The trauma triggered by this crisis is real in both practical and emotional terms, and it will last for some time as the health impacts are followed by economic impacts. Taking in all of this uncertainty is difficult, but many people survive and even thrive after traumatic experiences. We can learn important lessons now that will help us in the future.

In response to trauma, our bodies flood with hormones that trigger the immune system to send specialized cells to repair damaged tissues. The resulting inflammation and heat -- we call it a fever – is essential to healing, but it can cause side effects such as dehydration or damage to other tissues and organs. It is like this in communities too: trauma can lead to healthy responses as well as system-wide damage. Communities and individuals with stronger core systems are more likely to be resilient than compromised people and places.

My small town, which is on lockdown, seems to be quite resilient so far. I see people checking in on elderly neighbors, offering online tutorials for kids who aren’t in school, raising money for people who have already lost their jobs, passing local ordinances to prevent evictions and foreclosures, opening local assistance centers for the needy, and supporting non-profits that run on paper-thin margins.

Communities that have forged resilience factors like these are in better shape to weather the coronavirus crisis. But there is always time to cultivate more civic health and community wellness: to build both the structures and skills that will help people bounce back, which are roots of the word re-silience.

In the climate crisis, too, coming together to make ourselves and our communities more resilient is critical to weathering the major changes that are coming. As storms grow stronger, heat waves hotter, and droughts drier, we need to fortify both our inner strength and our shared reserves. Starting now, we can begin building political and social systems that will serve us well when they are needed. That need can arise in the blink of an eye, as we are all learning. And a thorough understanding of cause and effect – whether the epidemiology of a virus or the root cause of global warming -- is essential for keeping us safe in the future. With this knowledge, we must making smarter, more intentional choices with the future in mind.

Starting now, or soon, life is going to ask us to be more flexible, more at ease with uncertainty, more comfortable with discomfort. These are hard things to do at the best of times, for they require us to see the reality of life’s impermanence and to stay grounded and connected, even when we feel like running away. These are spiritual practices we must cultivate, alone and together, so that we can draw upon them in times of need.

Being willing to be changed is challenging work, but the current crisis is showing us how to do it, step by step. It is asking us to see our place as vulnerable beings within the natural world, so that we can come to a deeper understanding of the interconnected web of existence, of which we are a part. This is not an easy path, but it is worth walking. It provides a clarity that can widen our worldview, and it seems to be bringing out the best in many people around the world. Artists, politicians, teachers, health care workers, business people, and many others are reaching out rather than retrenching. I’m pleasantly surprised – astounded, really – at how the “hive mind” of the moment is working toward the benefit of the common good. My faith in humanity is stronger than it was last month.

During this “safer at home” stretch, many of us are slowing down, catching up with good friends and good books, exchanging commutes for hikes, planting seeds, making art, playing board and videogames with our kids, teaching our parents how to make FaceTime calls. Some of these “old-tyme” approaches to connecting feel like a balm against the anxiety. Also, bingeing on TV, cookie dough, and Instagram are totally legitimate ways to get through tough times; being extra kind to ourselves and others protects people’s mental health, including our own.

We must also reach out to the most vulnerable among us, ever-widening the circle of concern. Each of us has a role to play, starting where we are right now, to raise the level of awareness and conversation about health, illness, trauma, and healing in the world. We are living in fluid, sometimes troubling, times, and this is going to be the case from now on. Letting go of some of our expectations and entitlement, replacing those qualities with adapt-ability, response-ability, and flexibility, will make our lives far easier in the coming decades.

The term paradigm shift is often overused. In Thomas Kuhn’s book, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, he first defined “paradigm shift” as a that once-a-century change in awareness that moves society from understanding the world in one particular way, to seeing it anew, because new knowledge has been revealed: think Galileo, Newton, Darwin, Curie, Einstein. This process is slow at first, because it is always easier to maintain the status quo. But some people do make the leap across the chasm, and others follow, until a trickle becomes a stream becomes a flood.

In our current moment, when the fundamental connection of each to all has never been more clear, we have an opportunity to forge greater health, strength, and resilience in our world. As we do so now, we prepare ourselves well for the escalating climate challenges to come.

 

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